Ravana Feasts Like a Hundred Indras Beneath the Shadow of Rama
Lanka Kanda, Doha 10
Doha 10 · Movement 2 of 2
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The palace glitters above Lanka while song, rhythm, ornament, and dance gather around the throne. Ravana indulges without measure, as if the pleasures of a hundred Indras had been compressed into one evening.
The excess is not born from safety. A supremely powerful enemy stands over his head, an ocean crossed and an army established within sight of the city. The crown beneath that threat continues to turn toward entertainment.
Ravana shows neither worry nor terror. Yet the absence of visible fear is no longer courage. It is the numbness Mandodari recognized as Time's possession and Prahasta named as medicine arriving too late. Pleasure becomes a canopy held above a king who refuses to look upward.
A hundred heavens perform around Ravana while the shadow of one bow lies across his crown.
Read the passage from the Manas
सुनासीर सत सरिस सो संतत करइ बिलास। परम प्रबल रिपु सीस पर तद्यपि सोच न त्रास।।10।।
He indulges constantly in pleasures like a hundred Indras. Though a supremely powerful enemy looms over his head, he feels neither worry nor fear.