रावणस्य यमलोकाक्रमणं यमसैनिकसंहारश्च

Having reflected thus, Nārada, chief of the brahmins, swift of step, went to Yama's abode to tell him what had happened. There he found the god Yama with Fire set before him as witness, meting out to every living being what its deeds deserved; this is Yama as Dharmarāja, judging the fruit of actions. When Yama saw the great seer arrive, he offered him water for a guest as dharma requires, and when Nārada was seated at ease, Yama said: "Is all well, divine seer? Is dharma not perishing? What brings you here, you whom gods and gandharvas honour?" Yama's first question is about dharma, which shows where his care lay, and his calm is notable too: he honours his guest before asking for news, without any hurry. Then the holy seer Nārada said: "Listen, and I will tell you; and let measures be taken. King of the ancestors, a night-ranger named Daśagrīva is coming to bring you under his power by force of arms, hard to conquer though you are. That is why I have come in haste, my lord. What will become of you today, you whose weapon is the rod?" This last question is either teasing, for what need the bearer of Death's rod fear, or plain curiosity about what the day would bring; it also reminds Yama of his own power. In the previous sarga Nārada urged Rāvaṇa on towards Yama; here he puts Yama on his guard, carrying word to both sides. That is his nature: he stirs up conflict, but never leaves the side of dharma. His "let measures be taken" is both a warning and a push to prepare a defence.

Meanwhile they saw from afar the rākṣasa's aerial chariot approaching, blazing like the rising sun. Lighting up the whole region with the radiance of Puṣpaka and driving away its darkness, mighty Rāvaṇa drew near. Yama's world is known as a place of darkness, and the light of Puṣpaka breaking into it for the first time is a striking sight; the chariot's brilliance, like the sun's, shatters the stillness of that world. Then mighty-armed Daśagrīva saw living beings here and there experiencing the fruits of their good deeds and their evil ones. Here the poet shows the law of karma directly: in Yama's world all experience the fruit of their own deeds and no one else's. "Here and there" hints at how vast that world is, and Rāvaṇa's arrival foreshadows the breaking of its order.

He saw Yama's soldiers and his attendants, fierce men, terrible in form and frightening. He saw embodied beings being beaten and tormented, crying out loudly and wailing shrilly. Some were being devoured by worms, others by savage dogs, and they uttered frightful cries that hurt the ear. Some were made to cross the Vaitaraṇī, whose water is blood, again and again, and some were scorched over and over on burning sands. The wicked were being cut to pieces in the forest of sword-leaved trees, in the hell called Raurava, in the river of brine and on the edges of razors. Others, thirsty and hungry, begged for water: corpse-like, emaciated, wretched and pale, their hair dishevelled, covered in mud and filth, haggard, running about. Such beings Rāvaṇa saw on his way by hundreds and thousands. And elsewhere he saw some in fine houses, rejoicing to the sound of song and music in the fruit of their good deeds: givers of cows enjoying milk, givers of food enjoying food, givers of houses enjoying houses, each eating the fruit of his own deeds. Other righteous ones there were adorned with gold, gems and pearls and attended by young women, shining with their own splendour, a light that was the fruit of their deeds. Here is a full picture of hell and heaven: what is given is what is received, and what is done is what is reaped; the reward of a gift takes the form of the gift itself. The Vaitaraṇī, the forest of sword-leaves and Raurava are hells well known from the old stories. The description moves in order from Yama's messengers, to the tormented sinners, to the different hells, and finally to the pleasures of the righteous, from sorrow towards joy, so that the reader sees clearly the fruit of dharma. The torments are many, worms and dogs, the river, the burning sand, the sword-leaves, the brine, the razors, hunger and thirst, and the old stories say each answers to a particular sin; the rewards are milk, food and houses, the very things the righteous gave, which shows the greatness of giving. The poet is also teaching his reader: the fruit of one's deeds must be tasted, here or hereafter. He does not say what passed through Rāvaṇa's mind as he went, but his next act reveals it, for seeing the sufferers he resolves to set them free and break Yama's order.

