Lanka’s devastation by fire

Lanka’s devastation by fire is the result of Hanuman turning his blazing tail into an instrument of attack against the city. The destruction is swift and sweeping: he moves from palace to palace and house to house, setting roofs alight, yet Vibhishana’s house alone escapes the common ruin. The contrast between widespread burning and this single spared residence gives the devastation a precise limit as well as its scale.

The Burning of the City

Hanuman’s assault begins with a resolve to further vex Ravana. With his tail ablaze, he climbs the palaces and spreads fire across the city. The action is described as both swift and easy: rather than attacking one isolated structure, Hanuman carries the flames from one building to the next, so that each mansion becomes part of the destruction. The repeated movement from house to house makes the burning feel cumulative, a chain of fires that turns the city’s own architecture into the path of the assault.

The Extent and Exception

The account emphasizes the broad reach of the flames: each mansion is scaled, its roof attacked, and the buildings share in the ruin. Vibhishana’s house is the sole exception named. That detail distinguishes the burning from indiscriminate destruction. The city is swept by fire, but the narrative marks one residence as spared, setting Vibhishana apart from the general fate of Lanka’s inhabitants and buildings without explaining the exception further in this passage.

Lanka in Ruins

The image of the burning city later returns in the description of Ravana surveying Lanka, his once-glorious town laid in ruin amid signs of victory won. This later view extends the significance of the fire beyond the moment of Hanuman’s attack: Lanka’s damaged grandeur becomes an image that can recur as the conflict advances. The account thus holds together two scales of devastation—the immediate spread of fire across palaces and houses, and the broader sight of a ruined city—while preserving the striking qualification that Vibhishana’s house alone was spared.