Chapter 105 - Rama arraigns Ravana and reproaches him for his Misdeeds

Grievously wounded by the wrathful Kakutstha, Ravana, that proud warrior fell into a great rage. His eyes flaming with anger, that titan raised his bow in a paroxysm of fury and in that great combat, overwhelmed Raghava with blows. Like unto a heavy shower, Ravana deluged Rama as clouds fill a pond. Drowned in a rain of arrows loosed from the titan’s bow in the fight, Kakutstha stood firm like unto a mighty mountain.

Then that hero, resolute in combat, with his shafts deflected the succession of darts which fell upon him like unto the rays of the sun. Thereafter, with a skilled hand, the ranger of the night, in fury, struck the breast of the magnanimous Raghava with thousands of darts and the elder brother of Lakshmana, covered with blood, looked like a huge Kimshuka Tree in flower in the forest. His wrath roused by the wounds he had received, the exceedingly powerful Kakutstha armed himself with shafts the lustre of which resembled the sun’s at the end of the world period; and Rama and Ravana, both transported with anger, became invisible to each other on the battlefield that was darkened by their shafts.

Thereafter at the height of fury, the valiant son of Dasaratha addressed his adversary in these mocking and ironic words:—

“Having carried away my consort against her will in Janas-thana, imposing on her ignorance, you are verily no hero! Bearing away by force, Vaidehi who was wandering forlornly in the great forest far from me, you think ‘I am a great hero 1’ Because you have molested other women who were without a protector, which is the act of a coward, you deemest thyself to be a hero, O Valiant One 1 O You who hast overthrown the ramparts of duty, O Arrogant Wretch of fickle nature, in thine insolence, you have invited death into thine house, saying ‘I am a hero!’ Is it in the role of the valiant brother of Dhanada that you, grown presumptuous on account of power, hast accomplished this memorable, great and glorious exploit? You shalt presently receive a fitting recompense for this infamous act. O Wretch, in thine own estimation, thinking to thyself ‘I am a hero,’ you wast not ashamed to bear Sita away like a thief. Had I been there when you didst affront Vaidehi, handling her so brutally, I should have dispatched you to rejoin your brother Khara by striking you down with my shafts. By good fortune, O Insensate One, you are now before me; to-day with my penetrating darts, I shall hurl you into Yama’s abode. To-day your head with its dazzling earrings, severed by my weapon, shall roll in the dust on the battlefield where the wild beasts will devour it. Vultures will swoop on your breast when you are lying stretched on the earth, O Ravana, and will drink the blood greedily that flows from the wounds inflicted by my sharp arrows. To-day pricked by my shafts, lying without life, birds of prey will tear out thine entrails as eagles destroy serpents I”

Speaking thus, the valiant Rama, scourge of his foes, covered that Indra among Titans, who stood near, with a hail of arrows, and his courage, strength and martial ardour in loosing his shafts was redoubled. Then all the celestial weapons belonging to Raghava, versed in the Science of the Self, presented themselves before him¹ and, in his joy, that illustrious hero felt the dexterity of his touch increase.

On these auspicious signs appearing of themselves, Rama, the Destroyer of the Titans, attacked Ravana himself with increasing violence.

Wounded by innumerable rocks thrown by the monkeys and the darts showered upon him by Raghava, Dashagriva’s heart fainted within him and, in the agitation of his soul, he neither took up his arrows nor stretched his bow nor sought to oppose Rama’s valour, while the arrows and missiles of every kind discharged unceasingly by his adversary had death as their target so that the hour of his doom appeared imminent.

Then his charioteer, observing the peril, drove the chariot calmly and slowly out of the fray and, aghast at the appearance of the king, who had sunk down bereft of energy, he turned that dreadful car, rumbling like a cloud, and left the battlefield in haste.