मकराक्षस्य युद्धाय प्रस्थानम्

Hearing that Nikumbha had been killed and Kumbha struck down, Rāvaṇa, who could never bear defeat, blazed up like fire. The lord of the Nairṛtas, half out of his mind with anger and grief together, again did not go himself but sent another: he urged on Makarākṣa, the large-eyed son of Khara. "Go, my son, at my command, with an army at your back, and kill Rāghava and Lakṣmaṇa together with the forest-dwellers." He called him "my son" because Khara had been like a brother to him. Khara had been killed by Rāma long before in Janasthāna, so the wish to avenge his father lay hidden in Makarākṣa's heart, as the next sarga makes plain. Rāvaṇa's order came down to one word, "kill"; his aim was clear. Hearing Rāvaṇa's words, Makarākṣa, son of Khara, who thought himself a hero, answered the lord of the night-rovers joyfully, "So be it!" The phrase "who thought himself a hero" carries a touch of mockery: he believed himself brave, but his fate would be otherwise. Then the mighty rākṣasa saluted the Ten-necked king, walked round him, and went out from the gleaming palace at his command.

The son of Khara said to the commander standing near him, "Have my chariot brought at once, and bring the army quickly." Hearing him, the night-roving commander at once brought him the chariot and the army, which shows the order kept in the rākṣasa host. Makarākṣa walked round the chariot, as is done for good fortune when setting out to war, mounted it, and urged on his charioteer, "Drive fast!", eager for battle. Then he said to all the rākṣasas: "All of you, rākṣasas, fight in front of me. I have been commanded by Rāvaṇa, the great-souled king of the rākṣasas, to kill both Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa in battle. Today, night-rovers, with my finest arrows I shall kill Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, the monkey Sugrīva and all the monkeys. Today with blows of my spear I shall burn up the great monkey army when it comes against me, as fire burns dry fuel." It was a boastful vow: he alone would kill them all. He sent his soldiers in front and kept himself behind them, as leaders did; he repeated Rāvaṇa's command to impress the king's authority on his men; he named every enemy, Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, Sugrīva and the monkeys, and insulted Sugrīva by calling him a mere beast of the branches; and he named his two weapons, arrows for a distance and the spear for close fighting. The image of dry fuel shows his confidence, but the reader remembers how many rākṣasas had made such vows before and died. Hearing Makarākṣa's words, all the night-rovers, bearing many kinds of weapons, mighty and ready, armed themselves.

Those rākṣasas could take any form they wished, which made them hard to defeat in battle. They were cruel, tusked and tawny-eyed, their hair dishevelled and terrifying to see, and they roared like elephants. Those giants surrounded the gigantic son of Khara and went out joyfully, making the earth shake beneath them, an exaggeration that conveys their numbers and their weight. A great noise arose from the thousands of conches and drums sounded on every side, and from their war-cries and the slapping of their arms. The army set out as if to a festival, but the verses that follow show that this festival would end in sorrow.

Then the goad slipped from the charioteer's hand, and by the will of fate the rākṣasa's standard suddenly fell. The horses yoked to his chariot lost their stride, forgetting their natural gait; stumbling on unsteady feet they went on dejected, their faces wet with tears, as if even the beasts knew the ruin to come. As that fierce and evil-minded Makarākṣa went out, a harsh and dreadful wind blew, full of dust. The falling goad, the falling standard, the weeping horses and the dusty wind foretold his death before the battle began; in the Rāmāyaṇa such ill omens attend the setting out of almost every rākṣasa champion. The rākṣasas, mighty as they were, saw these omens, paid them no heed, and all went out to where Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa were, knowing and ignoring, out of pride and folly. Dark as clouds, as elephants and as buffaloes, many times wounded by maces and swords at the front of battle and skilled in war, those night-rovers wheeled about again and again, crying, "Me first! Me first!", each eager to be first into the fight. The poet closes the sarga in a longer metre.