Ravana’s brother in Janasthana
Khara is a rakshasa of the Ramayana, a brother of Ravana and of Shurpanakha, and the lord of the rakshasas who hold Janasthana, in the forest where Rama spends his exile. He is in the poem for about a dozen sargas of the Aranyakanda, and nearly all of them are one battle. His name comes into the story before he does. In the Ayodhyakanda a hermit tells Rama why the ascetics around him are afraid: a rakshasa named Khara, Ravana’s younger brother, has driven out all the ascetics who live in Janasthana (2.116.11). He eats men, the hermit says, and he cannot bear Rama. Griffith’s version calls him “Rávaṇ’s brother, overbold”, who “looks with special hate on thee”.
When Shurpanakha meets Rama in the forest and tells him whose sister she is, Khara comes at the end of her list of brothers, paired with Dushana, and the Sanskrit calls the two of them brothers (3.17.23). Griffith gives them one line: “Dúshaṇ and Khara, brave and bold”. It is to Khara that she runs after Lakshmana has cut off her nose and ears. She finds him in Janasthana “With chieftains of the giant crew In thousands ranged around”. He asks who has done this to her, and boasts that no one in all the worlds would dare to anger him, “Not Indra’s self, the Thousand-eyed”. She names the sons of Dasharatha, Rama and Lakshmana, and the woman who is with them. Khara sends fourteen rakshasas to kill all three. Rama kills the fourteen with fourteen arrows.
She comes back and falls at his feet. In the twenty-first canto he asks why she is weeping again, when he sent the bravest of his giants with her, and she answers with the taunts that send him to war. She tells him that he cannot stand against Rama hand to hand. She calls him “hero but in name” and “Shame of thy race!”, and tells him that if he cannot kill Rama he should leave: “Away from Janasthán, away!” The Sanskrit names him her brother in the same sarga (3.21.6). The twenty-second sarga opens on what her words have done.
The fourteen thousand
He boasts to her first. Rama, he says in Griffith’s version, is a “Weak man whose days are quickly told”, and he will lie dead on the plain before sunset. She praises him, and he turns to his general.
तया परुषितः पूर्वं पुनरेव प्रशंसितः। अब्रवीद् दूषणं नाम खरः सेनापतिं तदा॥ ७॥ चतुर्दश सहस्राणि मम चित्तानुवर्तिनाम्। रक्षसां भीमवेगानां समरेष्वनिवर्तिनाम्॥ ८॥ नीलजीमूतवर्णानां लोकहिंसाविहारिणाम्। सर्वोद्योगमुदीर्णानां रक्षसां सौम्य कारय॥ ९॥ उपस्थापय मे क्षिप्रं रथं सौम्य धनूंषि च। शरांश्च चित्रान् खड्गांश्च शक्तीश्च विविधाः शिताः॥ १०॥ अग्रे निर्यातुमिच्छामि पौलस्त्यानां महात्मनाम्। वधार्थं दुर्विनीतस्य रामस्य रणकोविद॥ ११॥ इति तस्य ब्रुवाणस्य सूर्यवर्णं महारथम्। सदश्वैः शबलैर्युक्तमाचचक्षेऽथ दूषणः॥ १२॥ तं मेरुशिखराकारं तप्तकाञ्चनभूषणम्। हेमचक्रमसम्बाधं वैदूर्यमयकूबरम्॥ १३॥ मत्स्यैः पुष्पैर्द्रुमैः शैलैश्चन्द्रसूर्यैश्च काञ्चनैः। माङ्गल्यैः पक्षिसङ्घैश्च ताराभिश्च समावृतम्॥ १४॥ ध्वजनिस्त्रिंशसम्पन्नं किंकिणीवरभूषितम्। सदश्वयुक्तं सोऽमर्षादारुरोह खरस्तदा॥ १५॥ खरस्तु तन्महत्सैन्यं रथचर्मायुधध्वजम्। निर्यातेत्यब्रवीत् प्रेक्ष्य दूषणः सर्वराक्षसान्॥ १६॥ ततस्तद् राक्षसं सैन्यं घोरचर्मायुधध्वजम्। निर्जगाम जनस्थानान्महानादं महाजवम्॥ १७॥ मुद्गरैः पट्टिशैः शूलैः सुतीक्ष्णैश्च परश्वधैः। खड्गैश्चक्रैश्च हस्तस्थैर्भ्राजमानैः सतोमरैः॥ १८॥ शक्तिभिः परिघैर्घोरैरतिमात्रैश्च कार्मुकैः। गदासिमुसलैर्वज्रैर्गृहीतैर्भीमदर्शनैः॥ १९॥ राक्षसानां सुघोराणां सहस्राणि चतुर्दश। निर्यातानि जनस्थानात् खरचित्तानुवर्तिनाम्॥ २०॥ तांस्तु निर्धावतो दृष्ट्वा राक्षसान् भीमदर्शनान्। खरस्याथ रथः किंचिज्जगाम तदनन्तरम्॥ २१॥ ततस्ताञ्छबलानश्वांस्तप्तकाञ्चनभूषितान्। खरस्य मतमाज्ञाय सारथिः पर्यचोदयत्॥ २२॥ संचोदितो रथः शीघ्रं खरस्य रिपुघातिनः। शब्देनापूरयामास दिशः सप्रदिशस्तथा॥ २३॥ प्रवृद्धमन्युस्तु खरः खरस्वरो रिपोर्वधार्थं त्वरितो यथान्तकः। अचूचुदत् सारथिमुन्नदन् पुन- र्महाबलो मेघ इवाश्मवर्षवान्
