Akampan

Akampan is a commander in Rávaṇ’s forces whose sortie during the siege of Lanka ends in defeat at the hands of Hanumán. His brief episode shows the attackers’ attempt to recover ground in a battle the narrative presents as part of a succession of similar clashes.

Identity and Role

Akampan leads troops into battle at Rávaṇ’s command. The account gives no further personal history or characterization; it defines him through his place in the army and his conduct in the fighting.

Sortie and Defeat

The two armies meet amid ill omens, and the fighting brings losses on both sides. The monkey warriors are struck by arrows, while the opposing forces are attacked with rocks and trees. When Akampan sees that his side is being worsted, he fights with renewed force, and the monkey warriors begin to fall rapidly beneath his volleys of arrows.

Hanumán comes to their aid. Akampan stops the mountain peaks Hanumán throws with flights of arrows, but Hanumán eventually brings him down and kills him with a tree. The episode turns on that reversal: Akampan’s renewed attack intensifies the danger, yet it cannot prevent Hanumán from ending his advance.

Place in the Battle Narrative

The account situates Akampan’s defeat among a sequence of sorties during the siege. It also notes that the cantos covering Akampan and Prahasta’s sorties are omitted in the book’s presentation because their incidents add little novelty and their results repeat earlier outcomes. Akampan’s episode therefore functions both as a specific defeat and as part of a deliberately compressed pattern of renewed attacks and repulses.