इन्द्रजिद्धनूमद्युद्धं ब्रह्मास्त्रबन्धनं रावणसभाप्रवेशश्च

When Prince Akṣa had been killed by Hanumān, the great lord of the rākṣasas steadied his mind and, in anger, gave his command to Indrajit, who was like a god. "You know the divine missiles," he said, "and you are the foremost of all who bear arms. You bring grief even to the gods and the asuras; your deeds have been seen among the gods and Indra himself, and you won your missiles by worshipping Brahmā the Grandsire. When they met the power of your missiles, the gods and the hosts of Maruts could not stand in battle, though Indra, lord of the gods, was their shelter. There is no one in the three worlds who has fought you and not been worn out. Your own arms guard you and your austerity protects you; you are the best judge of place and time and the wisest in understanding. Nothing in battle is beyond you, nothing out of reach when you take counsel with thought, and there is no one in the three worlds who does not know the power of your missiles and of your body. Your austerity, your valour and your missiles are a match for mine; when you go into the clash of battle my mind is at ease, sure of the outcome." This praise came not only from a father's love but from policy: after Akṣa's death Rāvaṇa reminded Indrajit of his past victories to fire his spirit, and his very name, "Conqueror of Indra", recalls his triumph over the king of the gods. The missiles won by worshipping the Grandsire are mentioned here because one of them, Brahmā's own missile, is about to be used. In calling his son a match for himself, the father sees his own image in him. Anger and grief were mingled in Rāvaṇa, and the words "steadying his mind" show his self-control, for he kept even his grief for his son hidden.

"All the Kiṅkaras have been killed," he went on, "and the rākṣasa Jambumālin, and the heroic sons of my ministers, and the five commanders who led the army, and well-furnished forces with horses, elephants and chariots; and your beloved brother, Prince Akṣa, has been killed too. But the strength that is in you, destroyer of foes, was not in them. You have seen this great force destroyed; you have seen the monkey's power and valour. Weigh your own strength and put forth an effort worthy of it. Weigh your strength against the enemy's, best of those who bear missiles, and go about this so that when you come near and engage him, the slaughter of our forces ends with the enemy stilled. Do not take an army, my hero, for armies fall away before him in whole companies; nor take the thunderbolt, however great its force. There is no measuring this son of the Wind's movements, and being like fire he cannot be killed by any ordinary means. Think this through carefully, compose your mind, measure his deeds against your own, remember the divine power of your bow, and go and do a deed that cannot fail. I know it is not a fitting thought, wisest of my sons, to send you out like this; but it is what the duty of kings and of the warrior class requires. A warrior must have mastery of many weapons in battle, tamer of foes, and victory in battle is to be sought." Here the father's heart struggles with the king's duty. One son lay dead and he did not want to send another, yet the duty of a king drove him to it, and he admitted himself that it was not a good thought. The list of the fallen, Kiṅkaras, Jambumālin, the ministers' sons, the generals, and at last Akṣa, shows how Rāvaṇa's disaster had grown step by step, and by calling Akṣa Indrajit's "beloved brother" he made a brother's love another spur. His particular advice was that an army or even the thunderbolt would be useless; Indrajit was to rely only on his own strength and his missiles, and to undertake a deed that would not fail. When he says there is no measuring the Wind-born one's movement, it is as if even Rāvaṇa knew that the monkey was the son of the Wind.

When he heard his father's words, the hero Indrajit, mighty as the gods, his mind set on battle, quickly walked round his father and lord in reverence; brave as he was, he honoured his father as his master. Then, honoured by his own dear companions as a sacrificer is honoured before a sacrifice, fired with zeal for battle, he set out for the fight. The glorious son of the lord of the rākṣasas, with eyes wide as lotuses and great splendour, went out like the ocean swelling at the full moon. Like Indra himself, of irresistible speed, Indrajit mounted his chariot, yoked not with horses like Akṣa's but with four sharp-fanged tigers swift as Garuḍa, king of birds; it was more fearsome than his brother's, and hinted at his powers of illusion. Foremost of bowmen, master of every weapon and best of those who know the missiles, that chariot-warrior drove swiftly to where Hanumān was. When the monkey hero heard the rumble of the chariot and the twang of the bowstring, he grew more joyful still; a strong enemy was a delight to him. Taking up his bow and his sharp-headed arrows, Indrajit, skilled in the art of battle, went straight for Hanumān. His target was clear, and no army followed him, just as his father had advised. Like Akṣa, he set out in haste, but unlike Akṣa he was shrewd, and the poet's word for him, "skilled in battle", prepares for what is to come: it would be by his wit, not his strength, that Hanumān would be taken.

