रम्भाधर्षणं नलकूबरशापश्च

At the end of the last sarga Rāvaṇa had reached Kailāsa and encamped his army there. When the sun had set, the valiant Daśagrīva chose to spend the night on the mountain with his troops. The spotless moon rose, as bright as the mountain itself, and the huge army with all its weapons lay fast asleep. But Rāvaṇa, of great valour, sat alone on the summit and gazed at the mountain's beauties lit by the moon's rays. The poet lingers over the forest: groves of blazing karṇikāras, kadambas and bakulas, lotus pools in full flower and the waters of the Mandākinī; campaka, aśoka, puṃnāga and mandāra trees, mangoes, pāṭalas and lodhras, priyaṅgus, arjunas and ketakas, tagaras, coconut palms, priyālas and jackfruit, and many other trees lighting up the glades. The list of trees, named one by one, shows the richness of Kailāsa, where the flowers of every season bloom at once. There kinnaras, smitten with love, sang together in sweet voices, songs that deepened the heart's delight; vidyādharas, drunk with wine, the corners of their eyes reddened, sported and made merry with their women; and from the palace of Dhanada, the lord of wealth, came the sweet singing of the apsarases like the chiming of bells — for Kailāsa was Kubera's home, and that is why Rambhā would soon pass that way. Trees shaken by the wind shed showers of blossom, perfuming the mountain with the scent of spring, and a pleasant breeze blew, heavy with fragrance mingled with honey and pollen, and heightened Rāvaṇa's desire. Kinnaras, vidyādharas and apsarases, three kinds of heavenly beings, were all at their love-play; everywhere there were couples, and only Rāvaṇa was alone. The poet counts the causes: the coming on of night and the rising of the moon, the singing, the wealth of flowers, the cool wind and the beauty of the mountain. Through all of these the mighty Rāvaṇa fell into the power of desire, and sighing again and again he gazed at the moon; the repeated sighs betray his loneliness and his impatience. Every kindling of romantic love is gathered here — moon, spring, song, scent and cool breeze — but this was desire unchecked by dharma, and it would soon turn into lawlessness. The army slept, and Rāvaṇa alone was awake; that solitude sets the stage for the wrong to come. What begins as pure description of nature ends with the disorder of Rāvaṇa's mind: the poet draws the reader into the beauty first so that its abuse will seem the more grievous. And from his high seat on the summit Rāvaṇa could see the whole forest — and Rambhā passing along the path below.

Meanwhile Rambhā, the loveliest of all the apsarases, came that way, adorned with divine ornaments, her face like the full moon. Her limbs were anointed with heavenly sandal paste, her hair dressed with mandāra flowers, and she was decked with heavenly blossoms, for she was on her way to a heavenly festival, a meeting with her beloved; from the start the poet makes clear that she was going not wherever she pleased but to the one she loved. She bore full hips girt with a jewelled girdle that delighted the eye and the mind, a choice offering to love. Adorned with fresh ornamental markings made from the flowers of all six seasons, she shone like a second Śrī, the goddess of fortune herself, in her beauty, grace, radiance and fame. The word "divine" returns again and again — divine ornaments, divine sandal, divine flowers, a divine festival — setting her world of the gods apart from the rākṣasa. She wore a blue garment like a rain-laden cloud, and her face was like the moon, so that she shone like the moon in a cloud; her lovely brows were like bows, her thighs like an elephant's trunk, her hands soft as young shoots. So she passed right through the middle of the army — the misfortune was that her path lay through the rākṣasa camp — and Rāvaṇa noticed her; she had not seen him.

Seeing her go by, Rāvaṇa, struck by the arrows of love, rose, seized her hand as she shrank from him — her unwillingness is plain from the first — and said with a smile, "Where are you going, fair-hipped one? What pleasure are you off to find of your own accord? Whose hour of good fortune has come, that he will enjoy you? Who today will drink his fill of your mouth, fragrant as the lotus and the water-lily, sweet as nectar itself? Whose broad chest will these breasts of yours touch, timid one, full and lovely and close together like golden pitchers? Who today will mount your hips, broad as a golden wheel, strung with gold, a very heaven in form? What man is above me — Śakra, Viṣṇu, the Aśvins? It is not right, timid one, that you should pass me by and go elsewhere. Rest here on this lovely slab of rock, broad-hipped one. There is no lord in the three worlds but me. Daśānana, the lord and master even of the lord of the three worlds, begs you humbly with joined palms: accept me." His words mixed pride with lust. He called himself lord of the three worlds and yet begged with folded hands — a play of humility, for soon he would use force. His question "whose hour of good fortune" shows that he never asked what Rambhā wanted, only envied another man his luck. His praise dwelt on her face, her breasts and her hips, showing how coarse his desire was: he thought not of love but of possession. Remembering Śakra, Viṣṇu and the Aśvins, he counted himself above them all, and the fruit of that arrogance would come swiftly as a curse. There was irony too in the lord of the three worlds with palms joined and head bowed: he who conquered everyone had been conquered by desire.

