Wikipedia Trails from Lakshmana to Mandhatri
Lakshmana
We remember Lakshmana from the Ramayana as the brother of Rama and a key character in the epic itself. Something interesting I found out is that Lakshmana apparently had a lot of different names, such as "Ramanuja," "Saumitra," "Laxman," and "Bharatanuja." He also had a younger brother that I don't remember that well from the epic, Shatrughna.
Shatrughna
He is the youngest brother of Rama and according to Wikipedia, he is also the twin brother of Lakshmana. Something I always found interesting was how key characters in epics are almost always considered avatars of gods. In this case, he is "one half of Vishnu," Lakshmana being the other half apparently.
Lavanasura
We remember Lakshmana from the Ramayana as the brother of Rama and a key character in the epic itself. Something interesting I found out is that Lakshmana apparently had a lot of different names, such as "Ramanuja," "Saumitra," "Laxman," and "Bharatanuja." He also had a younger brother that I don't remember that well from the epic, Shatrughna.
Shatrughna
He is the youngest brother of Rama and according to Wikipedia, he is also the twin brother of Lakshmana. Something I always found interesting was how key characters in epics are almost always considered avatars of gods. In this case, he is "one half of Vishnu," Lakshmana being the other half apparently.
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| A depiction of Shatrughna. Source: Wikimedia |
One thing I do know is that Shatrughna slew the demon Lavanasura, which led me here. I wanted to share a really wonderful sentence from Wikipedia concerning his death: "Later, Shatrughna removed the special arrow that Rama had given him. As Shatrughna strung his bow, the whole universe started to tremble. He struck Lavana right in the heart taking out his life-breath" According to Wikipedia, there was another king that opposed Madhu, who is the topic of discussion next.
Mandhatri had an interesting birth. The king of Ayodhya at the time had drunk from a sage's water that he had made specifically so that his wife could conceive, so then the king became pregnant with a son... who he gave birth to a century later apparently. The boy also grew fast; within twelve days he was already a twelve-year-old. Something else that was interesting about Mandhatri was that he apparently conquered the world and ruled everything, but he was not satisfied so he desired to conquer heaven, but Indra then revealed that he had indeed not conquered the entire earth yet... Lavanasura was not under his rule. So Mandhatri went and fought Lavanasura, but Lavanasura had a divine trident from Shiva so he could not be conquered. Thus Mandhatri died at Lavanasura's hands.
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