Lavana and Ankusha March on Ayodhya

One day Narada asks Kritantavaktra where he left Sita and, hearing it was the Simhanada forest, searches it in distress until he comes upon the two princes at play in a city. They rise and honour him, and he blesses them: may your fortune be like that of Rama and Lakshmana. They ask who Rama and Lakshmana are, of what family and with what virtues.

After a moment's silence Narada says no tongue could ever tell all their virtues, but describes King Dasharatha of the Ikshvaku line and his four sons, Rama's exile with Lakshmana and Sita, the battle with Kharadushana, Ravana's false lion roar and Sita's abduction, the Vidyadhara alliance, the conquest of Lanka and the heavenly Ayodhya where they now reign, Lakshmana holding the discus Sudarshana and seven jewels and Rama four, each guarded by a thousand gods.

Ankusha asks why Rama left Sita, and Narada, with tears in his eyes, tells of the chaste, learned and devout chief queen whom ignorant people slandered through the rising of her past karma, so that Rama in sorrow abandoned her in a fearful forest; he asks why the tongues of slanderers do not split into a hundred pieces. Ankusha says Rama did wrong, for there are many ways to end a public rumour and this is not the way of the noble, while Lavana asks how far it is to Ayodhya. Told it is a hundred and sixty yojanas, the brothers resolve to fight Rama and Lakshmana and order Vajrajangha to summon the kings of Suhma, Anga, Sindhu, Kalinga and other lands.

Hearing that her sons will fight Rama and Lakshmana, Sita weeps, and the kshullaka Siddhartha reproaches Narada for setting father against sons; Narada says he only blessed the boys and answered their question, and assures them all will end well. The twins ask their weeping mother who has wronged her, vowing to punish anyone who would play on a serpent's tongue. Sita tells them everything: Rama's family and her own, her marriage, the forest, her abduction and return, and how, because of the rumour, Rama left her in the Simhanada forest while they were in her womb and Vajrajangha took her home as an elder sister.

Proud to learn that their father is the great bowman who rules from the Himalaya to the sea, the brothers still vow to humble their father and uncle for abandoning her. Sita begs them to go with humility and bow to their elders, as right conduct demands, but they reply that their father has become their enemy and they cannot speak like cowards, though they die in battle. After worshipping the Jina and bowing to the Siddhas and to their mother, they mount an elephant and march on Ayodhya as Rama and Lakshmana once marched on Lanka.

The army moves a yojana a day without harming anyone, ten thousand workers levelling the road ahead, kings bringing gifts along the way and every soldier well fed and clothed. Passing through rich fields of wheat, barley, rice and sugarcane, they see Ayodhya shining in the distance with its golden walls, and Vajrajangha tells them it is the city where their father Rama reigns with Lakshmana and Shatrughna. They camp in a garden by the Sarayu, impatient to cross as a sage longs for the city of liberation.

Astonished that anyone has come to fight them, Rama and Lakshmana have Viradhita summon Sugriva and the Vidyadhara kings. When Bhamandala arrives in haste, Siddhartha and Narada tell him the invaders are Sita's sons; grieved and amazed, he flies to Pundarikapura, where Sita weeps and tells him all, and he consoles her that her merit is rising with her sins, but fears war between the boys and the unconquerable Baladeva and Narayana, and takes her with her daughters-in-law in his aerial car to the battlefield.

Rama, Lakshmana and Shatrughna ride out in anger with an ocean of an army, the general Kritantavaktra in front with his dark banner and five thousand kings including Simhodara, Balikhilya and Vajrakarna, while the twins lead eleven thousand kings of Anga, Vanga, Nepal, Barbara, Paundra, Magadha and Kalinga. Learning who the princes are, Bhamandala, Pavanavega, Hanuman and the other Vidyadharas withdraw, and seeing Sita on her aerial car they bow and stand aside as she trembles at the sight of the two armies.

Under Rama's lion banner and Lakshmana's Garuda banner the battle begins, and the twins come against them under plain flags. Lavana at once cuts down Rama's banner and breaks his bow; as Rama smilingly takes another, Lavana shatters his chariot, and Rama, mounting a new one, comes on blazing like the summer sun, while Ankusha fights Lakshmana in the same way, each breaking the other's weapons. The warriors fight with honour, sparing the fainting and the weak, sharing a fallen foe's shame or dropping weapons to wrestle the disarmed, and neither army gives ground.