Rama’s slaying of Ravana and end of their enmity

Rama’s slaying of Ravana and end of their enmity is the culmination of a conflict rooted in Ravana’s abduction of Sita. The poem moves from the violation itself to an unrelenting battle between the two rulers, then makes their antagonism terminate in a single fatal strike. The ending is at once intimate and immense: the injury to Sita is recalled as the cause of the confrontation, while the defeat of Ravana is framed as a rescue of the worlds.

The breach that defines the conflict

The account recalls Ravana carrying Sita through the sky, fixing his gaze on her, and throwing his arms around her waist. These details define the hostility through an act of seizure and physical menace. The conflict is not presented here as an abstract contest between rival kings: Ravana’s treatment of Sita supplies its immediate human cause, and her vulnerability gives the later battle its personal stakes.

That remembered act also shapes the relation between the men even when Sita is not physically present in the battle scene. Ravana’s abduction creates the breach; Rama’s confrontation with him becomes the answer to it. The narrative therefore links the two episodes by cause and consequence, rather than treating the duel as an independent display of strength. Ravana’s act carries the conflict into the sky and away from its victim; the final encounter brings the antagonists face to face.

The hostility becomes open combat

The fighting is described as fierce and intensifying. Lakshmana is overwhelmed by the thick darts Ravana showers upon him, while Rama and Ravana meet and pour their weapons upon one another. The detail makes the conflict wider than a simple duel: Ravana’s attack reaches Rama’s companion, but the poem draws its decisive focus back to the two principal enemies. Their encounter is reciprocal in force, with each actively attacking the other.

The battle’s duration underscores that neither a single exchange nor a quick reversal settles the contest. The conflict continues through the hours of night and day without pause. In the canto devoted to Ravana’s death, Mátali calls on Rama to let other arms decide the day. The appeal marks a turning point in the fighting: after sustained exchanges and Lakshmana’s temporary defeat, the narrative directs attention toward the weapon that will end the struggle.

Rama’s fatal stroke

Rama applies a shaft to his bow, and the poem presents its force through a striking measure: its weight is associated with Meru and Mandar, the great mountains. Rama turns its point toward Ravana, lord of Lanká. The description makes the weapon’s scale commensurate with the enemy and the long contest; the resolution is not another ordinary exchange of darts but a concentrated, decisive blow.

The arrow pierces Ravana’s massive chest and cleaves his heart. He falls dead upon the plain. The poem compares his fall to that of Vritra slain by the Thunderer, placing the defeat within the register of a cosmic struggle as well as a personal one. The earlier appeal to overthrow the giant king and rescue the worlds thus finds its concrete answer in Ravana’s death. The verse immediately turns toward Ravana’s host, signaling that his fall changes the scene beyond the two combatants.

Closure and significance

Ravana’s death ends the enmity by ending the life of the antagonist whose abduction of Sita set the conflict in motion. The narrative’s structure makes the connection plain: the memory of Ravana carrying her through the sky gives way to the prolonged encounter, and the encounter ends with Rama’s arrow striking Ravana’s heart. The personal injury and the public battle meet in the same outcome.

The ending also shifts the scale of the conflict. Rama and Ravana exchange weapons as individual opponents, yet the poem frames Ravana’s overthrow as the rescue of the worlds from a formidable enemy. Its final image is both exact and expansive: a shaft aimed at one ruler, a heart pierced, a body fallen, and a victory presented as larger than the duel itself. The relation closes not with reconciliation between the enemies but with the destruction of the cause of their continuing confrontation.