The Hundred and Eighth Lotus

The war was nearly over, and Rama could not win it. Ravana had prayed to the Goddess, and she had been so moved by his praise that she had come to sit in his chariot, with the king of Lanka safe in her lap. No arrow could reach him there.

Rama saw her and threw his bow down. He bowed to her where she sat beside his enemy, and he did not know what to do next.

The gods knew. The Goddess could be won over, they said, but she would have to be woken first, and this was the wrong season. Her worship belongs to spring. It was autumn now, when the gods sleep. So Brahma himself came and woke her out of her time. That is the akal bodhan, the untimely waking.

Rama made her image in clay with his own hands, with ten arms. He set up the water jar, tied nine plants together into one bundle to stand for her body, and sang the songs of the Chandi to her. The monkeys brought him flowers from every forest on the island, and he worshipped her on the seventh day, on the eighth, at the joining of the eighth and the ninth, and on the ninth.

She did not come.

Rama wept. "What have I done wrong?" he asked.

"She wants a hundred and eight blue lotuses," said Vibhishana. "Nothing else will do. They grow in one lake only, at Devidaha."

"Then I will bring you all of them at one go," said Hanuman, and he was gone.

He came back with the lotuses in his arms and counted them out to Rama one by one. Rama began to lay them at the Goddess's feet, a lotus with each name. But she wanted to see what he would do, and before the count was finished she had quietly taken one away.

There were a hundred and seven.

Rama sent Hanuman back to the lake. Hanuman returned with nothing. "There are no more lotuses at Devidaha," he said. "Not one. I think the Goddess has hidden it."

Rama lay at her feet. "I have no lotus and no time," he said. "If the worship breaks, I will throw myself into the sea."

Then he remembered what people called him. Nilkamalaksha, the one whose eyes are blue lotuses.

"Both my eyes are blue lotuses," he said to Lakshmana. "I will keep my vow. I will give her one of them."

He took an arrow from his quiver and raised the point to his eye.

A hand caught his. It was Katyayani herself, standing in front of him.

"What are you doing, Rama?" she said. "You have worshipped me in clay, out of my season, with ten arms, and I am pleased. I give you Ravana. As for Sita, no one ever truly carried her off."

Rama finished the worship and sent the Goddess off on the tenth day. On that same day, the tenth of victory, he went out to fight Ravana.

In the Devi Bhagavata the battle has not yet begun. Rama is on the shore across the water from Lanka, grieving for Sita, when Narada comes down out of the sky with his lute, singing the Rathantara chant.

Narada brings news. Sita is safe. Indra sends her nectar every day, and milk from the cow of heaven, so that she does not starve. And Ravana's end was settled in another life, when Sita was a sage's daughter whom Ravana wronged and who cursed him for it.

"There is a vow for you," Narada says. "Keep it now, in this month of Ashvin. Fast for nine nights, worship the Goddess, say her mantra and feed the fire. Vishnu kept it, and Shiva, and Brahma. Indra kept it when he killed Vritra. Shiva kept it before he burned the three cities."

"Who is this Goddess?" Rama asks.

Narada tells him. She is the first power, from which the gods themselves come.

So Rama builds an altar on a hill, Narada sits as his priest, and Rama and Lakshmana fast for nine days and nights and worship her.

On the night of the eighth she comes, riding a lion, and speaks to them from on high in a voice like thunder in the clouds. She tells Rama who he is, a form of Vishnu born to end the demon's line. She tells him that Lakshmana, who is the serpent Shesha, will kill Ravana's son, and she promises Rama a long reign in Ayodhya afterwards. She asks to be worshipped in spring as well.

Then she is gone. On the tenth day Rama completes the worship of victory, takes leave of Narada, and starts building the bridge to Lanka.