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Yuddha Kand · Episode 5
Ravana's Shakti fells Lakshmana; Hanuman cannot tell the herbs apart and brings back a whole mountain peak.
A retelling of Valmiki's Ramayana, not a translation. Where a later tradition adds to the story, we mark it.
Ravana had come out to fight, and his first spear was meant for Vibhishana, his brother who had joined Rama. Lakshmana stepped in and cut that spear down with three arrows.
Ravana turned on Lakshmana. "This spear will leave only after taking your life," he said, and he hurled it -- the unfailing spear, the Shakti, made by Maya the demon-architect, blazing, hung with eight bells.
Rama cried out that it might prove useless. It did not. The spear pierced Lakshmana's chest, and he fell.
Rama embraced his brother, drew the spear out and broke it. Then, even as he grieved, he fought on until Ravana fled the field.
Rama turned to Sushena, the vanara physician, and gave way to his grief.
"Wives may be found in every land," Rama said, "and kinsmen too. But a brother born of the same womb -- such a brother I cannot find anywhere."
Sushena looked closely at the fallen prince.
"His face has not changed," he said. "His heart is beating. Lakshmana is alive."
Then he spoke to Hanuman, who stood nearby, and told him where to go: to the mountain of healing herbs, Mount Oushadhi, also called Mahodaya, which Jambavan had already described to Hanuman. On its southern peak grew the Vishalyakarani, the Savarnakarani, the Sanjivakarani and the Sandhanakarani.
Hanuman leapt into the sky.
(A later tradition, not Valmiki's, names the mountain Dronagiri.)
He reached the mountain, but he could not tell which plants were the herbs. He thought it through. Sushena had said they grew on this peak, and delay could be dangerous.
So he took hold of the peak and shook it three times, tore it from the earth, and sprang up into the sky with it.
He set the peak down. "I have brought the whole peak," he told Sushena, "because I could not identify the herbs."
The vanaras and the gods who were watching were astonished.
Sushena drew out the herbs, crushed them, and had Lakshmana breathe them in through his nose. Lakshmana rose, free of the spear and free of pain.
"Come, come," Rama said, and he embraced his brother, weeping. Then he said that victory, Sita and his own life held no purpose for him without Lakshmana.
Lakshmana's own answer was about the war. He urged Rama to keep his vow and kill Ravana before sunset.
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