Ravana saw the various hells in Yama's abode — Kalasootra, Asipatravana, Soolaprota, Vaitarani and others — where sinners are chewed by dogs and jackals, raided by insects, roasted on red-hot sand, made to embrace red-hot copper statues, forced to drink molten lead, or pierced on metal spikes. Golden pleasure chambers awaited those who died with good karma.

Feeling pity, Ravana began pulling the sufferers out. The Yama warriors were furious and asked: “Who is this fellow trying to obstruct the justice and orders of our king Yama?”

Adhyatma Ramayana thus explains that hell is not arbitrary cruelty but the working out of karma; Ravana’s “compassion” is an obstruction of dharmic justice.

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After a seven-day duel between Ravana and Kala (Yama as the keeper of time) with neither winning, Death, an assistant of Yama, offered to strike Ravana with his shaft, from which no one escapes. Just before the strike, Lord Brahma intervened: “Do not kill him. I am destined to put an end to Ravana… I had given a boon to him that he will not be killed by the Devas.”

Yama and Death retreated, and Ravana, unaware of the divine plan, boasted that he had defeated Yama. The same pattern repeats twice more. At Mahapuri, Ravana fought Nivatakavacha for a full year without result until Brahma again came down and said there was no use fighting. At Varuna’s abode, Varuna’s sons knocked Ravana unconscious; and later Ravana knocked them unconscious. Varuna was elsewhere but Ravana celebrated that he had conquered Varuna. Ravana’s celebrated conquests were thus largely the gift of Brahma’s boon and the absence of his opponents, not victories of valour.

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Vibhishana warned Ravana that forcibly grabbing chaste ladies brings misfortune and infamy. He cited how their cousin Kumbheenasi had been abducted by the demon Madhu while Meghanada and Vibhishana were away from the city.

Enraged, Ravana declared he would kill Madhu and win over the Devas as well, and marched out with Kumbhakarna’s army led by Meghanada.

Adhyatma Ramayana brings out the irony. Ravana knows perfectly well that the abduction of a woman is an offence worth a war, yet he abducts Sita. He ignores Vibhishana’s identical warning. He applies dharma within his family and adharma to everyone else.

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Ravana was resting near Kailasa on a magical full moon night. He accosted a damsel decked in her fineries. She said she was Rambha, wife of Nalakubara, son of his own brother Kubera. She asked him to treat her like his own daughter. Ravana argued that “common rules of conduct do not apply to celestial ladies” and seized her by force.

Rambha fled to Nalakubara, who cursed Ravana: “If you ever embrace a lady without her will, may your head shatter into seven pieces!” From then on Ravana could not touch any lady without consent.

In the Valmiki Ramayana, in Yuddha Kanda, Ravana himself explains that he cannot violate Sita because of a curse from Brahma. This curse was pronounced after Ravana forcibly assaulted the apsara Punjikasthala; Brahma decreed that if he ever again approached a woman against her will, his head would shatter into many pieces.

Later traditions of Valmiki Ramayana narrate the incident of Rambha though it is not considered part of the critical text.

These traditions together explain why Ravana, despite abducting Sita, cannot touch her. Mistakenly and entirely wrongly, this is attributed to the feminist nature of Ravana.

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In the Deva–Rakshasa war, the Devas found they could not kill Meghanada because of a boon given to him by Lord Siva. Fighting from concealment, Meghanada rescued Ravana who had been surrounded. He then suddenly emerged and tied up Indra himself.

The Devas went to Lord Brahma, who came and waited in the sky above Lanka. He praised Ravana, declared there were no warriors to match his son, and said: “As he has won over Indra, I am naming him Indrajit. Untie Indra and set him free. I will give you a boon in return.” Only then did Meghanada release Indra.

This compares with the Kartavirya Arjuna episode: when Ravana was overpowered and imprisoned at Mahishmati, he could not free himself either — his grandfather Sage Pulastya had to come in person and request his release. In both cases the captive is freed not by rescue or valour but by an elder of the highest order coming and asking for it.

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After being rescued by Brahma from Indrajit, Indra returned to the Deva loka still upset, and was told plainly: “You have abused Ahalya in the past and now you are suffering the consequence. Do the Yagna – Mahamakha – without delay to get rid of all bad luck left in you.” Indra conducted the Yagna.

Adhyatma Ramayana illustrates in this episode how karma spares no one, not even the king of the Devas, and the wrongdoer of one episode becomes the victim of the next. Ravana was merely the instrument of Indra’s punishment.

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In exchange for freeing Indra, Ravana asked Brahma: “If I do a fire sacrifice properly, I should get a chariot from the fire that would make me immortal, and I should be invincible. If I cannot complete the Yagna properly, let death fall upon me; otherwise, no one should kill me.” He added pointedly that many others in the past had received boons by doing penance, but he was getting his with muscle power.

Lord Brahma “had to agree to his strange demand.”

This boon came within a hair’s breadth of deciding the war: in the closing days of the battle Ravana began exactly this fire sacrifice, and the chariot was rising out of the fire when the Vanaras broke into the sacrificial hall and disrupted the homa, so the Yagna could not be completed properly.

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After the guests for coronation had been sent off with lavish gifts, the Pushpaka Vimana came and paid its respects to Rama. It said “When I went to Alakapuri, Kubera told me that Ravana had taken the Vimana away from Kubera and that Rama had killed Ravana. That means the Vimana belongs to Rama. Kubera asked me to serve you.” The Vimana added that it too was reluctant to be separated from Rama.

Though it is not stated in the text, this is perhaps the Dharmic rule of possession. Ravana had seized it after leaving Kubera unconscious, so ownership followed conquest. Kubera does not reclaim it on grounds of original title; he applies the very same rule and passes it on to the one who defeated its holder.

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The text repeatedly undercuts both halves of the popular image. Death’s shaft was withheld not by Ravana’s strength but by Brahma; the year-long Nivatakavacha war ended in a pact arranged by Brahma; Varuna never even appeared, and Ravana was knocked unconscious by Varuna’s sons before the fight was declared his.

It was Indrajit who was more powerful than Ravana and even Brahma stated this. When the Devas surrounded him, it was Meghanada, shooting from hiding, who rescued his father. As for Siva’s grace, Shukra tells Ravana that it was Meghanada who obtained from Lord Siva a quiver full of arrows that would never go empty and a chest shield for protection in war, and it was Siva’s boon that made Meghanada unkillable by the Devas. Ravana’s own boons all came from Brahma and Brahma intervened every time to make his boon stand.

Ravana’s stated reason for turning away from the Devas is also revealing: “There is no point in propitiating the Devas by doing Aswamedha and other Yagnas as Devas are our arch enemies” — a position of enmity rather than devotion. Even his boast, “I am getting them with my muscle power,” is made while collecting a boon.

Please note that this is not part ofbook and is our interpretation.

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