Episode 7 – Kingdom by Horse

A quick disclaimer: there’s some reference to violence against animals in this week’s story.

This week we’ll continue the story of the Ramayan, in which we’ll see how good things happen if your Horse is in charge of expanding your kingdom.

The character this week is a real historical queen who broke all kinds of stereotypes to defend her people

On the banks of the River Sarayu was the Country of Koshala, and in it was the city of Ayodhya.

The name Ayodhya literally translates to “the city no one can challenge at war”.

Ayodhya was founded by Manu himself – this wasnt the same manu from the Unicorn Fish episode. 

Manu is a generic name for the first person. And as there have been several cycles of destruction and rebirth, the first person in each rebirth was called Manu. So the Manu being referred to here was the first person from the current cycle

Anyway to carry on, the infrastructure of the city included 60 miles of roads with lots of flowers and mango trees. Public musicians and singers, countless elephants and cattle and camels and mules could be seen in the city. There were jewel-encrusted buildings. The people of Ayodhya were rich, if the jewel-encrusted buildings wasnt enough of a hint. Merchants came from far and wide to trade there.

People were content, no one complained, everyone had enough to eat. The warriors who lived in the city had been known to have killed lions and tigers and wolves in single combat.

Ayodhya’s ruler was King Dasharatha, who was not just a good King, but a great one.

He had 3 wives – Kaushalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra.

King Dasharath called his council of ministers and announced that he would perform two rituals.

He wanted to grow his kingdom, because what king wouldnt want that? So this other ritual that he performed was the Ashwa Medha. Ashwa means Horse, and the first part of the ritual is an interesting one.

The Horse was set free, and allowed to roam wherever it chose. Whichever kingdom the Horse wandered into, the ruler there had to submit to King Dasharath, or resist. To make it an even fight, Dasharath sent thousands of his soldiers with the horse. Yup, the same ones who killed lions, tigers and wolves with their bare hands. This went on as the Horse continued its wandering. Seriously, I dont know what they’d have done if the Horse chose never to return, but then I suppose the thousands of soliders probably had instructions to nudge the horse back at some point.

Remember how I said that people in Ayodhya were content? That did not include the King and his queens. That was because Ayodhya had no heir, and Dasharath wasnt getting any younger. King Dasharatha had no sons. He didnt have any daughters either, but Valmiki didnt bother calling that out. The lack of heirs worried Dasharath everyday.

as he had no sons, he would perform a ritual that was tailor-made for his situation. It was called the Putra Kameshthi Yagya – which means – a ritual because I wish to have sons.

His Chief Minister was a very wise man called Sumantra. Sumantra spoke to the King privately and said – You know what? a wise man made a prediction a long time ago that you would have a son. 

A long time ago? Asked Dasharath. And you’re only telling me now, because???

Look, do you want to hear the prediction or not? Said Sumantra.

Ok ok, dont get on your high horse said Dasharath.

Its real simple said Sumantra, all you have to do is to recruit Rishyashringa.

Rishya, who? Asked Dasharath.

Look I’m just going to call him Rish. said Sumantra. Rish is a Rishi(that should make it easy for you), he lives in a far away land. if you haven’t heard earlier episodes, you can think of a rishi as a wise man.

Sumantra continued – If I may get to the point?
The king of that land was called Lompada (which literally means clay feet). Clay Feet is normally means having serious faults that arent apparent until after you meet the person. But King Clay Feet was all fault – he lived a very immoral life.

That’s why his people were punished for it with a drought.
I dont get it interrupted Dasharath – why were his people punished if he was immoral? 

Sumantra ignored him and continued – Lompada advised by his ministers and his rishis, was told that if he could recruit Rish, the Rishi the drought would end. And Clay Feet did recruit Rish – by doing what he knew best – by sending over rich foods, and beautiful girls from his court over to Rish’s house, and also offering to marry his daughter to Rish. 

Now I’d like to think that Lompada’s daughter agreed to the marriage to Rish, but I know I’m just being too optimistic here.
Anyway, the drought did end and Rish is staying over at King Clay feet’s palace. 

Dasharath said I dont know, seems pretty weak. Ok, Rish may have ended a drought, but that’s not nearly the same thing as what I need.

OK ok, I wont interrupt he added as Sumantra glared at him.

The chief minister then continued – the prophecy goes on to say that King Dasharath would make friends with R and have him over at Ayodhya, and R would help perform the Ashwamedha that Dasharath was just talking about.

Dasharath would then have 4 sons as a result of the AshwaMedha

You know that’s weirdly specific and I dont know why you didnt bring all of this up earlier, but we have no time to lose. Let’s go recruit Rish the Rishi!

And recruit Rish they did, they offered him a generous sign-on bonus and great perks. 

Rish who had already ended a drought in one kingdom was happy to build up his portfolio further, it would look good on his resume the next time a king came looking for something.
Rish went to Ayodhya. 

The horse wandered back to Ayodhya about then, although if it knew what was in store, it would not have returned at all. As part of the ritual, 300 other animals – birds, snakes and horses and turtles had been gathered up.

