The fool was mortified on seeing Rama’s mighty power and began to practise all kinds of illusory magic, as though one should take a poor little snakeling in one’s hand and sport with Garuda and frighten him.

The mean-minded demon displayed his illusory powers before him whose powerful Maya (deluding potency) holds sway over all, both great and small, Shiva and Brahma not excepted.

Mounting up into the sky, he rained down a shower of firebrands, and streams of water gushed forth from the earth. All sorts of fiends, male and female, danced with uproarious shouts: ‘Kill him! Hack him to pieces!’

Now he rained down faeces, pus, blood, hair and bones, and then again hurled a volley of stones. He showered down dust and created such a darkness that if one held out one’s own hand one could not see it.

The monkeys were greatly upset at the sight of this illusion and thought, ‘If things went on like this, we must all of us perish.’ Rama smiled when he saw this fun; at the same time he realized that the monkeys were all alarmed.

With a single arrow he tore asunder the whole illusion, as when the sun scatters the thick veil of darkness. He cast a gracious glance upon the monkeys and bears and lo! they grew so strong that there was no holding them back from fighting.

Having obtained Rama’s permission,’ Lakshmana with Angad and the other monkeys, rushed forth wrathfully, bow and arrows in hand.