“First moved to ire by taunts and stings, Now soothed by gentle flatterings, To Dúshaṇ, who his armies led, The demon Khara spoke, and said: “Friend, from the host of giants call Full fourteen thousand, best of all, Slaves of my will, of fearful might, Who never turn their backs in fight: Fiends who rejoice to slay and mar, Dark as the clouds of autumn are: Make ready quickly, O my friend, My chariot and the bows I bend. My swords, my shafts of brilliant sheen, My divers lances long and keen. On to the battle will I lead These heroes of Pulastya’s seed, And thus, O famed for warlike skill, Ráma my wicked foeman kill.” He spoke, and ere his speech was done, His chariot glittering like the sun, Yoked and announced, by Dúshan’s care, With dappled steeds was ready there. High as a peak from Meru rent It burned with golden ornament: The pole of lazulite, of gold Were the bright wheels whereon it rolled. With gold and moonstone blazoned o’er, Fish, flowers, trees, rocks, the panels bore; Auspicious birds embossed thereon, And stars in costly emblem shone. O’er flashing swords his banner hung, And sweet bells, ever tinkling, swung. That mighty host with sword and shield And oar was ready for the field: And Khara saw, and Dúshan cried, “Forth to the fight, ye giants, ride.” Then banners waved, and shield and sword Flashed as the host obeyed its lord. From Janasthán they sallied out With eager speed, and din, and shout, Armed with the mace for close attacks, The bill, the spear, the battle-axe, Steel quoit and club that flashed afar, Huge bow and sword and scimitar, The dart to pierce, the bolt to strike, The murderous bludgeon, lance, and pike. So forth from Janasthán, intent On Khara’s will, the monsters went. He saw their awful march: not far Behind the host he drove his car. Ware of his master’s will, to speed The driver urged each gold-decked steed. Then forth the warrior’s coursers sprang, And with tumultuous murmur rang Each distant quarter of the sky And realms that intermediate lie. High and more high within his breast His pride triumphant rose, While terrible as Death he pressed Onward to slay his foes, “More swiftly yet,” as on they fled, He cried in thundering tones Loud as a cloud that overhead Hails down a flood of stones.” — Valmiki, Ramayana 3.22.7–24, tr. Griffith
The first verse gives the order of events, तया परुषितः पूर्वं पुनरेव प्रशंसितः: treated harshly by her first, then praised again. Griffith makes it “taunts and stings” and “gentle flatterings”. Khara speaks to Dushana, whom the verse calls सेनापतिं, the commander of his army, and asks him for चतुर्दश सहस्राणि, fourteen thousand. The fourteen whom Rama killed at his hut have become fourteen thousand, and the poem will not let the number go. It comes again as the host marches, राक्षसानां सुघोराणां सहस्राणि चतुर्दश, and again when the host is dead. They follow his will, they never turn back in battle, they take their pleasure in hurting the world, and they are नीलजीमूतवर्णानां, the colour of dark rain clouds; Griffith makes the clouds autumn’s. Khara asks for his chariot, bows, arrows, swords and spears, and says why he wants them. अग्रे निर्यातुमिच्छामि पौलस्त्यानां महात्मनाम्: I wish to go out at the head of the high-souled descendants of Pulastya, to kill the ill-behaved Rama.
Dushana has the chariot brought while Khara is still speaking, and the poem spends four verses on it. It is सूर्यवर्णं महारथम्, a great chariot the colour of the sun, yoked with fine dappled horses. It is shaped like a peak of Meru, with golden wheels and a pole of vaidurya stone, which Griffith calls lazulite. Fish, flowers, trees and rocks cover it, with moons and suns of gold, flocks of auspicious birds and stars, and it is ध्वजनिस्त्रिंशसम्पन्नं किंकिणीवरभूषितम्, furnished with a banner and swords and hung with fine bells. Khara mounts it in anger. Then the host goes out of Janasthana with a great noise and at great speed, with hammers and axes, discs and lances, iron bars, bows and maces, and the next verse counts it again: fourteen thousand.
