The ten-headed king of Rakshasas, Ravana, his heart consumed with sorrow and rage, summoned his celestial chariot and bade it drive into the ranks of Rama. “I shall avenge,” he declared, “the fall of my loyal and puissant generals—I shall wipe clean the tears of Lanka with rivers of vengeance.” But in his pride, he did not see: the tree named Rama, mighty and still, had borne Sita as its golden fruit, and around her grew the branches of Sugriva, Jambavan, Kumuda, Nala, Mainda, Dvivida, Angada, Gandhamadana, Sushena, Hanuman, and other sacred twigs, Vanaras born not of earth, but of faith. “This tree I shall uproot,” swore the demon, “and bury in the layers of endless sorrow.” And so, wrath and pride mingling like fire and oil, he hurled himself toward the scion of the Ikshvaku race, Rama, son of Dasaratha.
As the divine chariot rolled, its thundering wheels roared across the sky and shattered the stillness of the earth. Beasts fled in terror, birds lost their flight, and a dread wind swept the battlefield. Then, from Ravana’s grasp burst forth the Tamasa-astra, born of darkness and blessed by Brahma himself. Wherever it fell, it reduced monkey and demon alike to ashes. Dust rose in clouds, thick as night, as the trampling of feet—men, beasts, chariots—scattered it like a carpet over the plain.
Rama stood firm, his great bow in hand. His eyes, like twin lotus petals touched with dawn, surveyed the ruin. Lakshmana stood beside him, resolute. The Vanaras, fear-stricken and scattered, looked toward their Lord, whose countenance shone with purpose. Rama, in whom strength was grace and resolve unshaken, readied his bow. The demon king approached, swollen with ego and the thunder of past glories, and beheld Rama—neither fearful nor flinching, but still as Dharma itself, awaiting none but Truth.
Then Rama struck his bowstring. A thunderclap echoed, shaking the sky. Lightning seemed to crack from the taut string. Ravana answered with a storm of arrows. As the twanging of Rama’s bow met the zoom of Ravana’s shafts, the earth itself trembled, and some demons fled as though the quake of Time had come. Ravana entered the arrow-realm of Rama and Lakshmana like Rahu swallowing Surya and Chandra. Soumitri, ever valiant, loosed a hail of shafts upon Ravana, but the king of Rakshasas broke them mid-air, his archery fierce and divine. One against one, three against three, ten for ten—their arrows shattered in the firmament like stars clashing in a void.
Now, spurning Lakshmana, Ravana turned fully upon Rama and let fly a torrent of arrows, each ablaze with anger and ancient might. But Rama, swift and calm, plucked Bhalla-arrows from his quiver and loosed them with such speed they devoured Ravana’s shafts in air, as serpents gulping hapless frogs. The two titans, masters of bowcraft, rained arrows so thick that they fell in heaps, covering the field like funeral pyres. The wind itself found no path to pass between their shafts. The sky grew dark, not with night, but with the storm of weaponry. The earth below vanished beneath trampling foot and grinding wheel, and the heavens above were veiled by a canopy of death.
None could near the two. Their clash was like that of Indra and Vritra, inaccessible even to gods. Both bore the marks of ancient instruction, the legacy of ages, and each was the axis of his lineage. Wherever they moved, arrows flew like waves struck by tempest, rising and falling with deadly rhythm. Then Ravana, tormentor of three worlds, loosed a cruel barrage aimed at Rama’s brow. His arrows, black as midnight lotus, circled Rama’s crown like thorns on a saint. Rama responded. Sanctifying the Roudra-astra, he let it fly with calm fury. Ravana, undeterred, met it with the Asura-astra, from which flew weapons of every shape—axes, sickles, pestles, tridents, swords—all of which Rama’s arrows, now like leaping lions and soaring eagles, devoured and broke.
Thrown into a frenzy, Ravana invoked dark enchantments, his arrows twisted with the effigies of serpent and jackal, pig and ghost, rooster in battle, and crocodile in wait. But Rama’s Pavaka-astra met them, a flame of righteousness that consumed illusion and incantation. Fire met shadow, and light prevailed. Then Rama unleashed another volley—his shafts now adorned with the signs of fire, sunbeam, crescent moon, meteors, planets, stars, and thunderbolts. Ravana struck them down in the sky, yet the splinters fell and crushed demons and monkeys alike. Still again Ravana tried his art of black sorcery, but Rama’s virtue-rendered missiles turned spell to ash. The war-sages and champions who watched gave breathless praise to Rama’s might, which even Ravana, pride incarnate, could not answer for a moment.
Thus raged the battle. Time itself stood to watch. The heavens leaned near; gods, rishis, siddhas, Gandharvas, and unseen eyes peered at the earth’s stage. For though two forms appeared in the war—one clothed in cloth, another in crowns—it was Dharma and Adharma that had come to judgment. It was wrath and justice, threat and assurance, poison and nectar, both clothed in flesh. The causes were contrary, the powers equal. In this balance lay the wheel of fate. Nature, neither swayed nor still, held its breath to behold the war of titans.
