Ravana's Renewed Resolve for War

Ravana's eighteen thousand queens come weeping together: while he sat absorbed in meditation, the foolish Angada, Sugriva's sinful son, insulted them before his eyes. Ravana consoles them: he will kill the wretch, at dawn he will strike off Sugriva's head, Rama and Lakshmana are mere land-dwelling worms, the wicked Vidyadharas gathered round them he will destroy, and now that the Bahurupini vidya is his, no foe can stand before him.

Ravana comes out of the temple amid music, song and dance, and women bathe him from pitchers of gold, gems, elephant-pearls, crystal and sapphire covered with banana leaves, and with fragrant substances. Adorned, he worships Shantinatha again, eats the four kinds of fine food in the dining hall, then goes to the pleasure ground to test the vidya, assuming wondrous forms beyond any Vidyadhara's power and shaking the earth with blows of his fists, so that the Vanaras in Rama's camp fear death is upon them.

His ministers tell him that none but he can conquer Raghunatha and that he alone should face Rama in battle. Creating an illusory army with the vidya, Ravana descends from the Pushpaka vimana with his ministers at the garden where Sita sits, and her Vidyadhara maids warn her that he comes burning with desire like an elephant rushing to a lake in the heat of summer.

Seeing Ravana armed with the Bahurupini vidya, Sita trembles and prays that she may never hear of the death of her lord Rama, her brother-in-law Lakshmana, her brother Bhamandala, her husband's well-wisher Hanuman, or anyone in the army. Ravana admits he sinned in carrying her off by deceit, unworthy of the Kshatriya clan, blames mighty moha, and says that, bound by a vow taken before Anantavirya Swami never to take by force another's wife who does not desire him, not even an Urvashi or a Rambha, he has only sought her favour; now his arrows will slay Rama and Lakshmana, and she should roam with him in the Pushpaka to Sumeru, the shrines of the five Merus, forests, rivers and lakes.

Covering her ears, Sita begs in a choked voice: if he and her lord ever exchange blows in battle, let him not kill Rama before delivering her message: ‘O Padmanabha, Bhamandala's sister says that, crushed by grief at your separation, her life lasts only as long as yours, flickering like a lamp in the wind; O son of King Dasharatha, Janaka's daughter says again and again that only the longing to see you keeps her alive.’ Saying this, she falls in a faint.

Ravana's heart softens: the love of Rama and Sita is beyond destroying, and he curses himself for parting such a couple and staining his clan, pure as the moon, with a deed none of his line had ever done; another man's wife is like poison, and Sita now seems to him a pot of poison and worthless straw, wholly devoted to Rama. He recalls that his learned brother Vibhishana foresaw all this and counselled him, but he hated him instead; yet after such a war and so many deaths friendship would be unfit for warriors, returning Sita would make him look weak, and fighting means great violence.

He resolves to disarm Rama, who has the lion vidya, and Lakshmana, who has the Garuda vidya, capture them alive and then give them great wealth, winning fame without sin. But remembering Angada's outrage his eyes redden: ‘That Sugriva is no Sugriva but Durgriva, I will make him Nigriva (headless); I will cleave him and his son Angada in two with the Chandrahasa sword; the one they call Bhamandala (halo of light) is Tamomandala (halo of darkness), I will bind him and beat him with iron maces; I will saw Hanuman apart; Rama alone is just and I will spare him, but I will crush the whole Kapi army.’

Hundreds of portents arise: the sun looks sharp as a weapon, the full moon sets, the earth shakes beneath his seat, meteors fall, jackals howl, horses neigh tossing their necks, elephants beat the ground with their trunks, tears flow from the eyes of Yaksha images, crows caw facing the sun, lakes dry up and blood rains down, all foretelling the death of Lanka's lord within days. Gautama says that when merit is spent even Indra cannot escape death; though learned in polity and grammar, Ravana is blinded by pride, dreaming of freeing Kumbhakarna, Indrajit and Meghanada and wiping out the Vanara line and the land-dwellers so that Tirthankaras, Chakravartis, Baladevas and Narayanas would be born only in Vidyadhara clans like his.