So Rama went down to the edge of the water, just as Vibhishana had said. The sea stretched far away, deep and blue, all the way to Lanka.
He spread sacred kusha grass on the sand. He turned to the east and joined his palms to the Ocean.
Then Rama lay down on the grass, with his arm for a pillow, and waited for the Ocean to come and speak with him.
The first night passed. The waves came in and went out. But the Ocean did not come.
The second night passed. Still the Ocean did not come.
The third night passed. Rama had waited, and he had honoured the Ocean. Still there was no answer.
Rama stood up. “I have been gentle,” he said, “and the Ocean has not listened.”
“Lakshmana, bring me my bow.” Then Rama took up his great bow and raised it high, facing the sea.
The sky grew dark. The wind roared through the trees. Whoosh! The sea swelled up and rushed over its shore.
Then, from the middle of the sea, like the sun rising at dawn, the Ocean himself rose up. His name was Sagara, and he shone with pearls and jewels.
He joined his palms. “Rama,” he said, “the earth, the wind and the water each stay the way they were made. I was made deep and wide. I cannot make my water hard, like ground to walk on.”
“But I will help you cross. In your army is a monkey named Nala, the son of Vishvakarma, the builder of the gods. Let him build a bridge over me, and I will hold it up.”
Then the Ocean went back down into the waves.
Nala stood up. “The Ocean speaks the truth,” he said. “My father was a great builder, and I can build this bridge.”
So the monkeys leapt away to the forest, full of joy. They came back carrying trees and great big rocks.
Splash! Into the sea went the rocks. The water jumped up to the sky and came tumbling down again.
Some monkeys held long strings to keep the bridge straight. Some held poles to measure it. And Nala led them all.
Day after day, the bridge grew longer and longer across the sea.
On the fifth day, it reached the other shore! It shone across the sea like a path of stars in the sky.
The gods came to the sky to see it. The monkeys jumped and shouted for joy.
The bridge was finished. Rama, Lakshmana and Sugriva stood together at the end of it, and the whole army gathered behind them, ready to cross.
So the whole army crossed the sea. Some went along the bridge, some along its edges, and some splashed through the water!
On the far shore, near Lanka, they made their camp, where there was fruit and fresh water.
Rama had waited, the Ocean had answered, and many hands had made a way across. Next, Rama will send a message to the king of Lanka.
For grown-ups
Where this story comes from
This is the building of Rama's bridge, from the Yuddha Kanda, the sixth book of the Valmiki Ramayana. The story follows sargas 21 and 22. It is a faithful simplification. We shortened and skipped scenes, and we name them below. We did not add events, and we did not change anyone's reasons.
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Three things this telling leaves out, and why
- Rama's arrows (sarga 21; sarga 22, verses 1–5). After three nights, Rama asks Lakshmana for his bow and arrows and says he will dry up the ocean so the monkeys can walk across. He looses arrows that churn the sea and frighten the snakes and creatures in it, and then fixes an arrow charged with Brahma's own weapon. Left out because the harm to the sea creatures would frighten a child at bedtime. The story keeps what matters: Rama waited three nights first, then took up his bow, and then the Ocean came.
- “No farther!” (sarga 21, verses 33–35). Lakshmana takes hold of his brother's bow, and sages in the sky cry “No farther, no farther.” Left out because it belongs with the arrows above; told alone, it would change the order of what happened.
- Where the arrow went (sarga 22, verses 29–42). Rama says an arrow once set cannot be wasted, and asks where it should fall. The Ocean names a place to his north, Drumakulya (spelled Drumatulya on valmikiramayan.net), where fearsome robbers drank his waters. The arrow strikes there, the land becomes the desert of Maru, and Rama blesses it to be good land for cattle, with tasty fruits and roots, sweet-smelling herbs and little disease (verses 40–42). Left out because it is a long turn away from the bridge, and the burning land is not a bedtime picture.
- The squirrel, and the floating stones with Rama's name. Many families know a little squirrel who helped build the bridge, and stones that floated because Rama's name was written on them. These come from later tellings, not from Valmiki's sargas 21–22, so our pages and pictures have neither. In Valmiki, the Ocean promises to hold the bridge up, and Nala builds it.
We also compressed several things. The Ocean rises with snakes around him (sarga 22, verse 18); our picture shows only his jewels. Nala explains that Vishvakarma once promised his mother a son as skilled as himself (verses 49–50). Valmiki names the trees the monkeys brought (sala, bamboo, mango, ashoka and more), and counts the bridge day by day: 14, 20, 21, 22 and 23 yojanas, a hundred yojanas long and ten wide (verses 53–74). Vibhishana stands on the seashore with his ministers, mace in hand, ready to go against the enemy (verse 79); the translation we checked does not make clear which shore, so the story leaves the moment out. Sugriva offers Rama a ride across on Hanuman's shoulders, and Lakshmana on Angada's (verses 80–81); Valmiki then shows Rama going in front of the army with his bow, beside Lakshmana and Sugriva (verse 82), and our picture shows him walking there. And when the army has crossed, the gods sprinkle Rama with holy water and bless him (verses 86–87); the story ends with the army resting.
The question children ask here
“Why didn't the Ocean come when Rama asked nicely?” Valmiki tells it plainly:
- Rama honoured the Ocean and waited three nights, and the Ocean did not appear (sarga 21, verses 10–12);
- Rama said such gentle qualities give weak results with those who have no virtue (sarga 21, verse 14), and that the Ocean took his patience for weakness, thinking him unable to act because he was forbearing (sarga 21, verse 20);
- when the Ocean came, he said he could not change his own nature — he is fathomless and cannot make his waters hard — but he would help, and hold up a bridge (sarga 22, verses 25–28 and 45);
- and Nala says the Ocean gave way because he feared Rama's punishment (sarga 22, verse 48).
“Rama tried the gentle way first, and waited a long time. When the Ocean still did not come, Rama showed he was strong too, and then the Ocean helped him.”
A Sanatani Production