Trembling, her palms joined, Rambhā answered, "Be gracious; you must not speak so, for you are my elder. Even if someone else attacked me, you should protect me. By dharma I am your daughter-in-law; I am telling you the truth." The key word was "elder": a father-in-law is like a father, and words of desire from him are wholly wrong. She stood with her face bowed to her feet, her hair standing on end at the mere sight of him. Daśagrīva said, "Only if you were my son's wife would you be my daughter-in-law." It was a crafty question: he seemed to grant the relationship while looking for a way round its rule. "Certainly," said Rambhā, "by dharma I am your son's wife, bull among rākṣasas. For your brother Vaiśravaṇa has a son dearer to him than life, known in the three worlds as Nalakūbara." She made the relationship plain: Nalakūbara was Kubera's son, Kubera was Rāvaṇa's brother, and so she, the wife of his brother's son, was by dharma his daughter-in-law. "He is a brāhmaṇa in dharma and a kṣatriya in valour, fire in his anger and like the earth in forbearance." Those paired and opposite virtues show him complete, and his fire-like anger would soon show itself as a curse. "It is with him, the son of the world-guardian, that I have made a tryst, and for him alone I have put on all these ornaments. As his heart is fixed on me and on no other, so mine is on him. By that truth, king, tamer of foes, you should let me go. He is waiting for me, righteous and impatient. You must not stand in his way; release me, and walk the path the good have walked, bull among rākṣasas. You are one I must honour, and I am one you must protect." Her argument moved in order — his standing as her elder, their kinship, her husband's virtues, and at last the path of the good — and she swore it by the truth of her love. Everything she said was in keeping with dharma, but Rāvaṇa, blind with desire, paid it no heed. He answered with a show of courtesy — only a show, for his humility was all outward.

"You say you are my daughter-in-law," said Rāvaṇa, "but that rule holds only for women who have one husband. The order of the world of the gods, held eternal by the gods themselves, is this: apsarases have no husbands, and none of them belongs to one man alone." It was sophistry: he turned the freedom of the apsarases into an instrument of his lust, ignored her refusal, and used a custom of the gods for his own ends without grasping the heart of dharma. Having said this, the rākṣasa set her down on the slab of rock and, inflamed with lust, forced himself upon her. When at last she was released, Rambhā, her garlands and ornaments scattered, was as distraught as a river churned by a great elephant at play. The ends of her hair were tangled and dishevelled, her tender hands trembled, and she was like a flowering creeper shaken by the wind. Trembling, ashamed and afraid, she joined her palms. The poet tells the deed itself in few words and her suffering at length — that is his compassion — and his images of the churned river, the wind-shaken creeper and the scattered garlands convey her pain of body and of mind together.

She went to Nalakūbara and fell at his feet. Seeing her in that state, the great-souled Nalakūbara asked, "What is this, good lady? Why have you fallen at my feet?" — a simple question, full of care and love. Sighing and trembling, her palms joined, she began to tell him everything as it had happened. "My lord, this Daśagrīva has come here on his way to heaven, and with his army he has spent the night here. As I was coming to you, tamer of foes, he saw me. The rākṣasa seized me and asked whose I was. I told him the whole truth, but his mind was overpowered by the delusion of desire and he would not listen. Though I begged him again and again, lord, saying, 'I am your daughter-in-law,' he thrust it all aside and took me by force. So forgive my fault, faithful one; a woman's strength is no match for a man's, gentle one." She told it in order — his coming, the camp, her journey, the seizing, the question, her truthful answer, his deafness, her repeated pleas, and at last the violence — and at every step her innocence is plain: she spoke the truth, she pleaded again and again, and she was overcome by force alone. She did not think herself at fault, yet she asked her husband's forgiveness, a mark of her character, and her last words, that a woman's strength is no match for a man's, clear her of all blame. The loving names she gave her husband — lord, master, tamer of foes, faithful one, gentle one — show her respect and love, while Rāvaṇa she called only "the rākṣasa", and that too shows her loathing. Hearing all this, Vaiśravaṇa's son was filled with anger.

Hearing of that gross outrage, Nalakūbara entered into meditation and, through it, came to know for himself what Rāvaṇa had done; he did not simply take Rambhā's word but examined the matter before he punished, an ideal of justice. In a moment his eyes were red with anger, and he took water in his hand. Holding the water, he touched his limbs with it as the rite prescribes, and then he let fly a terrible curse against the lord of the rākṣasas: "Because you were taken by force against your will, good lady, he shall never again approach any young woman who does not desire him. If, tormented by desire, he ever forces a woman against her will, his head will split into seven pieces." Nalakūbara punished Rāvaṇa not with a weapon but with the power of his austerity and the touch of water, an example of the strength of the brāhmaṇa in him — Rambhā had called him a brāhmaṇa in dharma. The curse did not kill Rāvaṇa but barred his future wickedness; its heart was the word "unwilling", for it is union without a woman's consent that is punished, and since a head split in seven means death, fear would now bridle his lust. When that curse had been spoken, blazing like a kindled fire, the drums of the gods sounded, a shower of flowers fell from the sky, and all the gods with the Grandfather at their head rejoiced, for they knew the whole course of the world and foresaw that rākṣasa's death; the seers and the ancestors too felt the highest joy. When Daśagrīva heard that hair-raising curse, he no longer took pleasure in union with women who did not desire him. And all the faithful wives he had carried off rejoiced when they heard of the curse Nalakūbara had released, for it was dear to their hearts: from now on their chastity was safe. The weight of this curse in the Rāmāyaṇa is plain: because of it Rāvaṇa never laid hands on Sītā by force in Laṅkā, and she never chose him of her own will. That is why the gods rejoiced "knowing his death": Sītā's safety would be the cause of Rāvaṇa's ruin. The gods' joy had two grounds, that lawlessness had been checked and that Rāvaṇa's coming death had been signalled.