This post continues from our earlier post: Ramayana: Cities, Technologies and Power Struggles. So I would personally suggest having a quick read on that before going forward with this. If you are already done with that, you may continue here.
One of the major events that took place in the Ramayana were the struggles between Rama and the demonaics. And this was while he was on exile from his kingdom. These struggles also effectively lead to the abduction of Seetha and then towards the final annihilation of Ravana. The latter of which we indicated in our earlier post: Ramayana: Cities, Technologies and Power Struggles as anti-climatic, as it led to the Egoism element in the Self to overpower. So in this blog, we will cover just that. More specifically on the wars and the weapons.
To do so, we will cover the following, but in 2 parts, starting with: a prelude to Rama's struggle with the demoniacs, and the attack at the Dandaka forest in Part I, following which we will discuss Seetha's abduction and the Yuddha Kanda in Part II.
Prelude to Rama's Struggle with the Demoniacs
Going all the way back to when Rama was in his youth (the Bala Kanda), after he wedded Seetha at Mithila, along with Bharata and Shatrughna with the two daughters of Kushadvaja (King Janaka's younger brother), all returned to Ayodhya, where King Dasaratha began preparing for Rama's coronation. While all in Ayodhya were rejoicing at the idea of the coronation, Manthara, who was Kaikeyi's long-associated maid ever since Kaikeyi's birth, instead began poisoning Kaikeyi's mind about ascending her son Bharata to the throne. Kaikeyi initially rejected Manthara's scurrility about all this, along with all her premonitions of Rama's prowess over Bharata, which she initially used, to convince her to ascend Bharata instead. But, seeing that not taking any effect, Manthara then reminded Kaikeyi of her long-enduring rivalry with Kausalya, Rama's mother, where there was no guarantee because of this rivalry that Kausalya would treat her well after Rama's coronation. And as a matter of fact, these words actually hit Kaikeyi, and was what led her follow Manthara's exhortation to accost King Dasaratha to reconsider the ascension of the throne to Bharata, while Rama be sent to the forest in exile instead. Then to ensure it went through, she made use of the two wishes Dasaratha had given her, while a prince, as a token of gratitude to her for mending his wounds in his place of retreat while he was fending off the demonaics trying to ransack the Kingdom of Kosala.
When Dasaratha heard what Kaikeyi demanded, he got extremely upset and very angry with her for utilizing the wishes in a very untimely manner, but Kaikeyi firmly insisted and Rama was summoned. When Rama was brought to his father Dasaratha and Kaikeyi, Dasaratha struggled to tell Rama his sorrow and what he had to tell him. Rama then enquired Kaikeyi what it was that was causing his father such deep sorrow, for which he was not even able to greet him in his usual way. Kaikeyi then responded telling him that it was under the consensus of both his father and her that Bharata instead be the one who ascends the throne and that he [Rama] be exiled to the Dandaka forest for 14 years. Rama, on hearing this, sunk for a moment but, upon looking at his father's plight, made no reprisal to Kaikeyi and accepted the terms. He then went to his mother, Kausalya to inform her about his departure to the forest.
There was then a major ruckus at the palace. Lakshmana, too, got very angry upon hearing what Rama just revealed, but Rama consoled him saying that certain things weren't in anyone's control and that it was best to accept what had developed, because fighting back would only mean that he also was desirous of the throne. Something which didn't fit his character because there was actually nothing in this world that he craved possession of. Rama then went to the coronation hall, where Seetha was, to tell her about his departure. Seetha, also on hearing this felt quite sad initially, but then asked if she could join him too. Rama, then prompted her of the difficulties a woman like her would face in a forest. However, despite all that, she still insisted on joining him. And after much thought, Rama agreed, following which Lakshmana too insisted on joining. Then, the three made their way to the Dandaka forest, leaving Ayodhya and its citizens with much grief.
Attack at the Dandaka Forest
Several years later, while Rama, Seetha and Lakshmana were peacefully passing time at Panchavati, somewhere in the Dandaka forest by the banks of the Godavari River, as advised by Sage Agastya, taking into account Seetha's womanhood and a good enough place having many fruits and roots to thrive on while at the same time having an abundance of flora and fauna to make merry with, an interesting turn of events took place that culminated in the annihilation of Ravana. Shurpanakha, who was Ravana's sister leading a band of spies in the Dandaka forest, happened to had come across the area, where she had spotted Rama. She, upon seeing Rama, grew a lust for him, owing to his charming looks and wanted "a piece of him" like she had with her spies. She then turned into her more lusty looks [exposing her cleavages really well, and with all her curves] and went towards Panchavati (probably cat-walking her way through). Upon her entry, Rama, Seetha and Lakshmana stopped what they were doing for a moment, seeing her approaching. Then, as she made her way towards Rama, she began enquiring flirtatiously to Rama who he was, and why he and the others with him were staying in the Dandaka forest. Rama then explained briefly about him, Seetha and Lakshmana and what happened at Ayodhya that led them to stay where they were at the moment. Then, Rama asked her back who she was and what she was doing in their place. Shurpanakha then responded saying she was the sister of Ravana, Kumbhakarna and the virtuous Vibeeshana and that she was just roaming alone in the forest looking for company. She then told about her desire to have Rama as her husband and that she would make a better wife than Seetha. They could roam around the Dandaka forest like her, enjoying the views of its "mountain tops" as well as thrive on its luscious forests.
