लङ्काप्राकाराक्रमणं युद्धारम्भश्च

The rākṣasas went to Rāvaṇa's palace and reported that Rāma and the monkeys had laid siege to the city. Hearing this, the night-ranger flew into a rage; he doubled the city's defences and climbed up onto his palace. From there he saw Laṅkā, with its hills, woods and groves, surrounded on every side by countless hosts of monkeys eager for battle. Seeing the whole earth turned tawny by the monkeys, he fell to brooding: "How are they to be destroyed?" After brooding for a long time he took heart and looked out, wide-eyed, at Rāghava and the monkey troops. Three feelings rise in Rāvaṇa's mind one after another: anger, then anxiety, then resolve. "Turned tawny" is a fine phrase — the monkeys' tawny colour spread over the whole earth. In the previous sarga Aṅgada had broken one palace pinnacle; now Rāvaṇa climbs another to watch his enemies. His question "how are they to be destroyed?" shows that even he is amazed at their numbers; yet he never thinks of surrender, only of how to fight. That is his pride, which in the end will destroy him. Doubling the guard shows his caution: he does not underrate his enemy, but he does not remember dharma.

Rāghava, meanwhile, moved forward gladly with his army and saw Laṅkā guarded and surrounded on every side by rākṣasas. Seeing Laṅkā with its bright flags and banners, Daśaratha's son suddenly went in thought to Sītā, his heart aching: "Here, on my account, Janaka's fawn-eyed daughter is being tormented, burning with grief, wasted away, sleeping on the bare ground." Thinking of Vaidehī in such torment, the righteous Rāma quickly ordered the monkeys to kill their enemies. When Rāma of tireless deeds had spoken, the monkeys, vying with one another, made the air ring with lion-roars. Rāma's memory of Sītā adds a touch of tenderness: seeing the enemy's city, what he thinks of first is his beloved, not the glory of war. "On my account," he says, blaming himself, as though she suffered because of him. She sleeps on the bare ground, just as Hanūmān had seen her in the Sundara Kāṇḍa, and it is from this memory that Rāma's anger and his order to attack arise. Rāvaṇa, seeing his enemies, broods; Rāma, seeing the enemy's city, remembers his beloved — the poet subtly shows the difference between the two leaders.

"Let us scatter this Laṅkā with mountain peaks, or with our bare fists!" — so all the monkey leaders resolved. Raising huge mountain peaks and summits and tearing up trees of every kind, they stood ready. While the rākṣasa king watched, the troops, division by division, climbed onto Laṅkā to do what Rāghava wished. Copper-faced and golden-hued, having given up their lives for Rāma, fighting with śāla trees and mountains, they advanced on Laṅkā itself. With trees, mountain tops and fists the monkeys wrecked countless tops of the ramparts and the arches. They filled the moats of clear water with dust, mountain tops, grass and logs. Then troop-leaders with thousands of troops, with crores of troops, and others with hundreds of crores, climbed onto Laṅkā. Crushing the golden arches and wrecking the gate-towers that rose like the peaks of Kailāsa, leaping, bounding and roaring, the monkeys rushed at Laṅkā like great elephants. "Victory to Rāma of mighty strength, and to mighty Lakṣmaṇa! Victory to King Sugrīva, protected by Rāghava!" So shouting and roaring, the monkeys, who could take any form, charged the rampart of Laṅkā. The assault goes forward in clear order: first the resolve, then the gathering of weapons, then the climbing of the ramparts, the smashing of arches and gate-towers, the filling of the moats, and last the victory cry. Filling the moat is an ancient rule of siege warfare, for only when the water-filled ditch is filled can the wall be reached. "Having given up their lives for Rāma" shows their devotion: they count their lives as nothing. Whatever the weapon — mountain peaks or fists — they were determined to destroy Laṅkā. Rāvaṇa sees it all from his palace and can do nothing. They climb "division by division," as Rāma had ordered, not in a disorderly rush, and the rising numbers — thousands, crores, hundreds of crores — make the assault come in waves, one troop after another reaching the wall. The wrecking of the golden arches and the Kailāsa-like gate-towers is a symbol of the ruin of Rāvaṇa's splendour, and like great elephants in rut the monkeys crush everything before them. Their battle-cry recalls Hanūmān's proclamation in the Sundara Kāṇḍa, now shouted by the whole army, and in it they name Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa and Sugrīva, not themselves — such is their loyalty to their masters. Here the poet describes the monkey army's zeal at its height.

