War of Lanka (Ram Chandra #4)

by Amish Tripathi

Tacticians focus on tomorrow, intent on winning the immediate battle. Strategists obsess about the day after tomorrow. They must win the war. The rajguru of Ayodhya, Vashishtha, was thinking about the day after.

Some people say that focus requires a mind with a fearsome intellect. They are wrong. What it needs most, in fact, is a calmly breathing heart. For a fearsome intellect without the curb of a calm heart is like an unguided missile. It can blow up and destroy anyone, even itself.

Nothing in this universe can ever be perfect. Nothing can have all qualities. Gold has no fragrance; sugarcane has no fruit; and sandalwood has no flowers. But that doesn’t take away their beauty, does it?

Offence was the best defence.

Vedic people believed that, after death, the soul of the deceased remained on earth for thirteen days, till the funeral rites of the body it inhabited were completed. And then the soul crossed the mythical Vaitarni River to the land of the ancestors, pitralok. Pitralok was beyond the constraints of time and space. Three generations of ancestors remained in pitralok. And generations beyond either came back to earth for their next life, or attained moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirths.

‘As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”’

Remember the words of Sikhi Buddha: Grief is the ultimate reality of the universe.’

One dying wish of Raavan’s had been particularly difficult to implement. For he had demanded that Vibhishan not be made the king of Lanka. However, Ram had already given his word of honour to Vibhishan that he would be enthroned. Ram would never break his promise. But what do you do when two promises stand in contradiction to each other? The ever-pragmatic Bharat had found a solution. With the creative verbal skill of a lawyer, he had pointed out that Raavan had only demanded that Vibhishan not be made the king of all Lanka. So, they had partitioned Lanka. The coastal city of Gokarna and its surrounding regions were made an independent republic, to be administered by its entrepreneurial guilds and citizens in the democratic traditions established by the Shakyas, Vajjis and others in the Sapt Sindhu. Lanka was reduced to Sigiriya and the island’s west coast. And Vibhishan was crowned the king of this truncated region. Hence, with Bharat’s ingenuity, Ram had kept his word of honour given to Vibhishan, while also upholding the vow made to Raavan at the Duel of Indra.