Setubandha

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 28

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with him, like a wild elephant falling a prey to a lion's jawś (vv. 48-61).
Meanwhile Ravana sets about overwhelming the host of Vanaras with his arrows, but the fight now resolves itself into an archery contest between Rama and his adversary, 'marked by equal valour, and momentous because of the certain death of one of them.' At long last the cluster of Ravana's heads is severed all at once by Rama with a single arrow (vv. 62-79).
Vibhiṣaṇa laments the death of Ravaṇa (vv. 84 ff.).
If I am pious, I who forsook thee, unforsaken by thy other kinsmen who shared thy joys and sorrows; then, o king, who should be counted first among the impious?
Sorrowing over the killing of his kinsmen, Vibhiṣaṇa spoke to Rama as he checked his oncoming tears with an effort more unbearable than death, like unto a mountain whose streams were dried by the heat of summer. vv. 88,89
He begs leave to fall at the feet of the dead Rāyaṇa and Kumbhakarṇa, and touch the head of the child Meghanada,' his nephew. Moved to pity by his lament, Rama orders Hanumat to perform the funeral rites for the lord of the demons.
Taking with him Sita, purified in the fire like a bar of gold, Rama returns to Ayodhya 'to crown Bharata's devotion to him with glory.'
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Pravarasena and the Sétubandha
That Pravarasena, the author of the Setubandha, was a king is generally accepted by our commentators, but they record different traditions about his identity. Kulanatha, in his gloss on Setu 1.12, says that there is a tradition (ŝruti)