Chapter 53 — Lanka Taken

At Rama's court, Agastya continued the history that had begun before Ravana was lord of Lanka.

When Sumali learned that the sons of Kaikasi had received their boons, he no longer remained hidden in Rasatala. He rose from the realm below with Maricha, Prahasta, Virupaksha, Mahodara, and other rakshasa followers. They came to Dashagriva, embraced him, and spoke as men who believed an old fear had ended.

“The wish for which we left Lanka has come within reach,” Sumali told him. “The terror Vishnu brought upon us is past. Lanka was a city of our people before Vaishravana, guardian of wealth, settled there. Your elder half-brother holds it now. Bring it back—by agreement, by gift, or by force if there is no other way. You will be its lord, and ours.”

Ravana did not answer with immediate hunger for the city. “Vaishravana is our elder brother,” he said. “He is also my teacher. You should not urge this.”

Prahasta, who understood speech as well as war, replied with a harsher logic. “Do not let brotherhood make you powerless. Aditi and Diti were sisters, he said, yet the children of their lines fought for mastery of the worlds. The strong have acted before you. Lanka belongs to the rakshasas. Take it.”

The precedent did not make the demand just. It made it easier for Ravana to accept. After a short silence he agreed, and he sent Prahasta to Lanka as his envoy, a formal bearer of a ruler's demand.

Prahasta found Vaishravana in the bright city on Trikuta, beyond the southern ocean. He delivered Ravana's words without disguise: Lanka had been occupied by rakshasas before Vaishravana entered it; Ravana asked that it be yielded to him in peace.

Vaishravana heard the message. He did not pretend not to understand its weight. “Tell Dashagriva that the city and kingdom that are mine may be his as well,” he said. “But wait while I speak with our father.”

He went to Vishrava and told him what the envoy had brought. Vishrava knew the force behind the request. Ravana, he said, had been made reckless by the boon he had won and had moved toward a dangerous nature. There could be no fitting conflict between Vaishravana and such a brother.

“Go to Kailasa,” Vishrava told him. “Leave Lanka with your household and those who serve you. The mountain has the Mandakini flowing beside it, its waters bright with lotus blooms. Make your home there.”

Vaishravana accepted the command from respect for his father. He did not stay to make a contest of the city. With his wives, citizens, advisers, vehicles, and wealth, he left Lanka for the mountain abode Vishrava had named.

Prahasta returned to Ravana. Lanka, he reported, stood empty: a great island city, thirty yojanas in extent, its gates and high walls waiting above the sea. A yojana was a measure of distance in the old reckoning, used to make a size felt rather than to fix it upon a map. “Enter it with us,” he urged. “Establish your rule there.”

Ravana went with his brothers and his armed followers. The rakshasas installed him as their lord, and the city filled again with their households and troops, dark in their multitude like banks of rain cloud gathered around Trikuta.

Thus Lanka changed hands without a battle at its gates. Ravana's boon stood behind the demand, Prahasta's counsel had urged him toward it, and Vaishravana had obeyed his father rather than begin a war against his brother.