Jain Ramayana Part 3

SR No.: 002023
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bhadraguptasuri
Publisher: Vishvakalyan Prakashan Trust Mehsana
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 518
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, & Literature
File Size: 24 MB

Page 153

LXXXIII
THE SLAYING OF RAVAN
Ravan woke up early in the morning and came out of his sleeping chamber. He stood at the window of his magnificent palace. For a few moments, he kept watching Lanka which was vast, prosperous, splendid and the very embodiment of power and pomp. The topless towers, the skyhigh buildings, the magnificent mansions, the glorious gardens and the amusement houses which even the god of love would envy and the sublime temples of Lanka stood before him. All these things had been created by him. He had built them using all his intelligence, skill and wealth. Ravan was lost in watching the magnificent things he had created but he never thought that that was the last time, that he would be watching the city of Lanka thus. The idea that he might be defeated and killed never entered his thoughts. He had lost all fear of defeat and death because he had attained one thousand supernatural powers and now he had attained the Bahurupini power also. Above all, he possessed the Sudarshan chakra, the supreme weapon of a Prativasudev. Until that day, he had been confident of killing Ram and Lakshman and that was his only objective in the war but he had discarded that plan also after that encounter with Sita in the Devaraman Garden. Now, his plan was to defeat Ram and Lakshman, to get them into Lanka and to return Sita to Shri Ram. This was his present plan. He had lost all infatuation for Sita because she was unyielding.
After the routine activities of the day, he began making grand preparations for the war. Soldiers, elephants, horses and chariots had already occupied their appointed positions in the battle-field. On that day, Ravan was staking all the powers of his empire. That day's war was to be final and decisive.