Queen Kaushalya stepped up to the poor Horse who’d only helped expand the kingdom.

She raised her sword, and struck the horse until it died. Others joined in, and all the 300 animals were killed.

That happened, and was followed by a garden variety sacrifice – the PutraKamesthi ritual, which basically involved pouring a lot of common household items and kitchen ingredients in a large fire.

Once that was concluded, it was time to pay the holy men who’d performed all the rituals. Dasharath magnanimously offered his whole kingdom to them. 

Umm we dont want the white elephant the holy men said, give us instead gold, silver, gems and the like – you know: liquid assets. 

So Dasharath gave them a 100 million gold pieces and 400 million silver coins – which is probably a lot to carry.

In the end, Rish assured the King that he would have 4 sons. 

Meanwhile, in heaven, the sacrifice had prompted most of the gods to take up a grievance with Brahma. Brahma if you recall is the creator in the trinity, along with Siva the Destroyer and Vishnu the preserver.

You see, Brahma frequently made house calls to everyone who prayed to him and granted pretty much anything they asked for, as you may remember from many of the previous episodes.

The gods complained about Ravana. Ravana was the king of Lanka, and he’s the arch-nemesis of the Ramayana. He prayed for a long time to Brahma, and Brahma had as a result given him practically unlimited powers and made him invulnerable to all gods.

The gods complained to Brahma that Ravana was a menace – the gods he hadn’t killed were all terrified of him.

Brahma thought a long moment and said I’ve built in a loophole, and by that I mean Ravana did not ask to be made invulnerable to humans! He was probably being arrogant, or maybe he just forgot. Doesnt matter – what matters is that he can be defeated.

This seemed to cheer up the gods though it may seem like it shouldnt have because its by no means easy for an ordinary human being to take on a being of phenomenal cosmic powers. 

As it happened, Vishnu happened to drift around just then and the gods immediately switched their attention to him. It may seem like instead of Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer would be a better choice when asking to, you know, destroy Ravana, but Vishnu may have just been in the right place at the right time. The gods asked him to assume one of his avatars and go destroy Ravana. Vishnu at this point had already used up 6 of his 10 avatars, but had no hesitation in using another one up. Vishnu pulled up the playbook and instructed many of the gods to be born on Earth as part of a monkey army. We’ll encounter them again later on in the Ramayana.

Vishnu himself decided to be born as Dasharath’s sons. That’s right sons. Vishnu was a part of all 4 sons, not just Raam.

To set that plan in motion, he sent down one of the gods with a jar of porridge.

Dasharath and his ministers and holy men did not even bat an eyelid when the god appeared suddenly in the fire with the jar of porridge. 

Here’s your package, the god said. Sign here to accept delivery. All you have to do is to ask your Queens to eat this porridge.

Dasharath was overjoyed and took the jar which did not even burn his fingers despite just coming out of hot flames. In what is going to sound like a middle school arithmetic problem – Dasharath gave ½ the jar to Kaushalya, ⅓ to Sumitra. He then gave ⅛ to Kaikeyi and gave the rest to Sumitra again. Dont worry I’m not going to ask you how much Sumitra received.

And not long after Dasharatha’s wives had sons. Bharath was born to Kaikeyi, Laxman and Shatrughna were Sumitra’s and Kaushalya gave birth to Rama.

All four sons were part-Vishnu and in a twist that shows you arithmetic cant solve all problems – the proportion of Vishnu in them had nothing to do with the amount of porridge each Queen consumed.

We can go into more details about Ravana’s origin story in a separate standalone episode at some point.

Rani Laxmi Bai

The character this week is Rani Laxmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi. Rani Laxmi Bai was born in a Marathi family and was known to do a lot of things that werent expected or available to girls during that time – and by that I mean – reading, writing, shooting, fencing, horse-riding and even an acrobat’s version of yoga. So, yeah, pretty much everything there was to do in the 1800s.

She later married the Maharaja of Jhansi. When the Maharaja passed away, the British east india company used a flimsy excuse to deny the queen and her adopted son from managing the kingdom, and instead took on the task themselves. I’m sure they’ll claim they did it with great reluctance.

A few years later, when there was a major rebellion against the British, and as that spread to Jhansi, the resident british forces were massacred. Rani Laxmi Bai, seized the opportunity to rule herself. And a year or so later the British came back and when she wouldnt give up the throne, seiged her fort. She managed to escape with her baby son strapped to her back by literally jumping off the side of a fort. Have a look at some of the forts, being able to survive such a fall is a superpower by itself.

She escaped to Gwalior, but within a short time Gwalior was itself attacked. Laxmi Bai, herself disguised as an ordinary soldier was killed in battle.

She’s a symbol of fearlessness and a major role model for everyone because of her grit and bravery and because she defied a lot of stereotypes.

Next Week

We’ll take a break from the Ramayana and go back to Vikram and Betaal, where the Betaal is going to throw out another lateral thinking puzzle for us.

The name of the character next week literally means strong armed. There’s a pretty big statue of him in southern India and he’s not quite like how he was shown in some recent blockbuster movies.

See you next week!