निकुम्भवधः

Seeing his brother Kumbha struck down by Sugrīva, Nikumbha glared at the lord of the monkeys as though his rage would burn him up; his very gaze was like fire. Grief for his brother and the wish for revenge drove him on. Then the resolute rākṣasa took up a fine iron club like a peak of Mount Mahendra. It was wreathed with garlands, bound with iron bands five fingers broad, encased in plates of gold and adorned with diamonds and coral, terrible as the rod of Yama, and a weapon that drove away the rākṣasas' fear; what terrified the enemy put heart into his own side. Kumbha had been an archer, but Nikumbha fought with the club, so the two brothers had different ways of fighting, and the long description of the club shows it as beautiful and terrible at once. Whirling that club, mighty as Śakra's standard, the powerful Nikumbha of terrible valour opened his mouth wide and roared.

With the gold ornament on his chest, the armlets on his arms, his bright earrings and his many-coloured garland, Nikumbha shone with his ornaments and his club like a thundering cloud with lightning and a rainbow. At the tip of his club the very knot of the winds burst, as if the air itself had been torn, and the club blazed with a roar like a smokeless fire. As Nikumbha whirled it, the whole expanse of the sky seemed to spin, together with Viṭapāvatī, Kubera's city of Alakā, the finest mansions of the gandharvas, the hosts of stars and constellations, the moon and the great planets. Nikumbha became a fire that no one could approach, the splendour of his club and ornaments its light and his anger its fuel, like the fire that rises at the end of an age. The poet builds his fearsome form out of a chain of images, cloud, rainbow, lightning, wind, fire and the fire of doom, and the image of anger as the fuel of that fire is especially fine.

Seeing him so, rākṣasas and monkeys alike could not stir for fear; everyone stood rooted. Only the mighty Hanumān bared his chest and stood before him, offering it to the blow; while the others stood frozen, he took up the challenge himself, sure of his own courage. The powerful rākṣasa, his arms themselves like iron clubs, brought that club, bright as the sun, down on the mighty Hanumān's chest. Against that firm, broad chest the club broke into a hundred pieces, which scattered suddenly like a hundred meteors in the sky, glowing as they flew. At that blow the great monkey did not stir, but stood like a mountain in an earthquake, though the club had shaken him. The club was like a mountain peak, and it broke against his chest: his body was hard as adamant. Seeing him stand so firm, the monkeys lost their fear.

Struck in this way, Hanumān, best of monkeys and exceedingly strong, clenched his fist with all his might, raised it, and, powerful and swift as the wind, for he was the Wind's son, drove it with force against Nikumbha's chest. The rākṣasa's club was broken, so neither now had a weapon and the fight was even. His armour burst and blood streamed out, which shows the force of the blow, and from that fist a flash arose like lightning in a cloud. Nikumbha reeled, but he was no weakling: recovering himself, he seized the mighty Hanumān and lifted him up, as no other rākṣasa had done. Seeing Hanumān lifted in Nikumbha's grip, the people of Laṅkā raised a terrible shout of hope, too soon, for a seizing is not a killing. Even as he was being carried off, Hanumān, son of the Wind, struck the rākṣasa with a fist like a thunderbolt. Twice the fight turned, first Hanumān's blow, then Nikumbha's grip, then Hanumān's blow again, and by showing the enemy's strength the poet makes Hanumān's victory the more glorious. In the last sarga it was Sugrīva's fist, here it is Hanumān's: both brothers died in a fight of fists.

Then Hanumān freed himself and came down to the ground, and quickly overpowered Nikumbha. With a mighty effort he threw him down and crushed him, then leapt up with force and came down on his chest. Seizing his neck with both arms and twisting it, he tore off the rākṣasa's head as he roared terribly and loud; as his neck was being twisted he let out a dreadful cry of pain, his last sound. So Hanumān's victory was complete. The poet tells each step of the fight with care, the escape, the throw, the crushing, the leap onto the chest, the twisting of the neck and the tearing off of the head, and the sequence shows a wrestler's skill.

When the roaring Nikumbha had been brought down in battle by the son of the Wind, a most terrible fight broke out between Rāma, son of Daśaratha, and Makarākṣa, the son of Khara, here called the son of the rākṣasa lord, both now utterly enraged; with this the poet points ahead to the story of the next two sargas. When Nikumbha's life had departed, the monkeys roared with joy and the directions rang with it, the earth seemed to shake and the sky to fall, and fear entered the rākṣasa army. With the deaths of Kumbha and Nikumbha, Kumbhakarṇa's line too was all but wiped out. The two closing verses, in long and stately metres, give the end of the sarga its heroic gravity.