As he set out for battle, joyful, arrows in hand, all the quarters grew murky and fierce beasts howled in many voices. These were ill omens; the poet does not say for whom, but it is understood that they were for Laṅkā. Nāgas and yakṣas gathered there, and great sages and Siddhas who move among the stars, and flocks of birds covered the sky and cried aloud in great delight; as at Akṣa's death, the gathering of gods and seers shows how great this fight was. Seeing the chariot with its standard bearing Indra's emblem coming on swiftly, the monkey gave a great roar and, full of speed, grew in size, as he always did when an enemy approached. Indrajit, standing in his divine chariot with his splendid bow, drew and twanged it with a sound mighty as the thunder that goes with lightning; he was the thundercloud and Hanumān the mountain. Then the two met, both terribly swift, both immensely strong and fearless in battle, the monkey and the son of the rākṣasa king, locked in enmity like the lords of the gods and of the asuras, like Indra and Bali. In the earlier fights Hanumān had always been the stronger; with this comparison the poet signals that here the two were evenly matched. Immeasurable and grown great, Hanumān checked the rush of arrows from that hero, the great chariot-warrior and famed bowman, and ranged about the sky, his father the Wind's own path.

Then the hero Indrajit, slayer of enemy heroes, loosed long, sharp-headed, well-feathered arrows with gold-worked nocks, in close succession and swift as the thunderbolt. Hearing the rumble of that chariot, the sound of tabors, kettledrums and drums from Indrajit's host, and the twang of the drawn bow, Hanumān sprang up again. The great monkey wheeled swiftly between the arrows, foiling the aim of that marksman; again he came right up to the front of the arrows, and then the son of the Wind stretched out his arms like a bird spreading its wings and flew up, playing with his enemy as if to mock him. Both full of speed, one with the speed of his arrows and the other with the speed of his body, both skilled in the work of war, the two fought a superb fight that held the minds of all beings; the gods and seers who had gathered were its spectators, and even a battle became a sight to behold. The rākṣasa could find no opening in Hanumān, no weak spot where a blow would tell, and the son of the Wind could find none in that great-souled warrior; meeting as equals in valour to the gods, each became unbearable to the other. The poet stresses this equality. In the earlier sargas Hanumān had struck his enemies down at once; here, for the first time, he faced an opponent as strong as himself, and the poet does not belittle the enemy but gives both equal honour. Because neither could prevail, the fight had no end in sight, and it was this very deadlock that led to the use of Brahmā's missile.

As his target kept escaping him and even his unfailing arrows fell in vain, the great-souled Indrajit, his mind trained on the archer's aim and draw, fell into deep thought. Seeing that the monkey could not be killed, the son of the rākṣasa king turned his mind to how that foremost of monkey heroes might be captured. Then the hero of great splendour, best of those who know the missiles, fitted the missile of Brahmā the Grandsire and aimed it at Hanumān. Knowing that he could not be slain, Indrajit, who knew the inner nature of the missiles, bound the long-armed son of the Wind with it; and bound by the rākṣasa with that missile, the monkey went motionless and fell to the ground. Indrajit's shrewdness shows here: when he could not kill his enemy, he thought of binding him. His recognition that the monkey could not be killed was itself an admission of defeat, and even Brahmā's missile was used not to kill but to bind; Rāvaṇa's own earlier order had been that the monkey be seized. Hanumān's motionless fall was only for a moment, under the missile's power, and it was not a defeat but an act of respect for Brahmā's ordinance, as the following verses make clear. Indrajit knew when to use the missile, but the other rākṣasas did not know its rule, as will soon appear. The rākṣasas rejoiced to see Hanumān fall, but he fell of his own will.