Rama, on hearing this, understood the double-meaning she actually meant, smirked a bit and then told her that Lakshmana was actually unmarried and was pretty much available, and that it would be best if she could may be try flirting with him instead. Also adding that he [Lakshmana] would definitely love to have her as his wife as it would spare her from the trouble of being his concubine. She then eyed Lakshmana. But Lakshmana, on the other hand, who after seeing her reaction, reverted back saying that, it was actually better she became his brother's second wife as he was a man of absolute perfection and the only one who could understand fully her deepmost desires and give her the happiness she so sought (sarcastically and jovially). At this point, her indecisiveness of who she really wanted got exposed, for which she took an insult. She then in anger began running towards Seetha to devour her. At that very moment Rama signaled Lakshmana to chop her nose and ears off right in front of him before she reached or even touched Seetha. Lakshmana then took his sword out and did the same. This was where Shurpanakha got extremely infuriated and ran back to the forest.
The First Attack
Being defaced by Lakshmana, Shurpanakha then ran to her occult in the forest and commanded 14 demonaics to go and kill Seetha for her. The 14 demonaics seeing her face defaced, followed her command and marched towards Panchavati.
As they approached the vicinity, Rama got himself ready with his bow and told Seetha and Lakshmana to stay behind. He then warned the demonaics that they would meet their death if they proceeded any further from where they were. But the demonaics, instead, with all their terrifying looks and strength, having launchable blades projecting from their arms responded to Rama saying that he would actually be the one to meet his death, because he personally (according to them) could not match to any one of them, let alone 14. Saying so, they dashed towards him hurling their launchable blades at him. Rama then quickly took 14 arrows onto his bow and shot them in such a way that it chopped off all 14 approaching blades at once, following which he took 14 iron-bolts quickly and shot them one after the other right onto their chests, before they could even launch the other blades from their other hands. These iron-bolts penetrated through them right onto where their heart was, and was why they all dropped down dead immediately. Thus, within seconds, the whole attack was warded off by Rama.
Side Note: The art of shooting multiple arrows from a single discharge is much less known nor even researched much today. However, certain scientific deductions have been made as to what might be required from a bow that can shoot multiple arrows within a single shot.
Physics suggests that for each new arrow that is added to the arrow rest, the tensile strength of the bowstring would have to be increased that many times. This would ensure that each arrow would get the same amount of kinetic energy it would, being a single arrow alone. However, it would further mean that the string would require a very high tensile capacity. If such high tensile capacity isn't available, then the arrow weights would have to be reduced accordingly. Meaning that if 14 or more arrows were to be discharged within a single shot, the bow and its arrows would have to designed in such a way that takes into account all these trade-offs. A sort of design specification would be required to do all of this, say by first fixing the limit on the maximum number of arrows that can be shot from the arrow rest. This would then give the required tensile strength needed for a given single-arrow-weight-to-kinetic-energy parameter. Once this is done, the bowstring could then be made to reduce its tensile strength by a simple adjustment bolt, to either 1) shoot fewer arrows from the arrow rest, all the way down to one, as well as 2) provide a single arrow with a much larger range as many times as the set tensile capacity, and which could go all the way unto the arrow rest limit.
However, such details are missing in Valmiki's Ramayana, thus it's difficult to tell if such engineering was employed. But, the narrations he made are our only go for making such inferences. Hence, at this point, we assume that such was the state-of-the-art. If you wish to learn more on the veracity of this art, the video below can help you.
Furthermore, Rama's ability to correctly aim at approaching blades that could come from anywhere, like multiple angles within an area-of-sight, could only suggest that there could have been other mechanical provisions to incline the different arrows in different directions. Probably adjustable by simple movements of the fingers holding the grip, but not so much so as to compromise the grip itself. This, however, is just an idea we are making about this, given Valmiki's narrations, and could be left to debate on later.