The verse after that undoes his boast. खरस्याथ रथः किंचिज्जगाम तदनन्तरम्: then Khara’s chariot went a little way behind them. The rakshasa who said he would go out at the head goes out at the back, and Griffith keeps it: “not far Behind the host he drove his car.” His charioteer drives on the gold-decked horses, and the noise of the chariot fills the quarters of the sky.
The last verse of the passage gives Khara his name twice. प्रवृद्धमन्युस्तु खरः खरस्वरो: Khara, his anger grown, harsh-voiced. As a Sanskrit adjective, khara means harsh or sharp, and the poet puts the name and the epithet side by side. He hurries रिपोर्वधार्थं, to kill his enemy, a single enemy, and he hurries यथान्तकः, like Antaka, the Ender, who is Death. He roars at his charioteer to go faster, like a cloud that rains stones. Griffith keeps the cloud and keeps Death, “terrible as Death he pressed”, but he turns the one enemy into “his foes” and the harsh voice into “thundering tones”.
One man on foot
The next sarga is full of bad omens, and among them Khara’s horses stumble. Rama meets the host alone. The commander dies first. In Griffith’s twenty-sixth canto Dushana sends five thousand rakshasas against Rama, and when they fall he comes himself. Rama cuts his bow apart and kills his horses and his driver, and when Dushana runs at him on foot with a mace plated with gold, Rama cuts off both his arms with two arrows (3.26.13–15). Three captains come at Rama next and die, and then the rest of the host.
चतुर्दशसहस्राणि रक्षसां भीमकर्मणाम्। हतान्येकेन रामेण मानुषेण पदातिना
“Thus twice seven thousand fiends, a band With impious heart and bloody hand, By Raghu’s son were overthrown, A man, on foot, and all alone.” — Valmiki, Ramayana 3.26.35, tr. Griffith
The verse is a count, and it ends on three words for what Khara is not. चतुर्दशसहस्राणि, the fourteen thousand once more, रक्षसां भीमकर्मणाम्, rakshasas of terrible deeds, हतान्येकेन रामेण, were killed by Rama, by one, मानुषेण पदातिना, by a man, on foot. Khara came out with fourteen thousand. He is a rakshasa, and he came in the great chariot that the poem took four verses to describe. Griffith keeps all three words.
The next verse counts who is left, and it counts Rama among them. तस्य सैन्यस्य सर्वस्य खरः शेषो महारथः: of all that army Khara was left, the great chariot-fighter, and the rakshasa Trishiras, and Rama, the destroyer of enemies. Griffith follows it: “Khara, great chief, survived the fray”. Every other rakshasa lies dead at the front of the battle, killed लक्ष्मणस्याग्रजेन, by Lakshmana’s elder brother. The word महारथ does double work. In the march it was the great chariot itself, and here it is the man who fights from one. Khara looks at the host of terrible strength that a stronger one has killed, and he drives at Rama in his great chariot, समाससादेन्द्र इवोद्यताशनिः, like Indra with his thunderbolt raised. Griffith has “Like Indra when his arm is bared His thundering bolt to cast”. In Griffith’s nineteenth canto Khara boasted that not even Indra would dare to anger him. Now the poem gives him Indra’s weapon for a simile.
Before he reaches Rama, Trishiras stops his chariot and asks to go first. In Griffith’s twenty-seventh canto he swears on his sword that he will kill Rama or die, and he tells Khara to watch the fight from far off. Khara lets him go. Rama shoots down his horses, his driver and his banner, and then, with three arrows, his three heads (3.27.17–18). The few rakshasas still alive run to Khara “like trembling deer”, and he rallies them and drives at Rama again.
The mace and the sala tree
When Khara sees Dushana and Trishiras dead, Griffith’s twenty-eighth canto says, “Fear o’er the giant’s spirit came”. Then he fights well. He is a skilled archer, he drives here and there across the field, and his arrows darken the sky. Rama strings a great bow that Griffith calls “Lord Vishṇu’s own”, a gift from Agastya, and shoots down the banner of the chariot. Khara’s arrows wound him in the chest, and Rama answers by taking the chariot apart: four arrows for the dappled horses, one for the yoke, one for the driver, three for the poles, two for the axle, and one for the bow in Khara’s hand. In Griffith it takes thirteen arrows to undo the chariot that the poem spent four verses on, and the last of them goes into Khara. “Down sprang the giant, mace in hand, On foot against the foe to stand” (3.28.32). He ends the battle as Rama began it.
