Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

Author(s): Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 95

Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics
The word 'ireivan' also seems to have been sanskritized as 'Lavana'. 228 Lavana is the demon king of Madhura, and son of the demon Madhu and Viśvāvasu's daughter Kumbhinasi.229 He also has a lance obtained by his father from Lord Mahādeva,230 At the request of the sages troubled by this demon, Rāma dispatches Satrughna to kill him.231 The reason of making Śatrughna do this job is obvious. It is the sympathy for the neglected characters of a poem that prompts the redactors to make, not Rama, not Rama, Lakṣmaṇa or Lakṣmaṇa or Bharata232 all of whom have been shown to play important roles in the principal tale, but Satrughna perform the task. The episode of Lavanavadha occupies Sargas 52 to 63, and shows all the processes of the development of the epic on a smaller level. Thus, when Satrughna comes to the hermitage of Valmiki, a story of his ancestor Saudāsa Mitrasaha Kalmaṣapada is narrated. 233 Further on his way when he is conversing with the sages headed by Cyavana,234 the sage tells him the story of story of one more ancestor of the hero, Mandhätp235 by name, whom Lavana had killed. Now Śatrughna will kill Lavana who, in the morning, is said to be 'unweaponed' (agṛhltayudha). Does it not remind us of the ta'e of Anaranya vanquished by Ravana who, in turn, is vanquished by Rama, the descendent of Anaranya ? And the sages had already informed, while complaining about this demon, of his equipment with a lance which. his father obtained from Lord Mahadeva and which he eventually inherited. The imitation of the incidents of the main story is so close that, like Lakṣmaṇa, Śatrughna also falls unconscious236 and then regaining consciousness pierces the demon in heart, with an arrow, which then enters the underworlds and finally returns to the quiver of Satrughna.237 "Know this arrow to be made of the lustre of Lord Visnu and this same body was of that Visnu previously",238 (The ambiguity makes it possible to mean by 'body' both the arrow as well as Satrughna himself.) It was this arrow with which Visņu had killed the demons Madhu and Kaitabha.239 Now with the same arrow, Satrughna pierces the heart of Lavana, the son of Madhu. Does the poet ambiguously want to suggest that Satrughna also is an incarnation of Visņu?
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228 Cf. The famous axiom ra-la-yor abhedaḥ / Again, the phonemic affinity of r of
Tamil language to various phonemes like г, 1, d, !, z, etc. is well-known. 229 This Kumbhïnasi is the cousin sister of Ravana Cf.UK.25.
230 UK. 53.19-20.
231 UK. 54.15-16.
232 Mark Satrughna's words in UK. 54.11-14.
233 UK. 57.
234 UK. 58.14, 59.1.
235 UK. 59.
236 UK. 61.12-15.
237 UK. 61.34-35.
238 UK. 61.28. vide.
evam etam prajanidhvam vişnos tejomayam saram / ea caiva tanuḥ purvā viņos tasya mahätmanaḥ //
239 UK. 61,27,