The Second Attack
Seeing Rama completely wiping out 14 demonaics in just seconds, Shurpanakha got quite dumbstruck and then ran back to her occult. There, she cried to one of her close associates about what had happened and then taunted him of eviction from the occult if he did nothing to respond to this. Her associate then consoled her, and then ordered an army of 14,000 demonaics (here Valmiki indicates that they were of Paulastya descent - meaning that they were actually infused with Ravana's DNA) with Dushana as the commander to ransack Panchavati and kill Rama and Lakshmana. And so did it. Her close associate too went along. On their way, a solar eclipse occurred, completely darkening the sky. But, despite the occurrence of this calamity, they continued marching towards Panchavati, because the associate was already all the more enraged by Shurpanakha, and adding to the fact that the sky was actually cloudy, blanketing the eclipse, it made it somewhat safe to still continue.
Now, to give you more visual-gasms like we did in Ramayana: Cities, Technologies and Power Struggles, picture this 🎬: Remember watching Scorpion King? Imagine the same, but this time with a massive army of demonaics (but with a mix of dark and light skins) charging towards you [but on the screen 📺] up and down on grassy, hilly and foresty lands instead, and with a couple of chariots in the midst of these, with one harboring a three-headed demonaic [having only two arms - could they have also cracked selective DNA infusion, where only heads get generated for each mastery of the texts? Well considering that there were only two of such three-headed demonaics mentioned in all of Valmiki's Ramayana, one here and the other in the Yuddha Kanda, could only suggest so, as opposed to the thousands that were there for usual demoniacs fitted with launchable blades] while the sky was getting redder and darker.
Then, as they were approaching the vicinity of Panchavati, Rama, Seetha and Lakshmana all saw what was coming and got a bit startled. Rama immediately then told Lakshmana to go to the nearby hidden cave [they both knew of] and to take Seetha with him there, while he dealt with this state of affairs on his own. He reminded him to take his armoury with him, in case anything went wrong, and that he would find them once everything was over. Lakshmana did so. Following which Rama then went ahead to wear his armour, and then began making thundering noises with his bowstring [as being attached to his bow]. Around this time, owing to the tremors the demonaic army was making by their stampede and the noises Rama was making with his bow, the sages living nearby hovered themselves up in the sky seated on their aircrafts to see what was happening. They all moved towards Panchavati to witness what was going on there. There, upon the arrival of the army, Shurpanakha's close associate began twanging his bow to initiate the war, after which he discharged a thousand arrows (now this could actually be a word to convey many, than the actual number itself, because Valmiki obviously did not count them but made a way to be even more vague - thanks Valmiki 😒) towards Rama and roared out his battle cry. The demonaics in front, following this gesticulation, then began hurling their blades and other weapons at Rama.
Then Rama, as Valmiki wrote, turned into Rudra (Lord Shiva) like with his Pinaka bow, began countering their weapons like as if performing his cosmic dance.
Meaning that, Rama was actually and literally pulling off some kind of Samurai stuff (and to add further to this, there is also a mention of Garuda in Valmiki's writings describing his warcraft, meaning that there was actually a well-timed system of attack). As Valmiki further wrote, he began circling around while discharging multiple arrows at a time towards the demonaics, cutting their weapons and heads off. Also, at the same time, because of the sheer numbers of weapons soliciting him, he too got scorched with multiple wounds. But despite all of this, he was still able to continue with his Samurai-styled attacks, without even collapsing. Then, gradually, as he was doing this, his circle (or radius) of death grew stronger [as by discharging additional flaming arrows and darts] to the point that the demonaics began retreating. Then, with the help Dushana's defence, they resurfaced and resumed their attacks again, at which point Rama decided to use the Gāndharvam. A weapon gifted to him by Sage Vishwamitra in the Bala Kanda after he successfully killed Tātaka, in a forest near Ayodhya, with the help of Lakshmana.
The Gāndharvam, by the name itself, suggests that it was some kind of a machine gun but with bow technology perhaps. In fact, to add to everything, Valmiki even further described it to be a weapon that all men loved. Here's what he wrote:
मादनं चैव दुर्धर्षं कन्दर्पदयितं तथा |
गान्धर्वमस्त्रं दयितं मानवं नाम नामतः || १-२७-१६
I mean, honestly, who doesn't love a machine gun, you know, considering the amount of damage it can produce by just a single push of a button. A goof-ball like me too, would enjoy pushing that button, while say grooving funkily to some dope tunes, if say again a bunch of goons came and tried to attack me. Anyways, as the word implies, it looks like it had some kind of automated and rhythmic recoiling mechanism, probably by some sort of mechanics, meaning that Rama actually went all Rambo-w then. And like what anyone in the Kaliyuga would imagine was Rama's vehemence with that kind of weapon was literally what he was like with it. Except without all the swear words. If you are curious to know what that is, here it is: "Aaaaaah!!! Eat metal you <you can fill in your swear words here>!!!!". BTW how many of you were literally thinking "Say hello to my little friend!!!" before that? 🤚
Then, after massacring 9,000 demonaics with the Gāndharvam, Rama went back to his normal battle stance with his original bow. The remaining 5,000 demonaics who were by Dushana but quite far-off then began hurling their weapons upon Dushana's command. Rama, as usual cut-off all their weapons, which made Dushana very angry. He then went on a one-on-one combat with Rama, to give him a piece of his even more deadlier artillery. Rama, however, against all weapons and arrows that were being hurled and shot at by Dushana from his chariot, managed to kill his horses first, then the charioteer and then the chariot itself, downing him to the ground, after which he finally killed him. If this wasn't enough to back-off after such a chilling development, twelve chieftains on chariots then approached to kill him. And likewise Rama killed all of them along with the remaining 5,000 demonaics, leaving only the three-headed demonaic and Shurpanakha's associate to be the ones left to battle with.
