Chapter 84 — Valmiki's Hearth

After the army had been sent ahead, Shatrughna remained a month upon the road, then went on alone and swiftly. Two nights later he reached Valmiki's hermitage. He bowed to the rishi and asked permission to stay only until morning; his brother's work called him westward.

Valmiki smiled. “This hermitage belongs to the house of the Raghavas,” he said. “Accept its seat, its water, and its welcome without hesitation.” Shatrughna accepted fruit and roots, then noticed the traces of an old sacrificial ground near the hermitage: a place once large enough for royal rites, now quiet beneath grass and weather.

“Whose sacrifice stood here?” he asked.

Valmiki told him of Mitrasaha, also called Saudasa, a king of Shatrughna's own line and son of Sudasa. When still young, Mitrasaha hunted and found two rakshasas in tiger form tearing through the forest's animals. He killed one. The other watched, threatened revenge, and vanished.

In time Mitrasaha became king and began a great horse sacrifice under Vashishta's care. At its end the surviving rakshasa took Vashishta's appearance and demanded a meat dish. The king, believing his teacher had asked for it, ordered it prepared. Then the rakshasa disguised himself as the cook and brought human flesh to the king's offering.

Vashishta recognized it at once. In anger he cursed Mitrasaha: because the king had meant to serve him human food, such food would become the king's own fate. Mitrasaha and his queen Madayanti fell before him and told him what had happened. Vashishta understood that a shape-changing enemy had deceived them.

The curse could not simply be withdrawn. But Vashishta limited it to twelve years and granted that, when the period had passed, Mitrasaha would not remember what he had endured. After the curse's course, the king returned to his rule and protected his people again.

“This,” Valmiki said, “is the sacrifice whose ground you asked about.”

Shatrughna heard the hard story of an ancestor whose fault had been tangled with deception. Then he bowed to Valmiki and withdrew into the leaf dwelling prepared for him. Beyond its walls, the hermitage settled into night.