जम्बुमालिवधः

At the command of Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, Prahasta's mighty son Jambumālin, with his great fangs, went out from the royal palace carrying a bow. He wore red garlands and red garments, a wreath and bright earrings; he was huge, with rolling eyes, fierce and hard to overcome in battle. His bow was great, like Indra's rainbow, and his arrows splendid, and when he drew it with force it twanged like the thunderbolt and the lightning, and the sound filled the quarters, the spaces between them and the sky. He came in a chariot yoked with asses. Seeing him arrive, Hanumān, full of speed, rejoiced and roared. After the Kiṅkaras were killed, Rāvaṇa sent no ordinary soldier but the son of Prahasta, his own commander-in-chief, a sign that he had grasped how serious the danger was. The red dress is the mark of eagerness for battle and of cruelty, and chariots drawn by asses are well known among the rākṣasas. Hanumān's delight shows that he wanted the fight and did not fear it: he was glad a strong enemy had come, because it gave him the chance to show greater strength. By describing the twang of Jambumālin's bow filling the quarters, the poet shows that his valour was no small thing, which makes Hanumān's victory the more glorious; the very name "son of Prahasta" suggests the honour of his family.

As Hanumān stood on the dovecote-ledge of the gateway, the mighty Jambumālin pierced the great monkey with sharp arrows: a crescent-headed arrow in the face, a single barbed arrow in the head, and ten iron shafts in the arms of that lord of monkeys. His coppery face, struck by the arrow, shone like a full-blown lotus in autumn pierced by a ray of the sun, and reddened with blood it shone like a great lotus in the sky sprinkled with drops of gold. The poet describes even the horror of battle through beauty: the wound itself becomes an adornment. In the first image his face is a lotus pierced by the sun's ray, in the second a lotus sprinkled with gold, and in both the face is the lotus and the blood is like gold. Jambumālin's arrows struck three places, the face, the head and the arms, yet Hanumān did not flinch. By saying his face shone even with wounds, the poet shows his fortitude: even pain did not dim his splendour, and standing on the gateway, he still did not leave his post.

Struck by the arrows, the great monkey grew angry with the rākṣasa. He saw beside him a huge, broad rock, and the mighty Hanumān tore it up with force and hurled it with speed; but the enraged rākṣasa smashed it with ten arrows, and it did no harm. Seeing that effort fail, Hanumān of fierce valour tore up a broad sāla tree and whirled it round. Seeing the mighty monkey whirling the sāla tree, the powerful Jambumālin loosed a great many arrows: with four he cut the sāla to pieces, with five he pierced the monkey in the arm, with one in the chest and with ten between the breasts. Jambumālin's skill as an archer is plain: he did not only stop the weapons but struck Hanumān's body in order. The failure of the rock and the tree fed Hanumān's anger, and from that came the decisive blow that followed. Rock, tree and iron bar are used in turn, weapons that nature itself provides a monkey, since he had no forged arms of his own. The rākṣasa, an archer, struck from a distance; the monkey wanted to close in; that is the difference between their two ways of fighting. The poet carefully gives the number of arrows at each stroke: four, five, one and ten.

His body stuck full of arrows and gripped by a great fury, Hanumān took up the same iron bar he had used before and whirled it with speed. With tremendous speed and overwhelming strength he whirled it and brought it down on Jambumālin's broad chest. Then nothing could be seen of him, no head, no arms, no knees; no bow, no chariot, no horses, no arrows. Struck down with such force, the great chariot-warrior Jambumālin fell to the ground dead, his limbs crushed, like a shattered tree. "The same iron bar" is the one that had served in the slaying of the Kiṅkaras. That a single blow destroyed everything shows the tremendous power of the stroke; even the asses of the chariot are here simply called horses. The tree image fits: as a tree broken by a storm falls with all its branches, so he fell with all his limbs and ornaments. Notice too that though his body was stuck full of arrows, Hanumān's strength did not wane; anger only increased it.

Hearing that Jambumālin had been slain, and the mighty Kiṅkaras too, Rāvaṇa was furious, his eyes red with wrath. His coppery eyes rolling with rage now that Prahasta's mighty son was dead, the lord of the night-rangers at once ordered the sons of his ministers, heroes of surpassing strength and valour, into battle. The closing verse, in a different metre, marks the end of the sarga and points to the subject of the next. Rāvaṇa sends stronger and stronger warriors one after another, but all are killed by Hanumān, and this progression will rise to Prince Akṣa and then to Indrajit. Repeating that Prahasta's son was dead makes clear the cause of Rāvaṇa's grief.