{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry453.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry453.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry453.htm","text":"The giant leader fiercely rained\n His arrows and thee fight maintained.\n Etime the clanging cord he drew\n His certain shaft a V\u00e1nar slew.\n Then, as the creatures he has made\n Fly to the Lord of Life for aid,\n To Angad for protection fled\n The V\u00e1nar hosts dispirited.\n Then raged the battle fiercer yet\n Then Angad and the giant met.\n A hundred thousand arrows, hot\n With flames of fire the giant shot;\n And every shaft he deftly sent\n His foeman's body pierced and rent.\n From Angad's limbs ran floods of gore:\n A stately tree from earth he tore,\n Which, maddened as his gashes bled,\n He hurled at his opponent's head.\n His bow the dauntless giant drew;\n To meet the tree swift arrows flew,\n Checked the huge missile's onward way,\n And harmless on the earth it lay.\n A while the V\u00e1nar chieftain gazed,\n Then from the earth a rock he raised\n Rent from a thunder-splitten height,\n And cast it with resistless might.\n The giant marked, and, mace in hand,\n Leapt from his chariot to the sand,\n Ere the rough mass descending broke\n The seat, the wheel, the pole and yoke.\n \n \n Then Angad seized a shattered hill,\n Whereon the trees were flowering still,\n And with full force the jagged peak\n Fell crashing on the giant's cheek.\n He staggered, reeled, and fell: the blood\n Gushed from the giant in a flood.\n Reft of his might, each sense astray,\n A while upon the sand he lay.\n But strength and wandering sense returned\n Again his eyes with fury burned,\n And with his mace upraised on high\n He wounded Angad on the thigh.\n Then from his hand his mace he threw,\n And closer to his foeman drew.\n \n \n Then with their fists they fought, and smote\n On brow and cheek and chest and throat.\n Worn out with toil, their limbs bedewed,\n With blood, the strife they still renewed,\n Like Mercury and fiery Mars\n Met in fierce battle mid the stars.\n \n \n A while the deadly fight was stayed:\n Each armed him with his trusty blade\n Whose sheath with tinkling bells supplied,\n And golden net, adorned his side;\n And grasped his ponderous leather shield\n To fight till one should fall or yield.\n Uunumbered wounds they gave and took:\n Their wearied bodies reeled and shook.\n At length upon the sand that drank\n Streams of their blood the warriors sank,\n But as a serpent rears his head\n Sore wounded by a peasant's tread,\n So Angad, fallen on his knees,\n Yet gathered strength his sword to seize;\n And, severed by the glittering blade,\n The giant's head on earth was laid.\u00a01\n \n \n467:1 I omit Cantos LV., LVI., LVII., and LVIII. which relate how Akampan and Prahasta sally out and fall. There is little novelty of incident in these Cantos and the result are exactly the same as before. In Canto LV. Akampan, at the command of R\u00e1van, leads forth his troops. Evil omens are seen and heard. The enemies meet, and many fall on each side, the V\u00e1nars transfixed with arrows, the R\u00e1kshases crushed with rooks and trees.\nIn Canto LVI. Akampan sees that the R\u00e1kshases are worsted, and fights with redoubled rage and vigour. The V\u00e1nars fall fast under his \"nets of arrows.\" Hanum\u00e1n comes to the rescue. He throws mountain peaks at the giant which are dexterously stopped with flights of arrows; and at last beats him down and kills him with a tree.\nIn Canto LVII. R\u00e1van is seriously alarmed. He declares that he himself, Kumbhakarna or Prahasta, must go forth. Prahasta sallies out vaunting that the fowls of the air shall eat their fill of V\u00e1nar flesh.\nIn Canto LVIII. the two armies meet. Dire is the conflict; ceaseless is the rain of stones and arrows. At last N\u00edla meets Prahasta and breaks his bow. Prahasta leaps from his car, and the giant and the V\u00e1nar fight on foot. N\u00edla with a huge tree crushes his opponent who falls like a tree when its roots are cut.","title":"BOOK VI: Canto LIV.: Vajradanshtra's Death.","type":"page"}