Rama and Ravana meet each other chariots: Detechter
Seeing that his physical attacks were going nowhere, Ravana called upon his magical weapons and abilities to wage a second wave on Rama. Ravana shot a magical arrow called 'Danda', gifted to him by Shiva. It was capable of locking onto a target and pulverizing it into a thousand pieces, but Rama intercept the missile in mid-air, snapping the arrow. Then Ravana deployed 'Maya', a weapon that induced hallucinations and illusions on the battlefield. This weapon made it appear to be that all of the vanquished enemies began to rise again from death. Rama's army began to despair. They too had suffered terrible loses, yet they were apparently meant to defeat the same enemies twice and with a weaker force. Matali, Rama's charioteer, then guided Rama to tap into his own divinity and past lives, deploying his own weapon called 'Gnana' (meaning 'wisdom'). This rare weapon dispelled all the illusions and revealed them to be simply mirages. Next, Ravana deployed an asthra called 'Thama' who plunged the entire world into darkness. These arrows each also had heads with tongues of flame and fangs of sharp metal. They engulfed the world and Ravana was sure that this feat would arrest Rama's attention enough for him to destroy Rama's army. But, Rama immediately understood this newest attack, and deployed 'Shivasthra', a weapon that brought light into all the dark places in the world. This completely countered Thama and rendered it useless. Ravana then hefted one of his most deadly weapons, a trident empowered with destructive capabilities gifted to him by the gods. Today, we would say that this trident had the power of ten atomic bombs. Ravana launched this trident with deadly accuracy at Rama, who immediately understood the danger he was in. To counter, Rama deployed one of his most powerful tools, a single-use shield called 'Carminasthra' that had the ability to neutralize any attack that hit it, no matter how powerful. With this shield in hand, Rama braced himself and the trident hit the shield with a dull thud and dropped to the ground. It was at this moment that Ravana, before so sure of his victory, began to understand how formidable his opponent was, and both sides of the war could feel favor tipping to the side of Rama.
Ravana wield several different weapons against Rama on the battlefield: Quora
Author's Note: This week was a good palate cleanser for me. I decided to depart from the style of my previous two stories and go back to something more basic: a simple retelling with a few minor corrections. This story is based on the magical weapons wielded by Rama and Ravana against each other in their battle. I really enjoyed whenever Rama countered one of Ravana's attacks with the perfect magical counter, but sometimes the story did not justify quite how Rama was able to neutralize some of the attacks. One in particular, the trident, left something to be desired. In the original text, Narayan's Ramayana, Rama just uttered a mantra and the trident just suddenly stopped an inch from his chest. This was unsatisfying to me, because it felt like a copout instead of an actual counter. So in my version, I have Rama counter the trident with a weapon called 'Carminasthra', single-use invincible shield. 'Carmin' is the Sanskrit word for shield and it seemed fitting to me to name the tool something along the lines of its purpose.
Narayan, R. K. "The Ramayana"
Hi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that some of Rama's interceptions seemed to be a little played down in the original story. He really did save a lot of his troops from disaster quite a few times. I think you captured the story well and put in some points that were helpful for understanding the story.
You were able to explain how Ravana could carry each of the weapons he uses, but I wonder if you come up with a way to explain how Rama stores his counter-weapons. It doesn't seem to be very well explained in the Ramayana, but I think it could make for an interesting bit of information
If you were considering doing a story like this again, maybe you could try to split up the paragraphs. While you did a great job with re-telling the story, but splitting up the different parts by paragraph could make it easier on the reader to stay fully attentive to the whole story.
Hi Daniel!
ReplyDeleteGreat story! I think your writing was so enjoyable because you have a great word choice that made the story really detailed and kept me interested the whole time. Whenever I write retellings, I struggle to keep the story entertaining or different from the original, but you did a great job at both! I also liked that you elaborated on how Rama was able to defend himself during his battles. I am curious about what the ‘Maya’ weapon looked like, since it was used to induce hallucinations and illusions and not physical attacks, how was it used or deployed? There were also a lot of weapons used throughout this battle scene, and I’m wondering how they were able to access them so easily. Overall, really amazing story! The only I would suggest is possibly splitting the paragraphs to prevent the reader from getting lost or accidentally rereading lines.
Hey Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a really great job of retelling while still maintaining the integrity of this story. I liked how you explained what each weapon did in a way that was creative but still succinct. I also liked how you analyzed why each weapon was used in each battle exchange. By turning Rama's counterattack into a physical counter instead of a mantra, I could better visualize what was going on.