{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry455.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry455.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry455.htm","text":"With humbled heart and broken pride\n Through Lank\u00e1's gate the giant hied,\n Crushed, like an elephant beneath\n A lion's spring and murderous teeth,\n Or like a serpent 'neath the wing\n And talons of the Feathered King.\n Such was the giant's wild alarm\n At arrows shot by R\u00e1ma's arm;\n Shafts with red lightning round them curled,\n Like Brahm\u00e1's bolts that end the world.\n \n \n Supported on his golden throne,\n With failing eye and humbled tone,\n 'Giants,' he cried,' the toil is vain,\n Fruitless the penance and the pain,\n If I whom Indra owned his peer,\n Secure from Gods, a mortal fear.\n My soul remembers, now too late,\n Lord Brahm\u00e1's words who spoke my fate:\n 'Tremble, proud Giant,' thus they ran,\n 'And dread thy death from slighted man.\n Secure from Gods and demons live,\n And serpents, by the boon I give.\n Against their power thy life is charmed,\n But against man is still unarmed.'\n This R\u00e1ma is the man foretold\n By Anarama's* \u00a01 lips of old:\n \n \n Fear, R\u00e1van, basest of the base:\n For of mine own imperial race\n A prince in after time shall spring\n And thee and thine to ruin bring.\n And Vedavati,\u00a02 ere she died\n Slain by my ruthless insult, cried:\n \n \n 'A scion of my royal line\n Shall slay, vile wretch, both thee and thine.'\n She in a later birth became\n King Janak's child, now R\u00e1ma's dame.\n Nand\u00eds'vara \u00a01 foretold this fate,\n And Um\u00e1 \u00a02 when I moved her hate,\n And Rambh\u00e1, \u00a03 and the lovely child\n Of Varun \u00a04 by my touch defiled.\n I know the fated hour is nigh:\n Hence, captains, to your stations fly.\n Let warders on the rampart stand:\n Place at each gate a watchful band;\n And, terror of immortal eyes,\n Let mightiest Kumbhakarnna rise.\n He, slumbering, free from care and pain,\n By Brahm\u00e1's curse, for months has lain.\n But when Prahasta's death he hears,\n Mine own defeat and doubts and fears,\n The chief will rise to smite the foe\n And his unrivalled valour show.\n Then Raghu's royal sons and all\n The V\u00e1nars neath his might will fall.'\n \n \n The giant lords his hest obeyed,\n They left him, trembling and afraid,\n And from the royal palace strode\n To Kumbhakarna's vast abode.\n They carried garlands sweet and fresh,\n And reeking loads of blood and flesh.\n They reached the dwelling where he lay,\n A cave that reached a league each way,\n Sweet with fair blooms of lovely scent\n And bright with golden ornament.\n His breathings came to fierce and fast,\n Scarce could the giants brook the blast.\n They found him on a golden bed\n With his huge limbs at length outspread.\n \n \n They piled their heaps of venison near,\n Fat buffaloes and boars and deer.\n With wreaths of flowers they fanned his face,\n And incense sweetened all the place.\n Each raised his mighty voice as loud\n As thunders of an angry cloud,\n And conches their stirring summons gave\n That echoed through the giant's cave.\n Then on his breast they rained their blows.\n And high the wild commotion rose\n When cymbal vied with drum and horn.\n And war cries on the gale upborne\n Through all the air loud discord spread,\n And, struck with fear, the birds fell dead.\n But still he slept and took his rest.\n Then dashed they on his shaggy chest\n Clubs, maces, fragments of the rock:\n He moved not once, nor felt the shock.\n The giants made one effort more\n With shell and drum and shout and roar.\n Club, mallet, mace, in fury plied,\n Rained blows upon his breast and side.\n And elephants were urged to aid,\n And camels groaned and horses neighed.\n They drenched him with a hundred pails,\n They tore his ears with teeth and nails.\n They bound together many a mace\n And beat him on the head and face;\n And elephants with ponderous tread\n Stamped on his limbs and chest and head.\n The unusual weight his slumber broke:\n He started, shook his sides, and woke;\n And, heedless of the wounds and blows,\n Yawning with thirst and hunger rose,\n His jaws like hell gaped fierce and wide,\n Dire as the flame neath ocean's tide.\n Red as the sun on Meru's crest\n The giant's face his wrath expressed,\n And every burning breath he drew\n Was like the blast that rushes through\n The mountain cedars. Up he raised\n His awful head with eyes that blazed\n Like comets, dire as Death in form\n Who threats the worlds with fire and stcrm.