21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Indian Literature

Ramayana Excerpt
One day when King Rama was sitting on his throne, his ring fell off. When it touched the
earth, it made a hole in the ground and disappeared into it. It was gone. He friend Hanuman
was nearby. Rama said, Look, my ring is lost.” Dear friend, “Help me find it please.”

Hanuman was a powerful Vanara, a monkey-god, with the power to change shape and size
and enter any hole, no matte r how tiny. He had the power to become the smallest of the
small and larger than the largest thing. So he took on a tiny form and went down the hole.

He went and went and suddenly fell into the underworld. There were women down there.
“Look, a tiny monkey. It’s fallen from above,” one woman said. Then they caught him and
placed him on a platter (in India, a thali). The King of Spirits who lives in the underworld
likes to eat animals. So Hanuman was sent to him as part of his dinner, along with a plate of
vegetables. Hanuman sat on the platter, not sure what to do.

Rama, meanwhile, was sitting on his throne above. The sage Vasistha and the god Brahma
came to see him. They said they needed to talk privately, where no one else could hear.
Rama agreed. He was told to lay down a rule prior to this special meeting. "If anyone comes
in during the discussion the intruder’s head must be cut off," said Vasistha.

“It will be done,” agreed Rama.

Who would be the most trustworthy person to guard the door? Hanuman was gone
fetching the ring. Rama trusted no one more than Laksmana, so he asked his half-brother to
guard the door. “Don’t allow anyone to enter,” he was told.

Laksmana was standing at the door when a sage named Visvamitra approached and said he
needed to see Rama at once. "It’s urgent. Where is Rama?”

“Don’t go in now, said Laksmana. “He is talking to some people. It’s very important.”

“What is there that Rama would hide from me,” said the sage. "I will go in now.”

Laksmana said he would have to first ask permission.

“Go in and ask then.”

“I can’t until Rama comes out. You will wait.”

“If you don’t go in and announce my presence, I’ll burn the entire kingdom of Ayodhya with
a curse,” said the sage.

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21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Indian Literature

Laksmana thought, “If I go in now I will die. If I don’t go, this man will burn down the entire
kingdom. All the subjects, all things living in it, will die. It’s better that I alone should die.”

So he went in.

“What’s the matter,” asked Rama.

“Vsvmitra is here.”

“Send him in then.”

So Visvamtra went in.

The private talk had already come to an end. It seems that god Brahma and Vasistha had
come to tell Rama, “Your work in the world of human beings is over. Your incarnation as
Rama must now be given up. Leave this body, come up, and rejoin the gods.” That was what
they had come to say to Rama.

Laskmana said to Rama, “Brother, you should cut off my head.”

Rama replied, “Why? We had nothing more to say. Nothing was left. So why should I cut off
your head?”

“You can’t let me off just because I’m your brother. It will cause a blot on Rama’s glorious
name. You didn’t spare your wife. You sent her to the jungle to preserve dharma. I must be
punished. I will leave right away.”

Laksmana was an avatar of Sesa, the serpent on whom Vishnu sleeps. His time was up too.
He went to the river and disappeared in the flowing waters.

When Laksmana relinquished his body, Rama summoned all his followers and arranged for
the coronation of his twin sons, Lava and Kusa. Then Rama, too, entered the river.

All this time Hanuman was still in the underworld looking for the lost ring. 
When he was finally taken to the King of Spirits, he kept repeating the name of Rama.
The King of Spirits asked, “Who are you?”

“Hanuman.”

“Why have you come here?”

“Rama’s ring fell into a hole, and I came to fetch it.”

The king looked around and found a platter, which he held up for Hanuman to see. On it
were thousands of rings. All of them were Rama’s rings. The King of Spirits set it down and
said, “pick out your ring and take it.”

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21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Indian Literature

They were all exactly the same. “I don’t know which one it is,” said Hanuman.

The King of Spirits said, “There have been as many Ramas as there are rings on this platter.
When you return to earth, you will not find Rama. This incarnation of Rama is now over.
Whenever an incarnation of Rama is about to be over, his ring falls down. I collect them and
keep them. Now you can go.”

