Indrajit and the Nagapasha

The deadliest warrior of Lanka was not Ravana himself but his son Indrajit, also called Meghnad, who had defeated Indra, king of the gods, and won from him the name Indrajit, “conqueror of Indra”. A master of celestial weapons and of maya, the power of illusion, he could fight unseen and call upon astras no other warrior possessed. His use of one of them, the serpent-noose Nagapasha, gave the Ramayana one of its darkest and most striking hours.

The unseen archer

Indrajit went to battle hidden by illusion, shrouding himself in cloud and darkness so that none could see from where his arrows came. From this unseen place he loosed weapon after weapon upon the vanara host and upon Rama and Lakshmana, who could not strike back at an enemy they could not find.

The serpent-noose

Then Indrajit invoked the Nagapasha, the dread weapon of the serpents. Out of his bow flew a net of living snakes that wound themselves around Rama and Lakshmana, binding them from head to foot and sinking them into a deathlike swoon. The two princes fell senseless upon the field, their bodies coiled in serpents, and a great cry of despair went up from the vanara army, for it seemed the war was lost.

The coming of Garuda

As the brothers lay bound, the sky grew bright with a rush of wings. Garuda, the mighty eagle who is the mount of Vishnu and the eternal foe and devourer of serpents, came at great speed to the field. At his very approach the snakes of the Nagapasha, terrified of their ancient enemy, uncoiled and fled, and Rama and Lakshmana rose, their strength and splendour restored. What no weapon of the vanaras could undo was undone in a moment by the coming of Vishnu’s own bird.

The fall of Indrajit

Indrajit remained Lanka’s greatest danger. He bound the brothers once more with the Brahmastra, and later created an illusion of killing a false Sita before the vanara host to break their spirit. His true strength, however, lay in a secret fire-sacrifice at the shrine of Nikumbhila, which, if completed, would make him invincible. It was the righteous Vibhishana, Ravana’s own brother, who revealed the secret, and Lakshmana, with Vibhishana and Hanuman, broke in upon the half-finished rite and, after a tremendous duel, at last slew Indrajit.

The meaning of the story

The episode of the Nagapasha is a lesson in the limits of even the greatest power. Indrajit, mightier than the gods, binds the heroes with a weapon none can break, and yet it is undone not by force but by Garuda, a sign of Vishnu’s own grace. And his final fall shows that dark power, however vast, is overcome when knowledge and righteousness, in the person of Vibhishana, stand on the side of dharma.