Ramayana War, Source: amarnathdube.wordpress.com, Access date: July 24, 2022.
06. Yuddha Kanda01,02.
First revision: Jul.23, 2022
Last change: Sep.28, 2023
Searched, Gathered, Rearranged, and Compiled by Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
The Yuddhakāṇḍa
As its name suggests, the sixth book of the poem, the Yuddhakāṇḍa, “The Book of War,” is chiefly concerned with the war that takes place before the walls of Lañkā between the forces of Rāma, his monkey allies, and a few defector rākṣasas on one side, and the rākṣasa hordes of Rāvaṇa on the other. The book contains elaborate descriptions of the monkey (vānara) forces and detailed accounts of single combats and mass melees between the leading warriors and their troops. As a result, it is the longest of the poem’s seven kāṇḍas and nearly twice the size of the next longest.
Bharata Subcontinent, Source: www.etsy.com, Access date: Sep.24, 2023.
Having received Hanumān’s report on Sītā and the military defenses of Lañkā, Rāma, and Lakṣmaṇa, they marched with their simian allies to the southern coast of India. There they are joined by Rāvaṇa’s renegade brother Vibhīṣaṇa, who, repelled by his brother’s outrageous abduction of Sītā and unable to reason with him, has defected, with a handful of retainers, to the side of his enemies. He is accepted as an ally by Rāma, providing him with vital intelligence and assistance throughout the war.
Under the direction of their engineer Nala, the son of the divine architect Viśvakarman, the monkeys construct a bridge across the ocean, using which the princes and their army cross over to Lañkā and lay siege to the city. A protracted and bloody, though far from realistic, series of battles rage, with the advantage shifting from one side to the other. After an initial encounter with Rāma, Rāvaṇa is humiliatingly dismissed by his foe and withdraws from the battlefield for a time. He then dispatches, one after another, his foremost warriors, each of whom is killed in turn by Rāma or his allies. Noteworthy among these are his gargantuan and narcoleptic brother Kumbhakarṇa and his terrifying son Rāvaṇi Indrajit, who is both a mighty warrior and a fearsome sorcerer. Finally, all his champions slain, Rāvaṇa rides forth to battle, and after a mighty and prolonged duel, Rāma finally kills him. Rāma then installs Vibhīṣaṇa on the throne of Lañkā and sends for Sītā. But Rāma initially expresses no joy in recovering her. Instead, he abuses her verbally and refuses to take her back because she has lived in another man's house. Only when the princess is proven innocent of unfaithfulness by submitting herself to a public ordeal by fire does the prince accept her.
Sandstone Carvings: Rāvaṇa, on his chariot, was fighting with Rāma and his allies. Picture from the North West Pavillion, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia, taken on October 29, 2018.
At last, his enemy was slain, his wife recovered, and his fourteen years of exile passed, Rāma returned home to Vibhīṣaṇa’s flying palace, the Puṣpaka (บุษบก). Upon his return to Ayodhyā, Rāma relieves Bharata, who had been administering the kingdom as an ascetic during his absence, and celebrates his long-delayed royal consecration, inaugurating a millennia-long utopian reign, the famous Rāmarājya in many later influential versions of the Rāmāyaṇa. The tale ends here, leaving it with a “happily ever after” Ending. But this is far from the case in Vālmīki’s poem.
Sources, Vocabularies, and Narratives:
01. from. "The Illustrated Ramayana: The Timeless Epic of Duty, Love, and Redemption," ISBN: 978-0-2414-7376-4, Penguin Random House, 2017, Printed and bound in China, www.dk.com.
02. from. "The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki - THE COMPLETE ENGLISH TRANSLATION," Translated by Robert P. Goldman, Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Rosalind Lefeber, Sheldon I. Pollock, and Barend A. van Nooten, Revised and Edited by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, ISBN 978-0-6912-0686-8, 2021, Princeton University Press, Printed in the United States of America
