{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry233.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry233.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry233.htm","text":"When R\u00e1van, by her fury spurred,\n That terrible advice had heard,\n He bade his nobles quit his side,\n And to the work his thought applied.\n He turned his anxious mind to scan\n On every side the hardy plan:\n The gain against the risk he laid,\n Each hope and fear with care surveyed,\n And in his heart at length decreed\n To try performance of the deed.\n Then steady in his dire intent\n The giant to the courtyard went.\n There to his charioteer he cried,\n 'Bring forth the car whereon I ride.'\n Aye ready at his master's word\n The charioteer the order heard.\n And yoked with active zeal the best\n Of chariots at his lord's behest.\n Asses with heads of goblins drew\n That wondrous car where'er it flew.\n Obedient to the will it rolled\n Adorned with gems and glistering gold.\n Then mounting, with a roar as loud\n As thunder from a labouring cloud,\n The mighty monarch to the tide\n Of Ocean, lord of rivers, hied.\n White was the shade above him spread,\n White chouris waved around his head,\n And he with gold and jewels bright\n Shone like the glossy lazulite.\n Ten necks and twenty arms had he:\n His royal gear was good to see.\n The heavenly Gods' insatiate foe.\n Who made the blood of hermits flow,\n He like the Lord of Hills appeared\n With ten huge heads to heaven upreared.\n In the great car whereon he rode,\n Like some dark cloud the giant showed,\n When round it in their close array\n The cranes 'mid wreaths of lightning play.\n He looked, and saw, from realms of air,\n The rocky shore of ocean, where\n Unnumbered trees delightful grew\n With flower and fiuit of every hue.\n He looked on many a lilied pool\n With silvery waters fresh and cool,\n And shores like spacious altars meet\n For holy hermits' lone retreat,\n The graceful palm adorned the scene,\n The plantain waved her glossy green,\n Where grew the s\u00e1l and betel, there\n On bending boughs the flowers were fair.\n There hermits dwelt who tamed each sense\n By strictest rule of abstinence:\n Gandharvas, Kinnars,\u00a01 thronged the place,\n N\u00e1gas and birds of heavenly race.\n Bright minstrels of the ethereal quire,\n And saints exempt from low desire,\n With \u00c1jas, sons of Brahm\u00e1's line,\n Mar\u00edchipas of seed divine,\n Vaikh\u00e1nasas and M\u00e1shas strayed,\n And B\u00e1lakhilyas\u00a02 in the shade.\n The lovely nymphs of heaven were there,\n Celestial wreaths confined their hair,\n And to each form new grace was lent\n By wealth of heavenly ornament.\n Well skilled was each in play and dance\n And gentle arts of dalliance.\n The glorious wife of many a God\n Those beautiful recesses trod,\n There Gods and D\u00e1navs, all who eat\n The food of heaven, rejoiced to meet.\n The swan and S\u00e1ras thronged each bay\n With curlews, ducks, and divers gay,\n Where the sea spray rose soft and white\n O'er rocks of glossy lazulite.\n As his swift way the fiend pursued\n Pale chariots of the Gods he viewed,\n Bearing each lord whose rites austere\n Had raised him to the heavenly sphere.\n Thereon celestial garlands hung,\n There music played and songs were sung.\n Then bright Gandharvas met his view,\n And heavenly nymphs, as on he flew.\n He saw the sandal woods below,\n And precious trees of odorous flow,\n That to the air around them lent\n Their riches of delightful scent;\n Nor failed his roving eye to mark\n Tall aloe trees in grove and park.\n He looked on wood with cassias filled,\n And plants which balmy sweets distilled,\n Where her fair flowers the betel showed\n And the bright pods of pepper glowed.\n The pearls in many a silvery heap\n Lay on the margin of the deep.\n And grey rocks rose amid the red\n Of coral washed from ocean's bed.\n \n \n High soared the mountain peaks that bore\n Treasures of gold and silver ore,\n And leaping down the rocky walls\n Came wild and glorious waterfalls.\n Fair towns which grain and treasure held,\n And dames who every gem excelled,\n He saw outspread beneath him far,\n With steed, and elephant, and car.\n That ocean shore he viewed that showed\n Fair as the blessed Gods' abode\n Where cool delightful breezes played\n O'er levels in the freshest shade.\n He saw a fig-tree like a cloud\n With mighty branches earthward bowed.\n It stretched a hundred leagues and made\n For hermit bands a welcome shade.\n Thither the feathered king of yore\n An elephant and tortoise bore,\n And lighted on a bough to eat\n The captives of his taloned feet.\n The bough unable to sustain\n The crushing weight and sudden strain,\n Loaded with sprays and leaves of spring\n Gave way beneath the feathered king.\n Under the shadow of the tree\n Dwelt man, a saint and devotee,\n \u00c1jas, the sons of Brahm\u00e1's line,\n M\u00e1shas Mar\u00edchipas divine.\n Vaikh\u00e1nasas, and all the race\n Of B\u00e1lakhilyas loved the place.\n But pitying their sad estate\n The feathered monarch raised the weight\n Of the huge bough, and bore away\n The loosened load and captured prey.\n A hundred leagues away he sped,\n Then on his monstrous booty fed,\n And with the bough he smote the lands\n Where dwell the wild Nish\u00e1da bands.\n High joy was his because his deed\n From jeopardy the hermits freed.\n That pride for great deliverance wrought\n A double share of valour brought.\n His soul conceived the high emprise\n To snatch the Amrit from the skies.\n He rent the nets of iron first,\n Then through the jewel chamber burst,\n And bore the drink of heaven away\n That watched in Indra's palace lay.\n \n \n Such was the hermit-sheltering tree\n Which R\u00e1van turned his eye to see.\n Still marked where Garud sought to rest,\n The fig-tree bore the name of Blest.\n \n \n When R\u00e1van stayed his chariot o'er\n The ocean's heart-enchanting shore,\n He saw a hermitage that stood\n Sequestered in the holy wood.\n He saw the fiend Mar\u00edcha there\n With deerskin garb, and matted hair\n Coiled up in hermit guise, who spent\n His days by rule most abstinent.\n As guest and host are wont to meet,\n \n \n They met within that lone retreat.\n Before the king M\u00e1r\u00edcha placed\n Food never known to human taste.\n He entertained his guest with meat\n And gave him water for his feet,\n And then addressed the giant king\n With timely words of questioning:\n \n \n 'Lord, is \"it well with thee, and well\n With those in Lank\u00e1's town who dwell?\n What sudden thought, what urgent need\n Has brought thee with impetuous speed?\n \n \n The fiend M\u00e1r\u00edcha thus addressed\n R\u00e1van the king, his mighty guest,\n And he, well skilled in arts that guide\n The eloquent, in turn replied:\n \n \n \n \n270:1 Beings with the body of a man and the head of a horse.\n270:2 \u00c1jas, Mar\u00edchipas, Vaikh\u00e1nasas, M\u00e1shas, and B\u00e1lakhilyas are classes of supernatural beings who lead the lives of hermits.","title":"BOOK III: Canto XXXV.: R\u00e1van's Journey.","type":"page"}