Individual verses with meanings
Hari Om.
Let us begin the fifty fifth sarga of the bAlakAnDam with offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
Sabala created an army which decimated viSwAmitra’s army and then the king himself fought back trouncing the army arising from the sacred cow. Onwards…
Seeing the forces so defeated by king kauSika, vasisTha ordered Sabala to create additional forces through its yOgic power to tackle kauSika. So ordered by her master, Sabala mooed thunderously and through that kAmbhOjas bright like the Sun emerged, from her udder paplavas emerged wielding weapons, from her posterior yavanAs and SAkas came out, from her follicles mlEchhas, kirAtas and hAritar were born. The variety of the mighty army so created by Sabala destroyed the entire infantry, cavalry and the elephants of the king. Seeing their lot so trounced, a hundred of viSwAmitra’s sons seething in anger charged at sage vasisTha! The radiant sage, just pronounced a hum kAra (the sound hum) at the charging sons of kuSika and all of them were burnt to ashes instantly! Seeing his entire army wiped out and his sons reduced to ashes by the power of sage vasisTha, the king felt deep humiliation. He went pale and was an embodiment of misery – looked verily like an ocean bereft of waves, snake bereft of it’s fangs and Sun with its splendor eclipsed!
समुद्र इव निर्वेगो भग्नदंष्ट्र इवोरग:।
उपरक्त इवादित्यस्सद्यो निष्प्रभतां गत:।।1.55.9।।
With loss of progeny and pride, viSwAmitra was dull, despondent and depressed. He delegated the rule of his kingdom to one of his sons and himself went to the forest near the himavath mountain to perform penance to propitiate lord Siva. In due course of time, the boon-conferring lord of the gods, mounting on the bull manifested and asked the king to spell out his desire that is making him undertake such penance.
The king prostrated in front of lord Siva and humbly asked, “O lord, if you are indeed pleased with me and want to grant my wish, please grant me the secrets of the science of archery with all the associated branches of it like the sAnga, pAnga and the upanishads. May the repertoire of weaponry which is accessible to the gods, demigods, Rshis and demons be always at my beck and call. The lord immediately granted his wish by saying “be it so” and vanished!
Armed with vast weaponry at his disposal, viSwAmitra swelled with pride like the sea on a full moon day and headed to vasisTha’s hermitage to extract revenge. He inflicted complete destruction on the hermitage and the forest in which the ascetics lives by virtue of his newly acquired weapons. Seeing this destruction unleashed by the king, the inmates of the hermitage fled in all directions and the ASram was deserted in no time. They were unmindful of reassuring words of vasisTha and dispersed.
The divine sage, foremost among the contemplators, came in front of viSwAmitra and chided him for his act of destruction of the ASram that was built over a long period of time. He then lifted up his shaft standing up to the weapon wielding viSwAmitra and flamed verily like a smokeless fire of dissolution and his shaft appeared like the shaft of death!
Here we conclude the fifty fifth sarga of the bAla kAnDam of SrImath vAlmiKi rAmAyaNam and humbly offer it at the lotus feet of SrIrAma. Hari: Om!
jAi SrIrAma.
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