Chapter 93 — Shambuka

The ascetic answered Rama without lowering himself from his ordeal.

“I was born a Shudra,” he said. “My name is Shambuka. I am performing this severe tapas because I desire to attain divinity while still in this body.”

He did not deny his birth group. He did not conceal the aim for which he had taken up the practice. The answer placed him precisely within the explanation Narada had given in Rama's council.

Rama drew his bright sword from its sheath and cut off Shambuka's head.

At that very moment, the dead child at Ayodhya returned to life.

The gods came to Rama and praised him. They offered him a boon. Rama did not ask for strength, wealth, victory, or a gift for himself. He asked for the one thing that had drawn him from Ayodhya: that the brahmin's son be restored.

The gods answered that the child had already come back to life.

There had been no hearing. Nothing passed between them beyond the name Shambuka gave and the purpose he named for himself. Above the still water the gods were praising the act, and far away a child was breathing, and Rama stood with the sword in his hand.

The father at the gate had his answer.

Rama continued on in Pushpaka until he came to the hermitage of Agastya. The sage received him with honor. After the violence and the vast search across the kingdom, the hermitage offered the ordered quiet of hospitality: a place for the guest to sit, a night to remain, and the promise of return by Pushpaka in the morning.

“You are welcome here,” Agastya said. “You are dear to me for your many great qualities. Stay this night with me, and at dawn go back to your city.”

Then the sage brought forth an ornament. It was radiant, made by Vishvakarma, the divine craftsman, and bright with its own splendor. He asked Rama to receive it as a gift.

Rama accepted it in accordance with the rite of giving. Yet he did not let the wonder of the object pass without question. It shone like the sun in his hands.

“This is astonishing,” he said to Agastya. “How did it come to you? Who brought it here?”

Agastya listened to the question. Then he began to prepare an answer from a time long before their meeting: another tale, nested within the present, whose beginning would carry Rama away from the lake, the gate, and the sorrow that had set him on the search.