Bali kills Dundubhi in a contest that turns the demon’s challenge into a public measure of the monkey king’s strength. Dundubhi is described as a bull-shaped monster of mountain-like size, driven by pride in his gifts and confidence in his unmatched might. His defeat comes in stages: he seeks battle, confronts Bali, fights with whatever force and objects are at hand, and is finally overcome. Bali’s last act—lifting the corpse and throwing it a league away—makes victory visible on a scale as immense as the combatants themselves.

Dundubhi’s challenge

Dundubhi is introduced through the striking contrast between his animal shape and his extraordinary size. He resembles a bull, yet rises to the height of a mountain. The account makes his stature part of the threat: he is not an ordinary opponent but a creature whose body alone suggests the scale of the contest to come.

His confidence is just as conspicuous. Pride in his gifts and belief in his unparalleled strength drive him to seek war. He goes first to Ocean, described as lord of streams and brooks, thirsty for combat. This opening establishes Dundubhi as the initiator: his appetite for a fight precedes the encounter with Bali. The account moves from his challenge to Ocean to Bali’s confrontation with him, without detailing every step between those moments.

Bali enters the fight

Bali hears the roar and crashing from within his bowers and responds indignantly. The disturbance is not described as a quiet or formal challenge: Dundubhi’s arrival is registered through the noise he makes and the destruction around him, including trees torn up near the portal. Bali comes out to meet a threat that has already announced itself by shaking the surroundings.

The encounter quickly becomes physical. Bali seizes Dundubhi by the horns and holds him fast, then drags him round and round. The grip turns the monster’s defining feature—his great bull-like body—into a point of control. Instead of being overwhelmed by Dundubhi’s size, Bali handles that immense frame directly, making the fight a test of strength expressed through contact, restraint, and movement.

The contest and Dundubhi’s defeat

Dundubhi resists with his fists, feet, and knees. The struggle also draws the landscape into the fight: he uses fragments of rock and trees as weapons. His resistance is varied and forceful, but it does not reverse the contest. The account marks a clear turning point when his strength fails against Bali, identified as the offspring of Śakra. Dundubhi’s earlier confidence in his own power is answered by a stronger opponent whose advantage becomes decisive in the physical struggle.

The defeat is not left at the moment Dundubhi’s strength gives out. Bali raises the lifeless body with tremendous effort and hurls it a league away. The action gives the ending its own measure: killing the monster establishes Bali’s victory, while throwing the corpse demonstrates that victory through the distance the immense body travels. The surviving image is one of scale and force, from the mountain-sized challenger to the body cast away after the fight.

Narrative significance

The episode presents Bali’s might through a sequence of concrete tests rather than through a bare claim of strength. Dundubhi’s mountain-like stature, Bali’s grip on his horns, the struggle with fists and improvised weapons, and the final throw each enlarge the demonstration. Strength is shown first as the ability to meet a formidable opponent, then to withstand his resistance, and finally to move his enormous dead body.

The contrast also gives the encounter a compact dramatic shape. Dundubhi’s pride propels him toward combat; his varied resistance prolongs the test; and the failure of his strength reverses his expectation of victory. Bali’s final throw closes the contest with an outward, measurable display. The episode therefore establishes not only that Dundubhi is defeated, but why the encounter can serve as evidence of Bali’s exceptional physical power.