Chapter 66 — Nikumbhila and Madhu

After he had sent Khara to Dandaka, Ravana entered Nikumbhila, a great ritual grove in Lanka. In the later war this place would become urgent again, when Meghanada—then called Indrajit—sought strength before fighting Lakshmana. But in Agastya's earlier account Ravana found his son still under his birth name, standing beside a sacrificial fire.

The enclosure was marked by ritual posts and quiet attendants. Meghanada wore a black antelope skin and carried the simple vessels of the rite. Ravana embraced him and asked what work was being performed there.

Ushanasa, the learned teacher presiding over the sacrifice, answered for the young prince. Meghanada, he said, had completed seven great rites: among them the agnishtoma, the ashvamedha, and the rājasūya among them. They were formal offerings to the great powers, witnessed in fire, not displays staged for Ravana's court.

At a difficult rite of Maheshvara, another name for Shiva, Ushanasa said, Meghanada had received gifts fitted for war: a chariot that could move through the sky, a darkness-making power that could conceal a fighter's course, two quivers that would not run empty, a bow hard to overcome, and a weapon of great force against enemies. His resources were formidable, but they did not make him unanswerable to every opponent, and he had not yet earned the name he would carry later.

Ravana heard that Indra and the other gods had been honored in these rites and frowned. “It is not right,” he said, “that my enemies should have received these offerings.” Yet the rites had been completed. He called Meghanada away, and father and son returned to Lanka.

There Ravana ordered the women he had carried in Pushpaka to be released. The command did not undo the deaths, fear, and violations that had brought them there. Vibhishana, watching them leave in distress, would not let the moment pass as though release were restoration.

“These acts consume honor, wealth, and family,” he told his brother. “You have injured people at your own will. And now you have brought on us the result of another such injury.”

He spoke of Madhu, a powerful rakshasa who had carried off Kumbhinasī, a woman of their extended family, after killing trusted officers in Ravana's guarded quarters. Ravana had not known. When he did, anger found a new object. He ordered the army ready, summoned Kumbhakarna and the leading rakshasas, and declared that Madhu would die. In the next breath he named his larger ambition: after dealing with Madhu, he would go on with his campaign against the gods. It does not make one purpose the cause of the other.

The army moved toward Madhu's city in vast numbers. Meghanada took the front, Ravana the middle, and Kumbhakarna the rear; Vibhishana remained in Lanka, observing the order of dharma in a household his brother repeatedly disturbed.

But when Ravana entered Madhu's city, he found Kumbhinasī before he found the man he had come to kill. She bowed at his feet and asked that her husband be spared. Ravana had just told Kumbhinasī herself not to be afraid and asked what he could do for her. When she invoked that assurance, he answered that, for her sake, he would turn from Madhu's death.

Madhu was summoned from sleep. Kumbhinasī told him that Ravana sought not his blood but his help in the coming campaign against the gods. Madhu accepted. He came before Ravana with due ceremony, and Ravana spent one night in his house as a received guest rather than an avenger.

The next day, joined by Madhu and the gathered force, Ravana reached Kailasa, the mountain associated with Vaishravana's dwelling. There he made camp. The army waited beneath the height, while a different consequence of Ravana's earlier violence moved toward him through the night.