विभीषणप्रोत्साहनं लक्ष्मणेन्द्रजितोः तुमुलं युद्धं च

Lakṣmaṇa and Indrajit, each eager to conquer the other, fought on locked together like two elephants in rut. Wanting to watch their fight, the brave and mighty Vibhīṣaṇa, Rāvaṇa's brother, bearing a splendid bow and skilled in its use, took his stand at the head of the battle. But he did not stay a mere onlooker. Standing there, he drew his great bow and loosed great sharp-pointed arrows among the rākṣasas, and those arrows, touching like fire and well aimed, fell among them and put them to flight, as thunderbolts shatter great mountains. The poet shows that even fighting against his own people Vibhīṣaṇa did not forsake the side of right; he was a warrior as well as a counsellor, and by breaking the rākṣasa ranks he made Lakṣmaṇa's task easier. At the end of the last sarga he had stood beside Lakṣmaṇa; now he took up arms himself. Nephew and uncle on opposite sides of the same battlefield make a pitiful sight.

Vibhīṣaṇa's four followers too, the best of rākṣasas, cut down heroic rākṣasas with spears, swords and paṭṭiśas, and surrounded by those ministers of his, Vibhīṣaṇa shone among them like an elephant among bold young calves, the foremost of his company. Then that best of rākṣasas, who knew when the moment had come, spoke timely words to spur on the monkeys, who loved to kill rākṣasas: "Lords of the monkeys, this one alone stands as the last refuge of the lord of the rākṣasas; he is all that remains of his army. Why do you stand idle? Fight!" Vibhīṣaṇa knew the time: when the enemy's last support stands before you, that is the moment to attack with all your strength. The last refuge is the one prop that, once it falls, leaves nothing else to lean on. His words were meant to shake the monkeys out of their stillness and to show them that this was the decisive moment and there must be no delay; and he himself stood in the front.

"Once this wicked rākṣasa is slain at the head of the battle, the rest of his army, Rāvaṇa excepted, is as good as destroyed. The hero Prahasta is slain, and mighty Nikumbha, Kumbhakarṇa and Kumbha, and the night-ranger Dhūmrākṣa; Jambumālī, Mahāmālī, Tīkṣṇavega, Aśaniprabha, Suptaghna, Yajñakopa and Vajradaṃṣṭra; Saṃhrādī, Vikaṭa, Arighna, Tapana and Manda, Praghāsa, Praghasa, Prajaṅgha and Jaṅgha; Agniketu the unassailable, the valiant Raśmiketu, Vidyujjihva, Dvijihva and Sūryaśatru; Akampana, Supārśva and Cakramālī, Kampana, and those two mighty ones, Devāntaka and Narāntaka. Having slain these many mighty rākṣasa champions, you have crossed the ocean with your arms; now leap across this cow's hoofprint, a small thing. This much alone is left for you to conquer, monkeys; all the other rākṣasas, proud of their strength, met you and were slain." Many of these had fallen in earlier sargas at the hands of the monkeys, of Rāma and of Lakṣmaṇa: Prahasta to Nīla, Kumbhakarṇa to Rāma, Kumbha to Sugrīva, Nikumbha and Devāntaka to Hanumān, Narāntaka to Aṅgada, Dhūmrākṣa and Akampana to Hanumān. By calling them to mind Vibhīṣaṇa raised the monkeys' confidence, and hearing their own deeds recounted, they took heart again. The long roll of names shows how far the destruction had gone: Rāvaṇa's house was almost empty, and the pride of those who were "proud of their strength" had borne its fruit in ruin. The image of the ocean and the hoofprint lightens the monkeys' labour: a cow's hoofprint is the little hollow a cow's hoof leaves in the ground, whose water a child can step over, and who that had crossed an ocean a hundred yojanas wide would fear a hoofprint? So he made them feel the war was all but won, for weary soldiers find new strength when they hear how near the goal is. His words show a leader's skill: first a reminder of what had been done, then how little was left, and last a direct command. After Indrajit, only Rāvaṇa would remain to be conquered.

Then Vibhīṣaṇa spoke openly of the pain in his own heart: "It is not fitting for me to kill one who is my father's son's son, my brother's own child. Yet for Rāma's sake I would cast pity aside and kill him. But as I set out to kill him, tears block my eyes. So mighty-armed Lakṣmaṇa here will put an end to him. Monkeys, band together and strike down the servants who stand near him." Vibhīṣaṇa's conflict of duty is drawn with compassion: he knew what he had to do, yet his affection had not died. He did not hide his weakness but divided the task, the chief enemy to Lakṣmaṇa and the attendants to the monkeys, and his words show his truthfulness too. Urged on in this way by that most renowned rākṣasa,

the monkey chiefs rejoiced and lashed their tails. Those tigers among monkeys, shouting again and again, let out all kinds of cries like peacocks at the sight of rain-clouds; the lashing tails and the cries were the outward signs of their joy, and the image recalls the delight of the rainy season. Jāmbavān too, old as he was, fought in the front, surrounded by all his own troop, and they pounded the rākṣasas with stones, claws and teeth. As the lord of the bears struck them down, the mighty rākṣasas cast off their fear and surrounded him with weapons of many kinds, striking him with arrows, sharp axes, paṭṭiśas, staves and lances as he slaughtered their host; that the rākṣasas too fought without fear and did not flee shows how hard the fight was. The clash of monkeys and rākṣasas grew tumultuous, terrible and loud, like the battle of enraged gods and asuras, the monkeys in the part of the gods and the rākṣasas of the asuras, a struggle of right and wrong. Hanumān too, enraged, set Lakṣmaṇa down from his back, where he had been riding, tore a sāla tree from the mountain and, hard to approach, made a slaughter of the rākṣasas by the thousand, fighting again with a tree for his weapon. The mighty Indrajit, having fought a tumultuous fight with his uncle and gained nothing by it, turned back to his chief enemy and ran once more at Lakṣmaṇa, and the two heroes, Lakṣmaṇa and the rākṣasa, closed in battle again. The poet shows many scenes at once, Vibhīṣaṇa in one place, Jāmbavān in another, Hanumān in a third, and Lakṣmaṇa and Indrajit in the middle, spreading the whole field before the reader, and the effect of Vibhīṣaṇa's words is seen at once as the monkeys throw themselves back into the fight.

