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Continued from yesterday’s instalment
 Lakshmana was perplexed. He could find no reason why the celestials, headed by Indra should come in war with them. He turned to Hanuman.
'anuman vaaL mugam nOkkinan, aazhiyai agatrith thanu valam koNda thaamaraik kaNNan thambi.' Lakshmana, the younger brother of the One who left the Ocean of Milk and walked the earth with bow in hand, turned to Hanuman.
'munivar vaanavar munindhu vandhu eydha yaam muyandra thuni idhu en kolO?' What could be the harm that we had done to the sages and celestials that they have come to fight with us?
'solludhi viraindhu.' (I am not able to understand.) Do tell me quickly.
Even as he was speaking these words to Hanuman, Indrajit, finding the opportune moment when Lakshmana's attention was totally diverted, fired the Brahmastra from behind the clouds. Like the bombs of the present days that are impregnated with thousands of splinters that are thrown out when the bomb explodes, innumerable arrows burst forth from the Brahmastra.
'kOdi kOdi nUraayiram vem kaNaik kuzhaangaL mUdi mEniyai mutrurach chutrina,' says the Poet. Arrows several hundred thousand crores in number burst forth and enveloped one and all, with Lakshmana at the centre. Lakshmana lost his consciousness and fell down on the ground.
Hanuman, who was listening to Lakshmana moments ago roared forth, shouting, 'Why would Indra do this?' and the very next moment he was overpowered by the enormous destructive energy that Brahmastra dispelled all around.
It is my duty to clarify a point here. When we were discussing the
'naagaastra' incident, one of our readers, Mr. Ganesh Sivasubramaniam (gsivasubramaniam@siebel.com) raised a very valid point. I quote from his mail: "Why is that when Indrajit strikes Lakshmana from above in the clouds it is seen as a bad thing, while Rama did the same thing in his battle with
Vali?"
 The reasons for killing Vali from behind the tree have been discussed very elaborately and they need no reiteration here and it won't serve any purpose to go over the arguments once again, when they are readily available. In the first place, in the Vali incident, it was not a battle between Vali and Sri Rama. In the second place, these two incidents cannot be compared because, Rama did not vanish from the sight of his opponent
in the course of the battle, giving the appearance of a retreat and then resorting to an attack when the enemy is totally unprepared. Indrajit did precisely this.
Indrajit did not have the compunction that Rama and Lakshmana had in the use of Brahmastra. We do not question that. But Indrajit did not have the temerity to resort to the use of the divine weapon, right in the presence of his enemy. He tricked Lakshmana into believing that he had retreated and then when the attention of Lakshmana was diverted, he employed the divine weapon. This is where the chivalry of Indrajit sinks low by any standards.
We are going to see in our later instalments how Lakshmana faced the use of the same divine weapon, Brahmastra, when Indrajit used it against him once again. Indrajit was not man enough to fight Lakshmana face-to-face even when resorting to the use of divine missiles. And when he did so, Indrajit became so totally a different personality. He went to the extent of pleading with his father to send Sita back. Kindly bear with me till we study those scenes.
More follows...
Published on 22nd May 2002
Hari Krishnan
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