Chapter 68 — Indra Taken

Beyond Kailasa, Ravana brought his army to Indra's realm. Its arrival was not quiet. The sound of the rakshasa host rolled through the divine world like a sea breaking its boundary.

Indra, king of the gods, heard it and called the gods to arms. Yet before the lines met, he went to Vishnu. Ravana's strength, Indra said, came from a boon; what could be done while that word still stood?

Vishnu did not promise an easy rescue. “Gods and danavas cannot kill him now,” he said. “The boon prevents it. But he will do great harm, and when the time comes, I will be the cause of his death.” The answer preserved a future end without pretending that Ravana's protection was a crown over the world.

At dawn the armies collided. Ravana's grandfather Sumali entered among the rakshasas with Maricha, Prahasta, Mahodara, and other commanders. His assault drove the gods back. Then Savitra came forward, one of the Vasus, a group of gods of the celestial assemblies. He met Sumali's force rather than fleeing it.

Their struggle was brief in Agastya's telling and terrible in its result. Savitra broke Sumali's chariot with arrows, took up a mace, and struck him. Sumali fell dead. The rakshasas, seeing the elder who had led them destroyed, scattered from the field.

Meghanada saw them running and turned them back. Ravana's son stood before the gods in his fire-colored chariot. Indra sent Jayanta, his son, to meet him; their duel widened into confusion when darkness of Meghanada's making fell over the battle. Puloma, Jayanta's maternal grandfather, carried Jayanta away.

Indra then entered the field, and Ravana met him. Kumbhakarna fought among the forces while their arrows made the battle dark again. Ravana pressed forward and boasted that he would kill Indra and the other guardians. Indra answered with a different order: Ravana could not be killed while Brahma's boon held, so the gods were to take him alive.

Before they could do so, Meghanada moved unseen through the godly force. He struck Indra, Matali, and the chariot horses, then bound the exhausted king of the gods by his power and drew him into the rakshasa lines. The gods cried out at the loss. Ravana, driven back by their answering weapons, heard his son call from beyond sight.

“Come, father. Indra is in my power.”

Ravana withdrew and praised Meghanada for raising the honor of their house. Together they left the field with Indra captive, followed by the remnant of their host. At Rama's court, Agastya held the ending open: the capture had reversed the battle, but it had not yet made Ravana ruler of the gods, and Meghanada had not yet received the later name by which the war would know him.