Rama reproaches him for the hermits he has killed in the Dandaka forest and promises him death. Khara answers that the truly brave do not boast. He holds up his mace and says that he stands before Rama “As Death, the universal lord, Stands threatening with his fatal cord”. Before the sun sets, he says, the fourteen thousand who have fallen will have their tears wiped away. He throws the gold-ringed mace, and it flies like a burning thunderbolt and scorches the trees as it passes. Rama cuts it apart with arrows, and it falls to the ground in Griffith’s simile “Like a great snake in furious mood By herbs of numbing power subdued” (3.29.15–28). Rama mocks him over the broken mace (3.30.1–12), and Khara answers him.
तमेवमभिसंरब्धं ब्रुवाणं राघवं वने। खरो निर्भर्त्सयामास रोषात् खरतरस्वरः॥ १३॥ दृढं खल्ववलिप्तोऽसि भयेष्वपि च निर्भयः। वाच्यावाच्यं ततो हि त्वं मृत्योर्वश्यो न बुध्यसे॥ १४॥ कालपाशपरिक्षिप्ता भवन्ति पुरुषा हि ये। कार्याकार्यं न जानन्ति ते निरस्तषडिन्द्रियाः॥ १५॥ एवमुक्त्वा ततो रामं संरुध्य भृकुटिं ततः। स ददर्श महासालमविदूरे निशाचरः॥ १६॥ रणे प्रहरणस्यार्थे सर्वतो ह्यवलोकयन्। स तमुत्पाटयामास संदष्टदशनच्छदम्॥ १७॥ तं समुत्क्षिप्य बाहुभ्यां विनर्दित्वा महाबलः। राममुद्दिश्य चिक्षेप हतस्त्वमिति चाब्रवीत्॥ १८॥ तमापतन्तं बाणौघैश्छित्त्वा रामः प्रतापवान्। रोषमाहारयत् तीव्रं निहन्तुं समरे खरम्॥ १९॥ जातस्वेदस्ततो रामो रोषरक्तान्तलोचनः। निर्बिभेद सहस्रेण बाणानां समरे खरम्॥ २०॥ तस्य बाणान्तराद् रक्तं बहु सुस्राव फेनिलम्। गिरेः प्रस्रवणस्येव धाराणां च परिस्रवः॥ २१॥ विकलः स कृतो बाणैः खरो रामेण संयुगे। मत्तो रुधिरगन्धेन तमेवाभ्यद्रवद् द्रुतम्॥ २२॥ तमापतन्तं संक्रुद्धं कृतास्त्रो रुधिराप्लुतम्। अपासर्पद् द्वित्रिपदं किंचित्त्वरितविक्रमः॥ २३॥ ततः पावकसंकाशं वधाय समरे शरम्। खरस्य रामो जग्राह ब्रह्मदण्डमिवापरम्॥ २४॥ स तद् दत्तं मघवता सुरराजेन धीमता। संदधे च स धर्मात्मा मुमोच च खरं प्रति॥ २५॥ स विमुक्तो महाबाणो निर्घातसमनिःस्वनः। रामेण धनुरायम्य खरस्योरसि चापतत्॥ २६॥ स पपात खरो भूमौ दह्यमानः शराग्निना
“And Khara, as his wrath grew high, Thus thundered forth his fierce reply: “By senseless pride to madness wrought, By danger girt thou fearest naught, Nor heedest, numbered with the dead, What thou shouldst say and leave unsaid. When Fate’s tremendous coils enfold The captive in resistless hold, He knows not right from wrong, each sense Numbed by that deadly influence.” He spoke, and when his speech was done Bent his fierce brows on Raghu’s son. With eager eyes he looked around If lethal arms might yet be found. Not far away and full in view A Sál-tree towering upward grew. His lips in mighty strain compressed, He tore it up with root and crest, With huge arms waved it o’er his head And hurled it shouting, Thou art dead. But Ráma, unsurpassed in might, Stayed with his shafts its onward flight, And furious longing seized his soul The giant in the dust to roll. Great drops of sweat each limb bedewed, His red eyes showed his wrathful mood. A thousand arrows, swiftly sent, The giant’s bosom tore and rent. From every gash his body showed The blood in foamy torrents flowed, As springing from their caverns leap Swift rivers down the mountain steep. When Khara felt each deadened power Yielding beneath that murderous shower, He charged, infuriate with the scent Of blood, in dire bewilderment. But Ráma watched, with ready bow, The onset of his bleeding foe, And ere the monster reached him, drew Backward in haste a yard or two. Then from his side a shaft he took Whose mortal stroke no life might brook: Of peerless might, it bore the name Of Brahmá’s staff, and glowed with flame: Lord Indra, ruler of the skies, Himself had given the glorious prize. His bow the virtuous hero drew, And at the fiend the arrow flew. Hissing and roaring like the blast Of tempest through the air it passed, And fixed, by Ráma’s vigour sped, In the foe’s breast its pointed head. Then fell the fiend: the quenchless flame Burnt furious in his wounded frame.” — Valmiki, Ramayana 3.30.13–27, tr. Griffith
The verse that introduces the speech uses the name again. खरो निर्भर्त्सयामास रोषात् खरतरस्वरः: Khara reviled him in anger, in a harsher voice. खरतरस्वरः, harsher-voiced, is the comparative of the word that the poem set beside his name in the march, खरः खरस्वरो. Griffith has him thunder. What Khara says is a warning that fits him better than it fits Rama. You are arrogant, he says, fearless even in danger, and in the power of death you do not know what should be said and what should not. Men bound in the noose of Time, कालपाशपरिक्षिप्ता, do not know what to do and what not to do, because their six senses are gone. Griffith’s Fate has “tremendous coils”.
