Aranyakanda: The Hub of the Wheel of Srimad Ramayana, source: www.prekshaa.in, access date: July 22, 2022.
03. Aranya Kanda
First revision: Jul.22, 2022
Last change: Nov.2, 2024
Searched, Gathered, Rearranged, Translated, and Compiled by Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
The Araṇyakāṇḍa
The epic’s third book recounts the dramatic events that occur during the long years of Rāma exile in the forest (araṇya). The prince and his two companions have now pushed on into the Daṇḍaka forest, a wilderness peopled only by pious ascetics and fierce rākṣasas. The former appeals to Rāma to protect them from the depredations of the latter, and he promises to do so. Near the beginning of the book, Sītā is briefly carried off by a rākṣasa called Virādha in an episode that prefigures her later abduction by Rāvaṇa, the central event of the book and the pivotal episode of the epic.
Picture in room 23: Phraya (prince) Duṣṇa and Phraya (prince) Trishira take their troops out to fight with Rāma. Rāma kills Phraya Duṣṇa and Trishira, balcony showing paints in The Emerald Buddha Temple, Bangkok, taken on July 2, 2023.
Rāma and Sītā, source: pinterest.com, access date: November 12, 2023.
Rāma (acted by Phabas) and Sītā (acted by Kriti Sanon) from The Bollywood movie "Adipurush," source: Facebook, page "Prabhas Fans," access date: May 31, 2023.
While the three are dwelling peacefully in the lovely woodlands of Pañcavaṭī (ป่าปัญจวดี), they are visited by a rākṣasa woman, Śūpaṇakhā, the sister of the rākṣasa lord, Rāvaṇa. She attempts to seduce first Rāma and then Lakṣmaṇa, but failing in this; she tries to kill Sītā. The rākṣasa woman is stopped by Lakṣmaṇa, who, acting on his elder’s orders, mutilates her. She runs shrieking to one of her kinsmen, the powerful rākṣasa Khara (พญาขร), who sends a small punitive expedition of fourteen fierce rākṣasas against the princes. When Rāma annihilates them, Khara comes at the head of a large army of fourteen thousand terrible rākṣasas, but the hero once more exterminates his attackers. When these tidings come to the ears of Rāvaṇa, he resolves to destroy Rāma by carrying off Sītā. Enlisting the aid of the rākṣasa Mārīca (ม้ารีศ), the rākṣasa whom Rāma had stunned during the Bālakāṇḍa battle at Viśvāmitra’s ashram, the demon king comes to the Pañcavaṭī forest. There, Mārīca, using the rākṣasas’ power of shape-shifting, assumes the form of a beautiful golden deer to captivate Sītā’s fancy and lure Rāma far off into the woods to catch it for her. Finally, struck by Rāma’s arrow, the dying rākṣasa imitates Rāma’s voice and cries out as if in peril. At Sītā’s panicky urging, Lakṣmaṇa, disobeying Rāma’s strict orders to guard her, leaves her alone and follows him into the woods.
The Famous portrait by Raja Ravi Varma - "Rāvaṇa cuts off Jaṭāyus's wing while abducting Sītā," source: en.wikipedia.org, access date: Sep.19, 2023.
In the brothers’ absence, Rāvaṇa, assuming the guise of a pious Brahman mendicant, approaches Sītā and, after some increasingly inappropriate sexual comments, carries her off by force. Daśaratha’s old friend, the vulture Jaṭāyus, attempts to save her, but after a fierce aerial battle, he falls, mortally wounded. Sītā is carried off to Rāvaṇa’s island fortress of Lañkā, where she is kept under a heavy guard of fierce and bloodthirsty rākṣasa women.
Meanwhile, upon discovering the loss of Sītā, Rāma laments wildly and, maddened by grief, wanders through the forest, vainly searching for her and threatening the plants and animals if they do not return her to him. At length, pacified by Lakṣmaṇa, and after meeting several beings who have been cursed to become rākṣasas, he is directed to the monkey prince Sugrīva at Lake Pampā. This brings the Araṇyakāṇḍa to a close.
In addition to its narrative centrality, the Araṇyakāṇḍa, like the Kiṣhkindhākāṇḍa, that follows it, has several passages of great poetic beauty in which the seasonal changes in the forest are described. Further, as noted by several scholars, it differs sharply from the preceding book in leaving the relatively realistic world of political intrigue in Ayodhyā for an enchanted forest of talking birds, flying monkeys, and fearsome rākṣasas with magical powers.
References:
01. from. "The Illustrated Ramayana: The Timeless Epic of Duty, Love, and Redemption," ISBN: 978-0-2414-7376-4, Penguin Random House, 2017, Printed and bound in China, www.dk.com.
02. from. "The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki - THE COMPLETE ENGLISH TRANSLATION," Translated by Robert P. Goldman, Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Rosalind Lefeber, Sheldon I. Pollock, and Barend A. van Nooten, Revised and Edited by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, ISBN 978-0-6912-0686-8, 2021, Princeton University Press, Printed in the United States of America.
