The Sacrificial Fire Is Scattered and Ravana's Last Hope Sinks
Lanka Kanda, Chhand 10
Doha 85 · Movement 2 of 3
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Ravana continues to ignore the vanaras, clinging to the rite while they attack him in fury. They seize him with their teeth and strike him with their feet, but he refuses to turn his attention from the result he still imagines he can secure.
The disruption spreads through the palace. The vanaras seize the women by their hair and drag them outside, where their cries become pitiful. Only then does Ravana rise. Rage transforms his stillness into the violence it had concealed, and he appears terrible as Death while catching monkeys by their feet and hurling them away.
Yet the decisive action has already occurred between those movements. Other vanaras destroy the sacrifice. The ordered fire and its implements are laid waste before Ravana can preserve them. He sees the rite broken and inwardly accepts defeat. The last protection sought through ritual collapses in the same palace where he tried to make obstinacy look like meditation.
When the sacrificial order falls apart, Ravana sees his last hidden road to victory close before him.
Read the passage from the Manas
नहिं चितव जब करि कोप कपि गहि दसन लातन्ह मारहीं। धरि केस नारि निकारि बाहेर तेऽतिदीन पुकारहीं।। तब उठेउ क्रुद्ध कृतांत सम गहि चरन बानर डारई। एहि बीच कपिन्ह बिधंस कृत मख देखि मन महुँ हारई।।
When he paid no heed, the furious monkeys seized him by the teeth and struck him with their feet. They grabbed the women by their hair and dragged them outside, where they wailed most pitifully. Then he rose in rage, terrible as Kala himself, seizing the monkeys by their feet and hurling them away. Meanwhile the monkeys laid waste to the sacrificial fire, and seeing this, his heart sank into despair.