Then the heroic monkey, recognising the missile's bond and feeling not the least pain by the power of Brahmā the Lord, reflected on the Grandsire's favour to himself. Seeing the Brahmā missile charged with the mantras of the Self-born, Hanumān remembered the boon the Grandsire had given him, that he would be freed from the missile after a moment. "By the might of the teacher of the worlds I have no power to free myself from this bond," he thought. "It is because he knows this that the rākṣasa has laid it on me. Yet out of regard for the Self-born I must submit to it." Weighing the power of the missile, the Grandsire's favour to him and his own power to get free, the monkey obeyed the Grandsire's command. "Even bound by the missile I feel no fear," he thought, "for Brahmā the Grandsire, great Indra and the Wind all protect me": Brahmā who gave the boon, Indra who granted one after striking him with the thunderbolt, and the Wind, his father. "And in being seized by the rākṣasas I see a great advantage: I shall get to speak with the lord of the rākṣasas himself. So let the enemy seize me." Resolved on his purpose, the slayer of enemy heroes, who always acted with forethought, stopped all movement; and when the enemies fell on him and seized him roughly, he cried out as they abused him, playing the part of one in pain. Here Hanumān's judgement reaches its height, for even defeat became a means to his end. He not only kept the bounds set by the gods but saw in them his chance to see Rāvaṇa face to face and speak with him. What strength could not win, submission won; an envoy could hardly have entered Rāvaṇa's court any other way.

Seeing the tamer of foes lying motionless, the rākṣasas tied him up with hempen ropes and strips of twisted bark. He was content to be tied by the enemy and roughly abused by their warriors, for he had made up his mind that the lord of the rākṣasas might out of curiosity want to see him, and in that he was right. But once he was tied with bark, the mighty monkey was freed from the missile, for a bond of a divine missile will not tolerate any other bond. Then the hero Indrajit, looking at that best of monkeys tied in tree-bark and freed from the missile, fell to thinking. "Though he is bound by other means, he acts as if he were still under the missile," he thought. "Alas, a great deed has been thrown away. The rākṣasas did not consider how the mantra works. Once a missile has been foiled, no other missile will work again. We are all now in danger." Victory had turned into something like defeat. Hanumān, though freed from the missile, did not let it be seen, and as the rākṣasas dragged him along he let himself be tormented by the ropes; beaten by the cruel rākṣasas with fists hard as Death's, the monkey was hauled before the lord of the rākṣasas. The rākṣasas' folly is plain here: by putting ordinary ropes over a divine missile they themselves made it useless. Ropes of hemp and bark were nothing to Hanumān, yet they were what undid the missile. Only Indrajit understood, and he could do nothing about it. Free as he was, Hanumān behaved as though bound and went of his own will towards Rāvaṇa, bearing the blows for the sake of his mission.

Then Indrajit, seeing that the mighty hero was free of the missile and bound only with cords of bark, presented him to the king and his court, and the rākṣasas brought that best of monkeys, bound like a rutting elephant, before Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas. Bound as he was, he was not pitiful but strong as a maddened elephant. "Who is he? Whose is he? Where has he come from? What is his business? Who stands behind him?" So the talk ran among the rākṣasa heroes as they looked at him, for none of them knew who he was. "Kill him! Burn him! Eat him!" others cried to each other in rage, showing the rākṣasas' cruel nature; the second of these, burning, will come true in its own way when his tail is set on fire. Passing quickly along the way, the great monkey saw the king's aged attendants at the feet of the lord of the rākṣasas, and the assembly hall adorned with great jewels. Rāvaṇa, in his great splendour, saw the best of monkeys being dragged this way and that by rākṣasas of hideous form; and the best of monkeys saw the lord of the rākṣasas, full of energy and strength, blazing like the sun. The two verses mirror each other: the king saw the monkey, the monkey saw the king, and so their meeting is told as a meeting of equals. Hanumān saw Rāvaṇa's splendour like the sun's, granting brilliance even to his enemy with an impartial eye. Ten-faced Rāvaṇa, his coppery eyes rolling with rage, looked the monkey over and then ordered his chief ministers, seated there, men of good family and conduct, to deal with him; as befits a king, he did not question the monkey himself. Questioned by them in due order about his business, its purpose and its first cause, the monkey declared at the very outset: "I have come as an envoy from the lord of the monkeys." That first word, "envoy", is all-important, for by the rules of statecraft an envoy may not be killed, and it is on that ground that Vibhīṣaṇa will soon prevent his execution. In the next sarga Hanumān will gaze on Rāvaṇa's splendour before he delivers his message.