As
the night drew in and the moon’s light began to take over the sky, everyone
gathered around the fire in the center of the village enclosure. This was a very special night, as Rama would tell
his stories of hunting Rakshasas along with his brother, Lakshmana, alongside the mighty Parasharama fourteen
years ago, deep in the jungle outside of Ayodhya.
So, you want to know more about back when I was a Rakshasa
Buster then, huh?
Alright, well, it all started many years ago, around the time
I was banished from the city because of the boons requested by Kaikeyi. About the time Sita, Lakshmana, and I crossed
over the river on our way out of town, we could tell things were going to start
getting interesting out there in the jungle.
We knew this jungle was going to be a dangerous place, no doubt about that. Those unlucky enough to
cross paths with a wandering Rakshasa would be killed and eaten on the spot. That made Sita pretty nervous, as you might
imagine.
I decided that first morning after waking up near the river’s
edge that if us three were going to have to live out in that jungle for
fourteen years in exile, we might as well try to make the environment a little
more comfortable to be in. This meant
that Lakshmana and I would have to go hunt for any Rakshasas in the nearby
areas in order to keep Sita safe. We
must have ended tens of thousands of Rakshasas after it was all said and
done. It was as if they were trying to
make it easy for my brother and me, with our bows and arrows and swords; any Rakshasa we came across was doomed. One
time, after cutting the ears and nose off of one particular rakshasi who tried
to attack Sita, her brother released an army of fourteen thousand Rakshasa
warriors upon me. I singlehandedly
killed all of them including the brother himself.
Though, out of all the Rakshasas Lakshmana and I hunted down,
the most memorable one would have to be Viradha. He was a massive beast, with long and gangly
arms and bearing one single, large eye in the center of his forehead. By this point, no Rakshasa had ever put up a
good fight against my brother and me. We
were able to slay those demons with ease.
However, this Rakshasa, Viradha, was quite unique because as it turns
out, he was impervious to the effects of sharp weapons. And of course, this was unbeknownst to me and
Lakshmana at the time, as we pulled our bows and arrows out as usual, preparing
to release a dozen arrows on to this ugly beast and eliminate him quicker than
the bat of an eye, as we had done so many countless times before.
The Battle against Viradha
Our arrows did no more than inflict minor flesh wounds, as
they bounced off of the Rakshasa’s skin and fell to the ground as if they were
useless twigs. We were stunned by
this! It seemed that we were doomed at this point as the Rakshasa ran toward us when suddenly, Parashurama appeared from behind the bushes! And with his array of magical array of weapons, Parashurama was able to subdue the beast by binding him in a special rope that is enchanted to subdue any Rakshasa. With that, Viradha was unable to do any further damage and they could safely lift him onto a funeral pyre to be destroyed so that no one else would ever be harmed by this beast. After performing the ritual, we discovered that this Rakshasa was originally a human who had been placed under a terrible spell. As the funeral pyre smoldered, the man rose up to thank us for freeing him from the spell he had been forced to live under for so long. His name was Tumburu, and he had been cursed while walking one day out among that very jungle, nearly three hundred years ago. I wanted to thank Parashurama for saving my brother and me from this monster but when I turned his direction he was already gone. It was, needless to say, this was one of the most interesting experiences I have ever had.
Author’s note:
This story is told in a way so that the readers feel like they are members of
the crowd gathered around, listening to the story being told in person by Rama
himself. I chose to do the story in that style because I felt it would be more
interesting than a traditional story format and it also fit really well with
how I wanted the story to unravel. My
main goals were to make the reader feel like they are in a time after the
banishment period Rama had to spend in the jungle has passed, and Rama is
reciting the adventures and action he was involved with for all of those years. I took the basis of the plot from the story
of Viradha, in the Ramayana. It is told
in the original version that Rama and Lakshmana fought with the Rakshasa,
Viradha, who ended up being a human who was trapped in Rakshasa form as part of
a curse placed on him many years previously. I added in the part where Parashurama jumps in at the end of the fight with Viradha to save Rama and his brother because I want the story to have elements of a guru hero in it. Since Parashurama is a character of great significance throughout many of the Indian Epics, I want him to be the main character of this portfolio series so I want his character to have a big part in every story in the portfolio, even if his part in some of the stories is very short.
Bibliography: The
Ramayana, translated by Manmatha Nath Dutt, 1891.
http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/pde-ramayana-viradha.html