The monkey leaders Vīrabāhu, Subāhu, Nala and Panasa pressed close against the rampart and camped there, and meanwhile they set up the army's camp. Kumuda, surrounded by ten crores of triumphant monkeys, blockaded the eastern gate and held it in strength, and in support of him the monkey Praghasa and mighty-armed Panasa were posted with their monkeys. The heroic monkey Śatabali came to the southern gate with twenty crores, blockaded it and held it in strength. Suṣeṇa, the mighty father of Tārā, went to the western gate with crores upon crores, blockaded it and held it in strength. Rāma with Lakṣmaṇa, and Sugrīva, lord of the monkeys, came to the northern gate, blockaded it and held it in strength. The huge ape Gavākṣa, fearsome to see and of great valour, surrounded by a crore, stood at Rāma's side; so did Dhūmra, destroyer of foes, of great valour, with a crore of bears of terrible wrath. Vibhīṣaṇa of great valour, armoured and mace in hand, surrounded by his watchful ministers, stood where mighty Rāma was. And Gaja, Gavākṣa, Gavaya, Śarabha and Gandhamādana ran about on every side, guarding the monkey army. In the previous sarga Nīla, Aṅgada and Hanūmān were named at the gates; here it is Kumuda, Śatabali and Suṣeṇa — each gate, we should understand, had several leaders under its commander. Suṣeṇa is the father of Tārā, Vālin's wife. Rāma himself holds the northern gate, where Rāvaṇa stands, confirming the decision of the previous sarga. Gavākṣa and Dhūmra at his side and Vibhīṣaṇa close by form the guard at the heart of the array, a threefold protection for the commander; Vibhīṣaṇa, armoured and with mace in hand, shows himself a warrior as well as a counsellor, and he stays near Rāma with his ministers because the rākṣasas will single him out. Gaja and the others range through every part of the army, helping wherever they are needed. So the poet shows at length how well ordered Rāma's army was. The numbers — ten crores, twenty crores, crores upon crores — are exaggerations that show the army to be boundless. The phrase "blockaded it and held it in strength," repeated four times, gives each gate the same firm siege, a repetition typical of the poet's oral style. Setting up camp shows a long siege ahead: the monkeys were ready not for a single day's assault but for a lasting war. And three kinds of creature — apes, bears and monkeys — are plainly there in Rāma's army.

Then Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, seized by fury, quickly ordered all his forces to march out. Hearing that command from Rāvaṇa's mouth, the night-rangers at once raised a terrible roar. All around the rākṣasas, kettledrums with faces white as the moon were struck and roused with golden drumsticks. Hundreds of thousands of loud conches blared, filled with the breath of those terrible rākṣasas. With their dark, lustrous bodies and their white conches, the rākṣasas looked like clouds girt with rings of lightning and lines of cranes. Urged on by Rāvaṇa, the troops rushed out gladly, like the surges of the great ocean when it swells at the end of an age. Then from the monkey army a roar went up on every side that filled Mount Malaya with its ridges, tablelands and caves. The din of conches and drums and the lion-roars of the mighty made earth, sky and ocean resound, swelled by the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the rumble of chariot wheels and the shouts of the rākṣasas. The sounds build the terrible atmosphere of the opening of war: drums, conches, kettledrums, elephants, horses, chariots, monkeys and rākṣasas, all mingled together. The dark rākṣasas with their white conches, compared to dark clouds with cranes and lightning, recall the coming of the rains. The rākṣasa army pours out of the city like the ocean swelling at the dissolution of the world. That the monkeys' roar filled Malaya, across the sea, is an exaggeration. Rāvaṇa's order is urgent: until now he had only defended himself behind his walls, but now he sends his army out to attack, and a new phase of the war begins. The rākṣasas roar at his command as the monkeys had roared before; both sides are equally eager. The drums with faces white as the moon and golden drumsticks show that the rākṣasas' wealth appears even in their instruments of war. The monkey army roars, the rākṣasas answer, the monkeys roar again — sound vies with sound. And elephants, horses and chariots are on the rākṣasas' side alone, not the monkeys' — that is the difference between the two armies.

Then a terrible battle began between the rākṣasas and the monkeys, like the war of the gods and the asuras long ago. With blazing maces, spears, pikes and axes the rākṣasas struck down the monkeys, boasting of their own feats. The huge, swift monkeys, in turn, struck down the rākṣasas with trees and mountain tops, with claws and teeth. A great shout of "Victory to King Sugrīva!" went up among the monkeys, and the rākṣasas cried "Victory, victory, O king!" and then called out their own names. Other fearsome rākṣasas, standing on the rampart, tore at the monkeys on the ground with javelins and spears; and the monkeys, enraged, leapt up from the ground into the air and seized the rākṣasas on the rampart with their arms and hurled them down. That tumultuous clash of rākṣasas and monkeys, a mire of flesh and blood, was a wonder to behold. The two sides are described evenly: the rākṣasas with their weapons, the monkeys with the weapons nature gave them. Each side shouts its leader's victory, as was the ancient custom of war, and the rākṣasas call out their own names so that their enemies will know their prowess — they boast of themselves, while the monkeys hail their master, another difference in their natures. The fight between rākṣasas on the rampart and monkeys on the ground shows the shape of a siege: those above strike those below, and those below leap up and pull those above down — the monkeys' special gift is to fight in the air though they stand on the ground. Likening it to the war of gods and asuras shows the greatness of the battle and its nature as a clash of dharma and adharma. The "mire of flesh and blood" Rāma foresaw among the omens of the previous sarga has come true. Here at the end of the sarga the battle is described in general, as the clash of two armies; in the next the single combats of the leading heroes will be told, and "tumultuous" and "a wonder to behold" leave the reader waiting for it.