***

Perhaps here is where the work lies. It is our human work to extend consciousness –
something that only we humans are capable of. Nothing else in the universe can bring
clarity and differentiation as the human mind. This is our unique contribution to the
unfolding of the divine plan. However, at one point in The Ramayana there is a passage in
which Rama is told if he does not pursue his individuation properly God will abandon him
to an intellectual search – which goes nowhere and is only more illusion. It is Hanuman, the
instinctive monkey-God who is key to the development of this story. This seems to promise
that your salvation will come from inside, from your instinctive nature. It will come from
what we are taught are the dark or unreliable places. It is a big shift for a Westerner to
learn that it is the sensation and feeling world, one’s instinctive world, that is the necessary
intermediary on the path to wholeness.

The Mahabharata
This is an excerpt from The Mahabharata, told in English prose by William Buck. The
Mahabharata is an ancient epic story from India. It is the story of Krishna and the Pandava
brothers and their battle with the prince who stole their kingdom. It is beautiful prose,
extraordinary warfare, eternal friendship, and royal intrigue.

Translated by William Buck, introduction by B.A. Van Nooten.

Copyright (c) 1973 by the University of California.

Reprinted with permission.

This excerpt is from the middle of the story. The Pandavas are traveling through the forest,
and Krishna visits them in the evening.

It was growing dark when Yudhishthira, Arjuna, and Bhima returned to their forest home.
Draupadi and the twins were sitting around a fire, and they joined them there and told
them what had happened with Jayadratha. Then there was a movement at the edge of the
firelight, and an old man, shaggy and dark, walked noiselessly up to them and sat down.

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21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Indian Literature

"Welcome, Vyasa," said Yudhishthira. "It has been many years. Will you have dinner with
us? We've had nothing to eat since morning."

Vyasa smiled and Draupadi went inside her kitchen. She lit the cooking fire from the tiny
flame that burned for the household gods. Then she realized that they had no food.

She frowned, and thought, "Oh, Krishna, What will I do?"

Krishna stood smiling and leaning back against the wall. Draupadi jumped and put her
hand to her breast. "Oh! You scared me."

Krishna said, "Princess, you got me out of bed and I'm hungry. Give me a little something to
eat."

"That's just it. There's nothing."

"Can't your husbands catch anything?"

"Only King Jayadratha."

Krishna looked around the kitchen. "Nothing at all? I don't believe it. Just let me take a
look," and he began to go through the pots and pans.

Draupadi watched him. "Why were you in bed so early?"

"Don't you know I have sixteen thousand wives?"

"You do really? I heard that but I never believed it."

"Well, why should I deny it. But look." Krishna took a rice grain and a tiny shred of
vegetable from the rim of an iron pot. "Now sit down facing me, close your eyes, and be
quiet. This is hard to do."

Krishna sat on the kitchen floor, holding the bit of leaf and grain of rice in his fingers. The
sounds of the forest night fell away, and the fire flickered and died. Krishna began to speak
softly in the silence.

"Now listen, ... so have I heard —

The moonlight is your smile. Earth and sky are your illusion.

At the end of Time, first comes the drought, then the seven suns that bring fire and leave
Earth hushed in death and deep ashes, overhung by burning colored clouds.

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21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Indian Literature

Then the lightning breaks and the water falls. Drowned are the sun and moon, and Earth
and stars. You swallow the winds and float sleeping on the dark waters, resting on Sesha
the thousand-hooded serpent white as pearls.

Then you awake, and like a winking firefly at night during the rains, you dart over the
water, seeking Earth. You dive and bring her back as before, and place her on Sesha as
before, and create all beings as before.

And after Time has begun again, when Sesha yawns, quaking the Earth, do you not go to
him and say:

"Just a little longer?"

Narayana — if I have said well, take this food for all the world."

Krishna swallowed the bit of vegetable and the grain of rice. The fires danced into life, and
Draupadi heard the Pandavas talking outside with Vyasa.

"Princess, open your eyes. It is done."

Draupadi looked at him. "I was hungry before, but now ..."

"Now no one in all the world is hungry," said Krishna. "Everyone is full of food right up to
his throat." He shivered. "But it is very hard to do."

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