Chapter 55 — Kumbhakarna's Sleep

Agastya had already told Rama how the gods, fearing what Kumbhakarna might ask of Brahma, had caused his speech to turn toward sleep. Time now brought that granted condition upon him with its full force.

The sleep came over Kumbhakarna heavily. He went to Ravana and said, “Sleep is overcoming me, king. Have a dwelling made for me.”

Ravana appointed skilled builders. They made a hall for his brother on a scale that answered his enormous body: one yojana broad and twice as long.

The builders raised crystal and gold-colored pillars, set bright gems through the structure, and hung little bells in latticed work. Ivory gateways stood at its entrances; floors and platforms shone with crystal. The account likens the hall to a blessed cavern of Mount Meru, a place made comfortable through every season. It was not a cell, nor a comic shelter for a sleeper. It was a royal enclosure built around a condition that had taken hold of a life.

Kumbhakarna entered it and lay down. Then he slept for many thousands of years without waking.

The sleep was simply immense: a brother removed from the ordinary passage of the city he had helped Ravana seize.

Outside the hall, Lanka continued to gather power under Ravana. Inside, the bells hung silent above Kumbhakarna's unmoving body, and the story moved on without him.