Akampan and Prahasta's sorties and deaths

Akampan and Prahasta's sorties and deaths form a pair of successive engagements during the siege of Lanka: Akampan is killed by Hanumán, and Prahasta by Nīla. The account presents both as episodes in the same defensive crisis, with Rávaṇ alarmed by the course of the fighting and the Vánars answering the giants’ attacks with force of their own.

Akampan's sortie and death

Rávaṇ sends Akampan and his troops into battle. The opposing armies meet amid ominous signs, and both sides suffer losses: arrows strike down Vánars, while rocks and trees crush Rákshases. When Akampan sees his forces being worsted, he fights with renewed fury. His volleys bring down many Vánars, until Hanumán comes to their aid. Hanumán hurls mountain peaks at the giant, who turns them aside with flights of arrows; Hanumán finally beats him down and kills him with a tree.

Prahasta's sortie and death

Akampan's defeat leaves Rávaṇ seriously alarmed. He declares that he himself, Kumbhakarṇa, or Prahasta must go forth, and Prahasta then leads the next sortie, boasting that the birds will feed on Vánar flesh. The armies meet in a fierce exchange of stones and arrows. Nīla confronts Prahasta and breaks his bow. Prahasta leaps down from his chariot, and the two fight on foot; Nīla crushes him with a huge tree, and Prahasta falls.

Sequence and significance

The paired encounters repeat a pattern of Rákṣasa advances being checked by Vánar resistance, but each ends through a different combatant’s intervention: Hanumán kills Akampan after his attack on the Vánars, while Nīla defeats Prahasta after disarming him. The account’s framing emphasizes the limited novelty of these cantos and their recurring result: successive commanders and troops are sent out, but the Vánars prevail. Rávaṇ’s alarm between the two sorties makes the deaths part of a mounting military crisis rather than isolated duels.