रावणस्य यक्षैः सह युद्धम्

At the end of the previous sarga Rāvaṇa had killed the envoy and set out against the lord of wealth, and in this sarga Agastya describes his march. Arrogant as ever in his strength, he set out with six ministers: Mahodara, Prahasta, Mārīca, Śuka, Sāraṇa and the hero Dhūmrākṣa, always hungry for battle. The poet names these six with care, for they were Rāvaṇa's companions in all his wars. Surrounded by them, the glorious Rāvaṇa went on his way as though burning up the worlds in his wrath. Cities, rivers, mountains, forests and groves, whatever lay in his path, he passed in a moment, and he reached Mount Kailāsa. The yakṣas heard that the lord of the rākṣasas had encamped on their mountain, eager for battle, full of zeal, evil-hearted and with his ministers about him, but they could not bring themselves to stand against him, knowing him to be their king's brother. So they went to where the lord of wealth was and told him everything his brother meant to do, and only when the giver of wealth gave them leave did they go out gladly to fight. Then the turmoil of the armies swelled like the ocean's, as though shaking the mountain of Kubera, lord of the nairṛtas. A battle broke out, thronged with yakṣas and rākṣasas, and the rākṣasa's ministers were hard pressed. The yakṣas' conduct deserves notice: they would not begin a fight against their king's brother, and fought only with their master's leave, as good servants should. Kubera is called lord of the nairṛtas because he was master of yakṣas and rākṣasas alike. That Rāvaṇa's ministers were hard pressed at the start shows the yakṣas' strength too. So Rāvaṇa's first campaign of conquest began in the north, against the kingdom of his brother Kubera, and the very manner of his march foreshadowed the battle.

Seeing his army in such a state, the night-ranger Daśagrīva let out many roars of delight and rushed forward in fury. Each of the rākṣasa lord's ministers, men of fearsome valour, fought a thousand yakṣas. Then Daśagrīva plunged into the yakṣa army, struck by maces, clubs, swords, spears and lances. Pounded again and again, ten-faced Daśānana was left almost breathless, hemmed in by weapons as if by torrents from raining clouds. Yet for all the blows of the yakṣas' weapons he felt no pain, like a mountain drenched by a hundred torrents from the clouds. Then the great one raised a mace like the staff of Death and pushed into the army, sending yakṣas to the abode of Yama. Like a fire fanned by the wind he burned up that yakṣa army, which lay spread out like dry brush and heaped like dry firewood. His great ministers, Mahodara, Śuka and the rest, left only a few of the yakṣas, as winds leave few clouds. Some fell to the ground struck down and broken; others in their fury bit their lips with their sharp teeth. Exhausted, clinging to one another, their weapons fallen on the field, the yakṣas sank down like river-banks undercut by the current. So many were the slain going up to heaven, the fighters and the fleeing, and the hosts of seers watching, that there was no room left in the sky. The poet uses many images to show the fierceness of the fight: the mountain unhurt by the rain, the fire fanned by wind, the clouds scattered by wind, the banks worn away by water. Rāvaṇa's might came from Brahmā's boon, which is why weapons could strike him without hurting him. The crowded sky is an exaggeration that conveys the number of the dead, for the slain yakṣas went to heaven as heroes, and the watching seers stood in the air. The fight grows in three stages: the ministers each hold off a thousand yakṣas, showing the rākṣasas' valour; Rāvaṇa himself enters the yakṣa army and stands unhurt under a rain of weapons; and then, mace raised, he burns them up while his ministers scatter them, until the yakṣas are utterly broken. The picture of the yakṣas is a pitiful one, some fallen with broken limbs, some biting their lips in rage, some clinging together in exhaustion as they sink, and it shows both the terror of battle and its human suffering; as a river's force slowly undercuts its banks until they fall, so the yakṣas fell. The poet looks even on Rāvaṇa's enemies with sympathy. Rāvaṇa's prowess here is supreme, but its cause is the boon won by austerity, not dharma. And that a single minister could hold back a thousand yakṣas says much for the rākṣasas' strength and something of the slackness of Kubera's army.

Seeing those mighty yakṣa chiefs broken, the mighty-armed lord of wealth sent out other yakṣas. At that moment, Rāma, a yakṣa named Saṃyodhakaṇṭaka, sent by Kubera with a vast host and many mounts, fell upon them. He struck Mārīca with his discus, as though Viṣṇu himself had struck him, and Mārīca fell from the mountain to the ground like a planet whose merit is spent. It seems Mārīca's lot was always to be thrown down: in the Bāla Kāṇḍa, too, Rāma's arrow had flung him far away. The planet whose merit is spent comes from the belief that stars fall from heaven when their store of merit runs out. After a moment the night-ranger came to his senses, rested a little, and fought the yakṣa again, and the yakṣa was broken and fled. This episode shows that Rāvaṇa's ministers were not protected by any boon, so the yakṣas could bring them down; but Mārīca rose again to fight, and it was the yakṣa who fled.

Then Rāvaṇa made his way into the gateway, its parts adorned with gold and inlaid with beryl and silver, the boundary beyond which no one might pass without the doorkeepers' leave. As the night-ranger Daśagrīva was entering, king, a doorkeeper named Sūryabhānu barred his way. Though the yakṣa tried to hold him back, the night-ranger went on in. When, Rāma, the rākṣasa would not halt though he was barred, the yakṣa tore up a pillar of the gateway and struck him with it. Streaming blood, Rāvaṇa looked like a mountain running with red mineral streams. Though struck by that pillar, huge as a mountain peak, the hero came to no harm, because of the boon of the Self-born Brahmā. Then with that same pillar he struck the yakṣa, whose body was burnt to ashes and was seen no more. Seeing the rākṣasa's prowess, all the yakṣas fled; racked with fear, their weapons thrown away, exhausted and pale-faced, they plunged into rivers and caves. The doorkeeper's loyalty is praiseworthy: he guarded his master's gate with his life and would not admit even the king's brother. Rāvaṇa killed him with his own weapon, which shows how far his strength surpassed him. The boon of the Self-born is recalled again: Rāvaṇa had asked to be unslayable by suparṇas, nāgas, yakṣas, daityas and dānavas, so no yakṣa could kill him. The golden gateway speaks of the splendour of Kubera's city, and Sūryabhānu gave his life to keep its bounds. A faithful servant dies a hero's death while the wicked one wins by the strength of a boon, and this contrast gives the story a note of sorrow. With the yakṣas' flight Kubera's army was defeated; in the next sarga Māṇibhadra, and then Kubera himself, come out to fight.