Mountains and Missiles Thunder Like the Clouds of Dissolution
Lanka Kanda, Chhand 2
Doha 49ख · Movement 2 of 3
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Mountain summits are broken down in their millions, and projectiles of many kinds cross above the walls. Their impacts roll through the fortress like repeated thunderbolts striking earth and stone.
The armies roar as though the clouds of final dissolution had gathered over Lanka. Formidable vanara warriors press into the collision. Their bodies are cut and battered, yet they do not turn away from the contest.
Again they seize mountains and send them against the fort. Wherever a demon stands, stone descends upon that place. The chhand gives no council chamber and no pause for explanation. It holds only the terrible rhythm Ravana chose when he expelled peace: peaks torn free, missiles in flight, wounded bodies remaining upright, and the sound of an ending world concentrated around a single city.
The peace Ravana refused returns as a sky of broken mountains roaring above Lanka.
Read the passage from the Manas
ढाहे महीधर सिखर कोटिन्ह बिबिध बिधि गोला चले। घहरात जिमि पबिपात गर्जत जनु प्रलय के बादले।। मर्कट बिकट भट जुटत कटत न लटत तन जर्जर भए। गहि सैल तेहि गढ़ पर चलावहिं जहँ सो तहँ निसिचर हए।।
Then Ravana consoled the mourning women: 'Consider this well in your hearts; all visible forms of this world are perishable. Nothing here lasts forever.'