Mighty-armed Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, saw all this, and then, by his valour and by force, he set free those beings who were being torn apart for their own evil deeds. Released by Daśagrīva, the departed found for a moment a happiness they had never expected or imagined. That happiness was fleeting, for the law of the fruit of deeds cannot be overstepped. Some see compassion in what Rāvaṇa did, others an insult to Yama, but the word "unexpected" shows that the release was not according to dharma but by force: what Rāvaṇa wanted was to break Yama's rule and flout his authority. As the mighty rākṣasa went on releasing the departed, the guardians of the dead, furious, rushed at the lord of the rākṣasas, and an uproar rose from every quarter as Dharmarāja's warriors came running. Hundreds of thousands of those heroes assailed Puṣpaka with darts, iron clubs, spears, pestles, javelins and lances. Swarming like bees about a flower, they swiftly broke up its seats, its towers, its platforms and its arches. Yet that aerial chariot, the seat of the gods, though broken in battle, remained imperishable through the power of Brahmā who had made it; here too, as with his boon, Brahmā's power shielded Rāvaṇa. The army of great Yama was countless and immense, as befits the lord of all the dead. Yama's warriors were enraged because their master's justice had been broken, and with their clamour spreading in every direction the battle began.

The army had hundreds and thousands of heroes in its van. Rāvaṇa's ministers, great heroes, fought it as they wished and as their strength allowed, with trees and rocks and hundreds of Yama's own mansions, for the rākṣasas make a weapon of whatever comes to hand, and the ten-faced king fought too. Their limbs smeared with blood and struck by every kind of weapon, the ministers of the rākṣasa lord fought a great battle. Yama's ministers and Rāvaṇa's struck one another hard with their weapons, mighty-armed Rāma; the poet calls both sides illustrious, honouring even the enemy as heroes, and their being evenly matched hints at how long the fight went on. Then Yama's mighty warriors left the ministers and rushed at the ten-faced one himself with showers of spears, a shrewd move, since the leader is the chief target. His limbs smeared with blood and battered by their blows, the lord of the rākṣasas stood on Puṣpaka looking like an aśoka tree in flower. The image is a strange one: his streaming blood is like the red blossoms of the aśoka. For the first time Rāvaṇa himself is seen wounded, for Yama's warriors were able to batter him. He did not flee but stood on Puṣpaka and bore their blows. And there is irony in the image too, for aśoka means "without sorrow", while Rāvaṇa's plight was a sorry one.

Then, by the power of his weapons, the mighty one hurled spears, maces, darts, javelins, lances and arrows, pestles, rocks and trees, and that most terrible shower of trees, rocks and weapons fell upon Yama's troops on the ground. But they shattered it all, warded off his weapons, and struck the dreadful rākṣasa, one against hundreds of thousands. They surrounded him on every side like masses of cloud around a mountain and pounded him with javelins and spears, leaving him no room even to breathe. His armour stripped away, enraged and drenched in streams of blood, he left Puṣpaka and stood on the ground. Then, recovering his senses in a moment, he took up his bow and arrows and rose again in the battle, standing there in his anger like the Destroyer himself. This is Rāvaṇa's moment of defeat: his armour broken and his chariot abandoned. The power of Yama's warriors is worth noting, for they turned aside even Rāvaṇa's weapons, which no one had done before. The image of clouds around a mountain shows at once Rāvaṇa's steadiness and the multitude of his foes. Yet in a moment he recovers and arms himself again, such is his stubborn nature; and it is strange that in Yama's own world he should stand like the Destroyer.

Then he fitted the divine Pāśupata weapon to his bow and, crying to them, "Stand! Stand!", drew it back. Drawing the bow to his ear, the enemy of Indra loosed that arrow in his fury, as Śaṅkara loosed his at the Three Cities. The comparison is apt, for the Pāśupata is Śiva's own weapon, and Rāvaṇa's having it fits his fame as Śiva's devotee. The arrow took the form of a ring of smoke and flame, like a forest fire spreading in the hot season, about to burn up a forest. Garlanded with flames and followed by flesh-eating creatures, which knew that wherever it went there would be corpses, the arrow rushed across the battlefield, turning shrubs and trees to ashes. Burnt by its fiery power, the troops of Yama, son of Vivasvat, fell on the field like the banners of great Indra lowered at the end of his festival. Then the rākṣasa of terrible prowess and his ministers let out a mighty roar that seemed to make the earth tremble. The sarga ends in what looks like Rāvaṇa's victory, but Yama himself has not yet come to the field; his coming is told in the next sarga, and so the poet heightens the suspense. The destruction of his army is what will bring Yama out to fight in person.