Then he looks around for a weapon and sees, महासालमविदूरे, a great sala tree not far off. He pulls it up by the roots, biting his lips, lifts it in both arms, roars, and throws it at Rama with two words, हतस्त्वमिति, you are killed. Griffith keeps them: “Thou art dead”. Rama cuts the tree down with floods of arrows. Then the poem looks at Rama. जातस्वेदस्ततो रामो: Rama, sweating now, his eyes red at the corners with anger, pierces Khara with a thousand arrows. Khara, maddened by the smell of blood, runs straight at him, and Rama gives ground. अपासर्पद् द्वित्रिपदं: he stepped back two or three paces. Griffith measures it as “a yard or two”.
The last arrow has no name in the Sanskrit. Rama takes up an arrow पावकसंकाशं, like fire, ब्रह्मदण्डमिवापरम्, like a second staff of Brahma. Griffith turns the simile into a name, and his arrow “bore the name Of Brahmá’s staff”. The next verse says where it came from: दत्तं मघवता सुरराजेन, given by Maghavan, the king of the gods, who is Indra. Khara drove at Rama like Indra with his thunderbolt raised, and he dies by Indra’s gift. The arrow goes out with a sound like a thunderclap and strikes him in the chest. स पपात खरो भूमौ दह्यमानः शराग्निना: Khara fell to the ground, burning in the fire of the arrow.
Griffith’s next lines set the fall beside old deaths: Andhaka burned by Rudra, Namuchi and Vritra killed by bolts, and Bala struck down by lightning. The gods beat their drums and rain flowers on Rama. The Sanskrit says that the fourteen thousand, with Khara and Dushana at their head, were killed in a muhurta and a half (3.30.30–31), and in Griffith it is less than “three short hours”. Lakshmana comes out of a mountain cave with Sita, and she embraces Rama.
After Janasthana
One rakshasa of the host gets away. In Griffith’s thirty-first canto Akampana runs to Lanka and tells Ravana that “Khara the chief is slain”. Shurpanakha follows, and in the thirty-fourth canto she tells Ravana how the fourteen thousand fell to the arrows “Which Ráma shot on foot, alone”. When Ravana tells Maricha his plan to carry off Sita, Maricha tries to talk him out of it with the same battle. Khara went to fight “For Śúrpaṇakhá’s sake”, Maricha says, and died by Rama’s hand, and he asks Ravana what wrong Rama has done him. Ravana answers that he will take Sita “From Khara’s cruel murderer”.
The war at Lanka keeps his name. When Kumbhakarna faces Rama, he warns him, in Griffith’s words, that he has met “No Khara, no Virádha”. Ravana sends out Makaraksha against Rama, and when Rama’s arrow kills him, the Sanskrit calls him Khara’s son (6.79.41). Griffith, who passes over his two cantos, names him “the son of Khara who was slain by Ráma in the forest”.
When Ravana lies dead, his queen Mandodari goes back to Janasthana in her lament. When his brother Khara was killed there with many rakshasas around him, she tells the dead king, then Rama was not a man (6.111.16–17). In Griffith, “No mortal was the unconquered foe In Ráma’s form who struck the blow.” The verse that counted the dead at Janasthana said that they were killed मानुषेण पदातिना, by a man, on foot. At the end of the war, for Ravana’s widow, the same battle is the proof that he was not one.