Showering floods of arrows, the two mighty warriors struck at each other, and again and again they vanished behind nets of arrows, like the moon and the sun hidden by clouds at the end of the hot season. So quick were their hands that nothing of their work could be seen, neither the taking up of the arrow nor its fitting, the grasp of the bow, the release, the draw, the stance, the setting of the fist or the finding of the mark; only the results could be seen. Here the poet names in order the eight movements of the art of archery, showing his own learning. With nets of arrows driven by the force of their bows filling the sky on every side, no forms could be made out. Lakṣmaṇa met Rāvaṇa's son, and Rāvaṇa's son met Lakṣmaṇa, the very order of the words showing how equal they were, and in their struggle a fierce confusion arose, so that no one could tell who was winning as each pressed the other in turn. Both were masters of the bow, and neither could quickly be beaten. With the sharp arrows the two of them loosed so swiftly, the sky seemed one unbroken mass, covered in darkness; with the hundreds of arrows falling from them, every quarter and every point between was choked with arrows, everything was shrouded in darkness, and there was great terror. As if the thousand-rayed sun had set and the world were wrapped in night, great rivers of blood flowed in their thousands, for warriors of both armies were falling there too, and cruel flesh-eaters gave out dreadful cries. At that time the wind did not blow, and fire would not burn. "May it go well with the worlds!" the great sages cried, and the gandharvas and cāraṇas flocked together in distress. The terror of the battle is told through nature itself standing still, wind and fire abandoning their work; rivers of blood, the cries of carrion-eaters, the still wind and the unburning fire are like the signs of the world's end, which is why the sages prayed for the worlds and the gandharvas and cāraṇas crowded together in fear. It was as though this were a fight not between a man and a rākṣasa but between two masters of divine weapons. Earlier Indrajit had fought unseen through his magic; now both were hidden only by the thickness of their arrows, and the difference matters: here there was no sorcery, only pure skill. Gods and sages awaited the outcome, and peace could come only with victory.

Then the son of Sumitrā pierced with four arrows the four black, gold-adorned horses of that lion among rākṣasas. Then with another broad-headed arrow, yellow and sharp, drawn to the full and released, well feathered and gleaming like great Indra's thunderbolt, and ringing with the slap of the bowstring as it flew like a bolt of lightning, the glorious Rāghava, Lakṣmaṇa, struck off the head of the charioteer as he drove, so quick was his hand. With his charioteer slain, the mighty son of Mandodarī took over the driving himself and took up his bow again, and his charioteering amazed all who watched. Lakṣmaṇa used the enemy's divided task as his opening, a fine point of the art of war: when Indrajit's hand was busy with the horses, Lakṣmaṇa pierced him with sharp arrows, and when he turned back to his bow, Lakṣmaṇa loosed arrows at the horses. A charioteer is half a chariot-fighter's strength; with him gone, the warrior is split between the reins and the bow, and Lakṣmaṇa, knowing this, had aimed first at the horses and then at the driver. In those openings Sumitrā's son, swiftest of all in action, harried him with floods of arrows as he moved about as though unafraid. Seeing his charioteer slain, Rāvaṇa's son lost his joy in battle and grew dejected, for the first time in the fight, a sign of the defeat to come. Taking the driving on himself shows his courage, and the poet, fair even to an enemy, calls it a wonder; but busy with both horses and bow, he was weak at both, and Lakṣmaṇa struck at every gap. Naming him the son of Mandodarī stirs pity, for his mother would soon be grieving. The quickness of Lakṣmaṇa's hand, mentioned again and again, is the chief theme of this sarga, and the first prop of Indrajit's chariot was gone.

Seeing the rākṣasa's face downcast, the monkey leaders were overjoyed and honoured Lakṣmaṇa. Then Pramāthī, Rabhasa, Śarabha and Gandhamādana, four monkey lords who had fought in earlier battles too, could hold back no longer and made a rush. Leaping up swiftly, those monkeys of great strength and fearsome valour fell upon his four fine horses, four monkeys on four horses at once, a well-planned move. Under the weight of those mountain-like monkeys, the horses poured blood from their mouths, and crushed and broken, they fell lifeless to the ground. Having killed the horses and smashed the great chariot, the monkeys leapt away again at speed and took their places at Lakṣmaṇa's side, which shows their discipline. With his horses dead and his chariot wrecked, every means of fighting was gone. Yet Indrajit did not flee: jumping down from the chariot whose horses were slain and whose driver was crushed, he ran at Sumitrā's son with a shower of arrows, bow in hand, asking for no quarter, the mark of a true warrior, and the poet does not belittle his courage. Then Lakṣmaṇa, like great Indra, tore him hard with swarms of arrows as he stood on foot in the fight, his fine horses slain, still loosing sharp and excellent shafts. The epithet "like great Indra" foreshadows Indrajit's death, for the enemy of Indra could be conquered only by one who was Indra's equal. The sarga ends, in a longer metre, with Indrajit on foot and without a chariot; his end is near, and in the next sarga this struggle will be decided.