At this point, the two [the tri-headed demonaic and the associate] looked at each other for a moment and then back at Rama, who was all covered in blood, crossly confounded about him. They were literally like "what the <swear word> is he?". The associate then, recollecting Shurpanakha's taunts, approached to kill Rama, just when the tri-headed demonaic intervened telling him he would first have a go with him to see if he could finish Rama off. But Rama, just like he combatted against Dushana, killed the demonaic by eventually chopping his three heads off (and they didn't crop back out like Ravana).
Combat with the Associate
The associate, on seeing this, then got taken aback for a moment. But not willing to back down after coming this far, began shooting his most deadliest arrows onto Rama. The blood sucking poisonous arrows and the ones that could swirl their way out to the opponent, confounding their interception points. All of this, with the other usual arrows, pretty much completely blanketing the sky. But Rama countered them without any trouble, which pissed the associate off. This made him to rush his chariot towards Rama to swiftly grab his bow and break it, and then went ahead to break Rama's armour by his arrow shots. Rama then picked his Vishnu bow, which he got from Sage Agastya while on exile. This bow was the mother of all bows, probably fitted with all sorts of things that could be used to do anything the archer wanted. The associate then shot four arrows to wound Rama badly which it did, responding to which Rama shot six arrows to wound the associate and 13 arrows later to break his chariot completely, felling the associate to the ground. All shots were made within a single shot.
It was here, then that Rama taunted the associate to back off for he had already done enough damage to his own occult members, failing which he too will be met with the same fate. The associate, who was already thoroughly pissed, instead, on hearing the kid talking too much (according to him) reverted back telling him not to flaunt himself too much about what had contracted so far and that if he was really a warrior (Kshatriya) he would face him with his Gadā. And when he just about lifted his Gadā to whack him with it, Rama broke it with his arrow shots while it was still up in the air. Then Rama questioned him if this was all he got after all that talk, and this in fact riled up the associate even harder, being unable to shut the kid's mouth. He replied taunting him that he was still flaunting himself too much as if he were the controller of death. And while he was saying this, broke a strong tree branch from the ground which was pretty much out of Rama's line-of-sight and suddenly turned around to whack him with it. Rama, instead, quickly shot a multitude of arrows onto him, downing the tree branch as well as wounding his body thoroughly. After this the associate got completely infuriated and dashed towards him with the intention of wrestling the crap out of him. Rama, seeing his never ending perseverance to kill him, sought to finish him once in for all. He then took two to three steps back, unleashed his Brahmadandam (a staff), and swayed him around so as to be able to electrocute him as by snookering it onto his chest. After which the associate died.
Side Note: Based on the description given by Valmiki about the Brahmadandam, we inferred that it must be something to do with electric discharge, as he associated it with Maghava (an epithet of Indra) where Indra is known to be the possessor of the thunderbolt, which is actually based on electric discharge. Valmiki's description is given below:
ततः पावक संकाशम् वधाय समरे शरम् |
खरस्य रामो जग्राह ब्रह्म दण्डम् इव अपरम् || ३-३०-२४
स तत् दत्तम् मघवता सुर राजेन धीमता |
संदधे च स धर्मात्मा मुमोच च खरम् प्रति || ३-३०-२५
स विमुक्तो महाबाणो निर्घात सम निःस्वनः |
रामेण धनुरायम्य खरस्य उरसि च आपतत् || ३-३०-२६
स पपात खरो भूमौ दह्यमानः शर अग्निना |
रुद्रेण एव विनिर्दग्धः श्वेत अरण्ये यथा अन्धकः || ३-३०-२७
स वृत्र इव वज्रेण फेनेन नमुचिर् यथाअ |
बलो वा इन्द्र अशनि हतो निपपात हतः खरः || ३-३०-२८
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