The Valmiki Ramayana: Vol. 3 by Bibek Debroy

Author:Bibek Debroy
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9789387326286
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Published: 2017-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6(91)

Seeing that the intelligent Rama was enraged, all the beings were terrified and the earth trembled. The mountains, with their lions and tigers, quaked. The trees swayed. The ocean, the lord of the rivers, was agitated. Dense clouds thundered in the sky in harsh tones. Evil portents roared and manifested themselves in all the directions. On seeing that Rama was greatly angry, there were terrible omens. All the beings were terrified and Ravana was scared. The gods astride their vimanas, the gandharvas, the giant serpents, the rishis, the danavas, the daityas and the eagles roaming around in the sky witnessed the battle, which was like that of the world getting destroyed. Using many kinds of terrible weapons, those two brave ones fought against each other. All the gods and the asuras assembled in personified forms to witness the great encounter. Delighted, they spoke the following words. The asuras present said, ‘Victory to Dashagriva.’ The gods repeatedly said, ‘Victory to Rama.’

At that time, Ravana was filled with rage. Desiring to strike Raghava, the evil-souled one picked up a great weapon. Its essence was as hard as the vajra. It emitted a loud roar and was capable of scorching all enemies. It was as heavy as the summit of a mountain and it was extremely terrible to behold. Its sharp tip was filled with smoke and it was like the fire that engulfs at the end of a yuga. He seized this extremely terrible weapon, which even Death found difficult to approach. In its capacity to tear and shatter, it caused fear to all creatures. In his anger, Ravana seized this blazing spear. Extremely angry, the valiant one seized the spear in the middle. In the battle, he was surrounded by an army of brave rakshasas. Raising it in the battle, the one who was gigantic in size roared horribly, delighting his own soldiers. He was angry and his eyes were red. The earth, the sky, the directions and the sub-directions trembled at the terrible noise emitted by the Indra among the rakshasas. The evil-souled one emitted an extremely loud roar. All the creatures were terrified and the ocean was agitated. The extremely valiant Ravana seized that giant spear. He emitted an extremely loud roar and addressed Rama in these harsh words. ‘O Rama! This spear has an essence like that of the vajra. I have angrily raised it up. It will now take away your life, since you sought to help your brother. In front of the armies, you have slain brave rakshasas. You pride yourself in fighting. Today, I will swiftly kill you and balance affairs. O Raghava! Stay there now. I will kill you with this spear.’ Having said this, the lord of the rakshasas hurled the spear. As it descended, Raghava countered it with a storm of arrows, just as Vasava counters a fire of destruction that has arisen with a flood of water. Ravana’s giant spear was scorched by the arrows that emerged from Rama’s bow, just as insects are by a fire.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.