Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa Vadha

The Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa episode is told in the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa. It is also known by the names Ahīrāvaṇa and Mahīrāvaṇa in some traditions. Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa were two mighty asuras who ruled pātāla, the world below. They carried off Rāma and Lakshmaṇa in the dead of night and took them to pātāla as an offering to Devī Kāmākshī. Hanumān went down to pātāla, found out the plot, and by himself rescued Bhagavān Rāma and Lakshmaṇa after a series of great adventures. One of them was finding his own son, Makara-dhvaja.

The abduction

Rāma, Lakshmaṇa and the vānara army were camped outside Laṅkā. Rāvaṇa called Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa up from pātāla. They were very powerful asuras, hard to kill even for the devas. Rāvaṇa told them how the battle stood and asked for their help. He asked them to carry off Rāma and Lakshmaṇa so that his enemies would be made helpless.

Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa came to Laṅkā, talked it over with Rāvaṇa, and made a plan. In the deep of night, while the vānara soldiers slept, they used their māyā (magic power) to pass through the camp.

Hanumān had made a ring of protection around the sleeping Rāma and Lakshmaṇa with his tail. The two asuras saw that all the vānaras were asleep. They flew up into the sky and then came down into the middle of the camp, onto the boulder where Rāma and Lakshmaṇa lay asleep. They seized Rāma and Lakshmaṇa together with the boulder they lay on and swiftly carried them off to pātāla.

Two pigeons tell the truth

Hanumān searched in despair for the missing Rāma and Lakshmaṇa. Then he overheard two pigeons, a cock and a hen. The hen was expecting young and longed for naramāṃsa (human flesh). She had asked her mate to bring her some.

The cock said he had seen Airāvaṇa and Mairāvaṇa bring two godlike men to pātāla to be offered to Kāmākshī in the temple of the devī there. Once they were offered, he said, their flesh would be there to eat. Hanumān heard this and knew where Rāma and Lakshmaṇa were. He began his way down to pātāla.

Makara-dhvaja

At the gate of pātāla a mighty figure stopped Hanumān. It was half monkey and half fish. It asked who he was and where he came from. Hanumān said he was a messenger of Rāma. The gate-guardian asked in return, “Is Añjanī’s son Hanumān well?”

Hanumān was amazed. He asked how the guardian knew of Hanumān and why he asked about him. The guardian answered that he was Makara-dhvaja, the son of Hanumān himself.

This was the wonderful truth. When Hanumān burned Laṅkā and then cooled his tail in the ocean, the heat of his body made some bodily fluid fall into the sea. A great fish, a makara, swallowed it. From it Makara-dhvaja was born, half vānara from Hanumān and half makara from his fish mother. He grew up in pātāla, and Airāvaṇa and Mairāvaṇa made him the gate-guardian.

Hanumān first bound Makara-dhvaja, his own son, with his tail, so that the guardian could not act. Then he went on into pātāla.

The rescue from the temple

Inside pātāla, Hanumān found the temple of Devī Kāmākshī. Rāma and Lakshmaṇa had been brought there to be offered as bali (an offering). The two asuras had gone to Laṅkā to fetch more things for the rite. Hanumān went into the temple and saw Rāma and Lakshmaṇa dressed with flowers and with their bows, made ready as the offering.

Hanumān made himself very small, only thirty paramāṇus in size. He went into the temple and bolted it from inside. Then he spoke in what seemed to be the voice of the devī: “The worship must be done through the gavāksha window (the small opening). Send the offerings through the gate, with flowers and food.”

The asuras thought the devī herself was speaking. They sent great amounts of food and offerings through the window. Hanumān ate all of it and said his hunger was not yet satisfied. When all the food in the city was gone and the people were starving, Rāma and Lakshmaṇa were sent through the gate as the “offerings” the devī had asked for. The moment they came in, Hanumān embraced them, and all three came out of the temple together.

The secret of the nāga princess

Rāma and Lakshmaṇa came out and fought the asuras. Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa were killed again and again, and each time they came back to life.

Hanumān found out why. A colony of bees lived in the asuras’ sleeping room, and it had a special power. The asuras had once saved the bees from children who were tormenting them, by taking out the thorns that hurt them. In thanks, the bees had promised to protect the asuras from death. Drops of the bees’ amṛta-honey brought the asuras back to life each time they were killed.

Hanumān went to find the nāgakanyā (serpent princess) whom Airāvaṇa had kept by force. She told him the secret, on one condition: that Rāma would accept her as his wife in a later birth. Rāma promised that in her next life she would be born as a brahmin woman and do tapas (austerity) at the seashore for a long time. Then she would be born as Kanyākumārī, the virgin devī at the cape of Bhārata, and in the Dvāpara yuga she would be united with him at Dvārakā.

The nāga princess accepted. She at once walked into the fire, and her next birth was set.

The death of the bees and the asuras

Hanumān then went to the asuras’ sleeping place, found the bees and killed them. The source of the asuras’ deathlessness was gone. Rāma then killed Mairāvaṇa and Airāvaṇa for good with his arrows. With their deaths, he made Makara-dhvaja the new king of pātāla in their place.

Return to Laṅkā

Rāma, Lakshmaṇa, Hanumān and Makara-dhvaja went back to Laṅkā. The vānara generals had been worried to find Rāma and Lakshmaṇa gone, and they were overjoyed when they came back. Rāma told Sugrīva and the others everything.

Makara-dhvaja, king of pātāla

Makara-dhvaja gave his kingdom into the hands of his minister and went with Rāma, Lakshmaṇa and Hanumān back to Laṅkā. He carried Lakshmaṇa, who is Śesha himself, the great serpent, on his shoulders, just as Hanumān carried Rāma. After Rāma’s coronation at Ayodhyā, Makara-dhvaja was made the righteous king of pātāla by Rāma’s grace.

Sources

• Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Sāra Khaṇḍa, Sarga 11