The Ramayana Read Online Free PDF

lay over Kosala’s capital. The clear pools were covered with lilies. The flowering trees that lined the streets of Ayodhya drooped to the ground; they were heavy with new leaves in every shade of green and untimely, extravagant flowers. A malaya breeze blew across the kingdom, carrying the scents of the spring through the city and up into the apartments of Dasaratha’s queens; most of all, into Kausalya’s.
    All the earth seemed to strain, with senses of breeze and night, moonbeam and sunray, into the gracious Kausalya’s chambers: Vishnu was to be born from her bright womb as a man! Then it was the month of Chaitra. Great rishis had arrived in Ayodhya, and, with occult sight, they saw Devas in the sky above the city.
    The moon was waxing. It was the ninth day after amavasya. Rare and auspicious syzygies were strewn across the firmament. Five planets were in their signs of exaltation that night. The nakshatra was Punarvasu and the moon rose in his own house, with lofty Jupiter in the lagna Karkataka, cardinal sign of the Crab. Kausalya was as radiant as Aditi had been in Devaloka when she bore Indra. That night, Dasaratha’s first queen gave birth to one greater than the king of the Devas. She brought Vishnu into the world, for its deliverance from Ravana of Lanka.
    Kausalya felt no pain at all, just bliss, as Rama was born from her. He was as serene as the Manasa lake upon the mountain. He did not cry at being born into this sad and fleeting world. He only smiled, his eyes wide open and so knowing on his dark, dark face. A shower of barely tangible flowers fell out of the air around Kausalya’s bed. Apsaras danced on clouds when little Rama sighed in his throat, blue as the lotus that blooms on satin pools hidden in the hearts of jungles.
    When in a day, the moon had moved into the nakshatra Pushyami, the youngest queen Kaikeyi went into labor, and Bharata was born.
    After another twenty hours, when the moon was in Aslesha, twins were born to Sumitra, who had drunk twice from the cup of payasa: Lakshmana, who would follow his brother Rama to the ends of the earth, and Shatrughna, bane of his enemies.
    Ayodhya was more festive than Devaloka on high. The Devas were jubilant at the thought that Ravana would die as soon as Dasaratha’s eldest son was a man: in just some human years, which for the Gods are but a few days. But the people of Kosala celebrated because now they would have another great kshatriya to rule them as wisely as Dasaratha had done.
    In Ayodhya the singing and dancing went on through the night. The streets were choked with thousands of revelers, at midday and twilight, midnight and dawn. The lines outside the palace gates were interminable, when the queens brought their sons out onto their terraces. The people stood patiently for hours to catch a glimpse of the infants’ faces.
    Dasaratha gave them gold by the sack, and cows by the herd to the brahmanas. If through deep time there was ever a mortal king whose cup of joy was full, he was Dasaratha of Ayodhya. The feasting continued for eleven days, and then Vasishta was called to name the four boys and perform their jatakarma.
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    The next sixteen years were like a waking dream for Dasaratha. He watched his sons grow around him and outstrip every hope he may have had for them. They studied the Vedas and the other sacred lore with Vasishta, and were quick to learn whatever he had to teach. No matter how profound or complex the subject, how strange or new, they absorbed it at the first instruction.
    Like the moon waxing day by day, the four princes grew: a young pride of lions. They learned the arts of war, as all kshatriyas must; and their skills were astonishing when they were barely ten. In their earliest teens they rode elephant, horse, and chariot like masters, soon competing just with one another. For there was no one else in the land, including their gurus, who could match them. Led by Rama, their