Rāvaṇa Yajña Bhaṅga

Before his last battle with Rāma, Rāvaṇa tried to win victory by ritual. He began a vijayārtha homa, a fire yajña for victory. If it were finished, it would make him unbeatable. Vibhīshaṇa learned of it from his spies and warned Rāma at once. Aṅgada, Hanumān and other vānara leaders then broke into Laṅkā at dawn and broke the yajña. The Rāmacaritamānas of Tulsīdāsa tells this in the Laṅkā Kāṇḍa.

Rāvaṇa’s plan for the yajña

After the setbacks of his first battle and the failure of his earlier plans, Rāvaṇa chose another way. He decided not to go back to the battlefield until he had won protection by ritual. On the holy Caitra Śuddha Daśamī he began to prepare a vijayārtha homa, a fire yajña for victory in battle.

Vibhīshaṇa had placed chāras (spies) all through Laṅkā. They found out the plan at once. Vibhīshaṇa came to Rāma and told him with urgency:

Rākshasa-nāthuḍu mahāyajñamu talapeṭṭinaṭlu viṃṭiṃi. Adini nirvighnamugā pūrtiyaina asurēśuḍu ajēyuḍagunu

“I have heard that the rākshasa-lord has planned a great yajña. If it is finished without any break, the asura-lord will become unconquerable.”

Rāma ordered at once that the yajña be broken. He sent Aṅgada, Hanumān and other senior commanders with a band of vānaras.

The vānaras storm Laṅkā

Before dawn the next day, the vānara party climbed the walls of Laṅkā and entered the city. They went straight to Rāvaṇa’s royal palace and found him inside. He was seated in deep concentration, in the middle of the homa, with all the ritual things around him: the vedi (the altar for the yajña), the sacred fire, the offerings of ghee and herbs, and the priests. He was in deep dhyāna (meditation), his outer senses drawn in.

The vānaras attacked the yajña without ceremony. They knocked down the vedi. They scattered the offerings and the ritual materials. They broke the yajña-kuṇḍa (the fire pit). They dragged Rāvaṇa by his ears and pulled the rākshasa king off his seat. The verse says:

rāvaṇi ceviṭlu paṭṭukoni āsanamu nuṃḍi ī valaku barabaranā īḍciṃri

They mocked him loudly: “Rākshasādhama! You ran away from battle, and now you sit here with your eyes closed in false worship?”

Rāvaṇa kept his iron discipline and stayed in dhyāna. Through all the noise and blows, his inner concentration did not break. The vānaras could not shake him loose.

The breaking of the vrata

The vānaras were frustrated by Rāvaṇa’s unshakable concentration, so they tried one last extreme step. The Rāmacaritamānas tells this with almost comic seriousness. The vānaras went into Rāvaṇa’s antaḥpura, the inner palace where the women of his household lived, and dragged the women out. The weeping women of the inner rooms were brought to where Rāvaṇa sat in dhyāna, and they were hurled onto him.

The women fell on Rāvaṇa’s body and collapsed weeping on him, crying labō dibōyani kēkalubēṭṭi (crying out loudly). At this the vrata (vow) was broken. The touch of the śuddhaṃtakāṃtājana, the pure women of the inner rooms, came in a moment of ritual disruption and distress, not of devotion, and it destroyed the purity of the yajña. Rāvaṇa was no longer keeping the vrata correctly.

He opened his eyes. Rage blazed in them like fire. He looked at the chaos around him: the scattered ritual articles, the broken vedi, the weeping women. In a burst of anger he sprang at the vānaras. But the vānaras were already gone. They had done what they came to do, and they left at great speed the moment they saw his eyes open. They went back to the camp in celebration.

Sources

• Tulasī Rāmāyana (Tulsīdāsa’s Rāmacaritamānas), Laṅkā Kāṇḍa, the section on Rāvaṇa’s decision to perform a homa for victory (Rāvaṇuḍu Vijayārdhiyai Hōmamu Ceya Saṃkalpimcuṭa)