Шурпанакха

The bottom right corner shows Surpanakha’s nose being cut by Lakshmana

Шурпана́кха — одна из ключевых героинь древнеиндийского эпоса «Рамаяны», сестра демонического правителя Ланки Раваны. Шурпанакха явилась причиной череды событий, которая привела к войне и смерти Раваны.

Шурпанакха была младшим ребёнком мудреца Вишравы и его второй жены, Кайкеси. При рождении ей дали имя Минакши («рыбьеглазая»). Шурпанакха имела необыкновенно уродливую внешность, но при этом обладала мистическими способностями и могла по желанию принимать любую форму. Шурпанакха вышла замуж за асуру Душтабуддхи, который вначале пользовался большим влиянием при дворе Раваны, но вскоре был убит им из-за своего чрезмерного властолюбия. Овдовевшая Шурпанакха стала проводить своё время между Ланкой и лесами Южной Индии, где она периодически навещала своих родственников асуров. Однажды она встертила в лесу молодого царевича Айодхьи Раму и немедленно привлеклась его прекрасной внешностью. Рама отверг её притязания, заявив о своей безраздельной преданности Сите and that he would never take another wife. Rama then slyly suggested that she approach his younger brother, Lakshmana, with her proposition. Lakshmana reacted in a similar manner, deriding Soorpanaka and telling her that she was not what he desired in a wife. Realizing eventually that the brothers were making fun of her, the humiliated and jealous Soorpanaka attacked Sita but was thwarted by Lakshmana, who cut off her nose and sent her back to Lanka.

Soorpanaka reacted by going straight to Ravana’s court and extolling Sita’s virtues and beauty, praising Sita as a worthy wife for Ravana, and inciting him to abduct her by force and marry her. Ravana, despite advices to the contrary from his brother, Vibhishana, kidnapped Sita resulting in the Ramayana war.

There are a few versions of the Ramayana that claim that Soorpanaka had no real romantic interest in the brothers and that she had orchestrated the war for no reason other than to seek revenge against Ravana for her husband’s murder. After many years of scheming for his downfall, she realized that Ravana had more than a match in Rama, the young Prince of Ayodhya. Rama had killed both her grandmother, the ferocious Thataka, and her uncle, Subahu. Her cousins were terrified of the young Prince and Soorpanaka decided to pit her brother against Rama, knowing that no one else was powerful enough to slay Ravana. Accordingly, she orchestrated her encounter with Rama, the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana and the resulting war between Ravana and Rama, all with the sole intention of having her brother killed.

Although Soorpanaka is not mentioned in the Ramayana again and Valmiki does not comment on her eventual fate, it has been suggested that she continued to live at her brother Vibhishana’s court, when he succeeded Ravana as King of Lanka. She, and her half-sister, Kumbini, are supposed to have both perished at sea a few years later.

Valmiki’s description of Soorpanaka:

• An ugly woman (gora mukhi), pot bellied and cross-eyed.
• Thinning, brown hair.
• A grating voice that is harsh on the ears.
• Oversized breasts—which can be translated to mean a heart full of wickedness.

Kamban’s description of Soorpanaka:

The Tamil poet, Kamban, however differs in his description of Soorpanaka from Valmiki, describing Soorpanaka instead as a very beautiful woman with long, beautiful, fish-shaped eyes (validating her given name of «Meenakshi» at birth), a slender shape and a bewitching personality. In addition, she possessed magical powers and could assume any shape or form and his version of the Ramayana asserts that she put these powers to good use when she first approached Rama with her marriage proposal. Rama, however, divined the real Soorpanaka and decided to play with her for a while before letting her down and declining her proposal. In any case, Soorpanaka was at least middle-aged at the time she met the young Rama and would have appeared as «old» and «haggardly» to the prince.

References

• Valmiki. «Ramayana: Aranya Kandha».

External links

• http://www.neoncarrot.co.uk/h_article/ramayana_art3.html