\n The giants pointed to their stores\n Of buffaloes and deer and boars,\n And straight he gorged him with a flood\n Of wine, with marrow, flesh, and blood.\n He ceased: the giants ventured near\n And bent their lowly heads in fear.\n Then Kumbhakarna glared with eyes\n Still heavy in their first surprise,\n Still drowsy from his troubled rest,\n And thus the giant band addressed.\n 'How have ye dared my sleep to break?\n No trifling cause should bid me wake.\n Say, is all well? or tell the need\n That drives you with unruly speed\n To wake me. Mark the words I say,\n The king shall tremble in dismay,\n \n \n Of Vishn'u, he was firm in heart.\n \u00a0\u00a0 The Wind-God's son the fight beheld,\n And rushed at R\u00e1van, rage-impelled.\n Down crashed his mighty hand the foe\n Full in the chest received the blow.\n His eyes grew dim, his knees gave way.\n And senseless on the earth he lay.\n \u00a0\u00a0 The Wind-God's son to R\u00e1ma bore\n Deep-wounded Lakshman stained with gore.\n He whom no foe might lift or bend\n Was light as air to such a friend.\n The dart that Lakshman's side had cleft,\n Untouched, the hero's body left,\n And flashing through the air afar\n Resumed its place in R\u00e1van's car;\n And, waxing well though wounded sore,\n He felt the deadly pain no more.\n And R\u00e1van, though with deep wounds pained,\n Slowly his sense and strength regained,\n And furious still and undismayed\n On bow and shaft his hand he laid.\n \u00a0\u00a0 Then Hanum\u00e1n to R\u00e1ma cried:\n 'Ascend my back, great chief, and ride\n Like Vishnu borne on Garud's wing,\n To battle with the giant king.'\n So, burning for the dire attack,\n Rode R\u00e1ma on the V\u00e1nar's back,\n And with fierce accents loud and slow\n Thus gave defiance to the foe,\n While his strained bowstring made a sound\n Like thunder when it shakes the ground:\n 'Stay, Monarch of the giants, stay,\n The penalty of sin to pay.\n Stay; whither wilt thou fly, and how\n Escape the death that waits thee now?'\n \u00a0\u00a0 No word the giant king returned:\n His eyes with flames of fury burned.\n His arm was stretched, his bow was bent,\n And swift his fiery shafts were sent.\n Red torrents from the V\u00e1nar flowed:\n Then R\u00e1ma near to R\u00e1van' strode,\n And, with keen darts that never failed,\n The chariot of the king assailed.\n With surest aim his arrows flew:\n The driver and the steeds he slew,\n And shattered with the pointed steel\n Car, flag and pole and yoke and wheel.\n As Indra hurls his bolt to smite\n Mount Meru's heaven-ascending height,\n So R\u00e1ma with a flaming dart\n Struck Lank\u00e1's monarch near the heart,\n Who reeled and fell beneath the blow\n And from loose fingers dropped his bow.\n Bright as the sun, with crescent head,\n From R\u00e1ma's bow an arrow sped,\n And from his forehead, proud no more,\n Cleft the bright coronet he wore.\n \n \n Then R\u00e1ma stood by R\u00e1van''s side\n And to the conquered giant cried:\n 'Well hast thou fought: thine arm has slain\n Strong heroes of the V\u00e1nar train.\n I will not strike or slay thee now,\n For weary, faint with fight art thou.\n To Lank\u00e1's town thy footsteps bend,\n And there the night securely spend.\n To-morrow come with car and bow,\n And then my prowess shall thou know.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 He ceased: the king in humbled pride\n Rose from the earth and naught replied.\n With wounded limbs and shattered crown\n He sought again his royal town.\n \n \n \n \n470:1 An ancient king of Ayodhy\u00e1 said by some to have been Prithu's father.\n470:2 The daughter of King Kus'adhwaja. She became an ascetic, and being insulted by R\u00e1van in the woods where she was p. 471 performing penance, destroyed herself by entering fire, but was born again as Sit\u00e1 to be in turn the destruction of him who had insulted her.\n471:1 Nand\u00eds'vara was S'iva's chief attendant. R\u00e1van had despised and laughed at him for appearing in the form of a monkey and the irritated Nand\u00eds'vara cursed him and foretold his destruction by monkeys.\n471:2 R\u00e1van once upheaved and shook Mount Kail\u00e1sa the favourite dwelling place of S'iva the consort of Um\u00e1, and was cursed in consequence by the offended Goddess.\n471:3 Rambh\u00e1, who has several times been mentioned in the course of the poem, was one of the nymphs of heaven, and had been insulted by R\u00e1van.\n471:4 Punjikasthal\u00e1 was the daughter of Varun. R\u00e1van himself has mentioned in this book his insult to her, and the curse pronounced in consequeuce by Brahm\u00e1.","title":"BOOK VI: Canto LX.: Kumbhakarna Roused.","type":"page"}