Chapter 10 — Parashurama

The morning after the weddings, Vishvamitra took leave of Janaka and Dasharatha. His charge had brought the princes from Ayodhya to Mithila; it had led them through danger and placed Rama before the bow. Now it was finished. The sage went north toward the mountains, and the two kings parted with honor.

Janaka gave wealth with the daughters: cattle, cloth, gold, elephants, horses, chariots, foot soldiers, and attendants for the new households. Neither the scale of a royal marriage nor the movement of persons and property it entailed was hidden. Then Dasharatha set out for Ayodhya with his sons, his new daughters-in-law, the sages, and the great company that followed a king.

At first the road carried them quietly away from Mithila. Then birds began to cry harshly on every side. Animals of the ground moved around the party to the right. Dasharatha saw both signs and felt his heart shake.

He asked Vashishta what they meant.

“A grave danger is near,” Vashishta said. “The birds announce it. But the animals moving to the right announce that it will be calmed. Do not let fear rule you before its time.”

Even as they spoke, wind rose with violent force. The earth trembled. Trees fell. Sunlight disappeared under darkness and dust; ash seemed to cover the whole company. Dasharatha, his sons, and the sages remained aware within that confusion, while others stood as if stunned.

Out of the darkness came a figure hard to look upon: a man with matted hair, an axe over his shoulder, a bow bright as lightning, and an arrow in his hand. Dust and darkness seemed to travel with him, while the weapon's brightness cut through them. The sages knew him at once. He was Rama, son of Jamadagni, of the Bhargava line—Parashurama, as he would be called for the axe he bore.

At his arrival the sages spoke quietly among themselves. They remembered the violence bound to his name. He was a brahmin, a member of the hereditary priestly order, and yet after his father had been killed he had made war upon the kshatriya order, the warrior and ruling order that a brahmin was born to counsel rather than to fight. Had that old anger returned? Would he turn once more against kings and their sons?

They went to meet him with offerings of welcome. He accepted them. Then he looked past Dasharatha and fixed his attention on Dasharatha's eldest son.

“Rama, son of Dasharatha,” he said, “I have heard of your strength and of the bow you broke. I have brought another bow. String it, fit this arrow to it, and show me your power. If you can do so, I will give you the combat you have earned.”

Dasharatha came forward with his hands joined. The threat stood before his son, who had only just returned from the road with Vishvamitra and become a husband.

“You laid down your weapons,” the king said. “You gave the earth to Kashyapa and went to Mahendra. Give safety to my sons. If Rama alone is killed, none of us will remain alive in any true sense.”

Parashurama did not answer him. He spoke to Rama alone.

“There were two great bows, both made by Vishvakarman,” he said. “One was given to Shiva, the destroyer of Tripura, and that is the bow you broke. The other belonged to Vishnu. The gods once wished to know the strength of the two deities and set opposition between them. In their struggle, Vishnu's sound stilled Shiva. The gods judged Vishnu's power greater, and Shiva in anger gave his bow to Devarata of the Videha line.

“Vishnu gave this other bow to Richika, my ancestor. Richika gave it to my father Jamadagni, and my father left it to me. When a king killed him, I took vengeance. I overcame the warrior order again and again, then gave the earth to Kashyapa at the end of a sacrifice. Kashyapa told me that I could not dwell in land he had received. So I made my home on Mahendra. When I heard that Shiva's bow had been broken, I came at once.”

He held out Vishnu's bow.

What Parashurama brought was not only a weapon. It carried the force attached to his account: vengeance, conquest, renunciation, and the austere power won after all of them. The challenge placed that history before the young prince who had broken the other bow.

Rama heard him without answering. Then anger rose in him—not at the tale of Jamadagni, but at being judged weak before the whole company. He took the bow and the arrow from Parashurama's hands. In a motion too quick for the watching company to follow, he set the string and fitted the arrow.

“I know what you did for your father,” Rama said. “I honor you as a brahmin, and I honor the bond between you and Vishvamitra. I will not loose an arrow to take your life. But this arrow cannot be wasted. Choose. Shall it destroy the power by which you move swiftly, or the worlds you have won through austerity?”

The company stood still. Gods and sages gathered to see what would happen. Parashurama's strength seemed to leave him as he looked at Rama holding the drawn bow.

Then he understood. The challenge he had brought as a test had revealed a power he could recognize but no longer oppose.

“I know you,” Parashurama said. “You are Madhusudana, the slayer of Madhu.”

He had recognized Vishnu in the prince before him: the god who had entered Dasharatha's household as four sons, standing now as the eldest of them.

“I gave the earth to Kashyapa and do not remain on it by night,” he continued. “I must be able to go at once to Mahendra. Take instead the worlds I gained through austerity. Let the arrow fly.”

Rama released it. The arrow took the realms Parashurama had gained through ascetic labor. It did not take his life, his movement, or the path by which he could leave. The darkness lifted from the directions. The gods and sages praised Rama, and Parashurama, having circled him in honor, departed by his own swift power for Mount Mahendra.

Rama gave Vishnu's bow into the keeping of Varuna, lord of the waters. Then he went to Dasharatha, who had watched in fear. The king embraced his son, as if he had received him back from death.

The company turned again toward Ayodhya.

When they reached the city, its roads had been prepared for their arrival. Kausalya, Sumitra, Kaikeyi, and the other women of Dasharatha's household came to receive Sita, Urmila, Mandavi, and Shrutakirti. The brides entered the house of their husbands amid blessings and celebration.

The journey from Mithila was over. The princes had returned not only as sons who had gone away with a sage, but as husbands whose lives had become bound to another royal house. Rama had met a power shaped by injury and restraint, received its challenge, and answered without taking the challenger's life.