Doha 88

Spirits, ghouls and goblins and even so frightful genii with a long shaggy mass of hair and Pramathas (Śiva’s own attendants) took their plunge in it. Crows and kites flew off with arms, which they snatched from one another and ate up themselves. (1) Some said, “What a pity, fools that you should continue to suffer from want even in such plenty?” Wounded warriors fallen on the banks groaned like the moribund lying all round half in and half out of water (on the bank of a sacred river, lake etc., in order to ensure that they may breathe their last while their body is being washed by the sacred water since such a death is accounted as highly beneficial to the spirit of the dying man). (2) Standing on its banks, vultures tore the entrails of the dead like fishermen angling with rapt attention. Many a dead warrior floated down with birds perched on them, as if the latter were enjoying a game of boating on the river. (3) The Yoginīs (female attendants of Goddess Durgā) took to storing blood in skulls, while female spirits and sprites danced in the air. Even so, Cāmuṇḍās (another class of female attendants of Durgā) sang songs in various strains, clashing the skulls of dead warriors like so many pairs of cymbals. (4) Herds of Jackals snapped their teeth as they tore the dead, feasted upon them and yelled; and, when surfeited, they snarled. Myriads of headless trunks trotted along the battle-field, while the heads lying on the ground shouted “Victory! Victory!!” (5)

The heads shouted “Victory! Victory!!” while headless trunks darted wildly about. Birds got entangled in skulls even as they contended with one another; while heroes overthrew their rivals. Imperious through Śrī Rāma’s strength, the monkeys crushed the demon crew; and mortally struck by Śrī Rāma’s flight of arrows, the heroes lay in eternal sleep on the battle field.

Rāvaṇa thought within himself, “The demons have been wiped out and I am left alone, while the monkeys are still numerous. Let me, therefore, create innumerable illusions.” (88)