301. Sugreeva fought a duel with Ravana.

           Then, Rama along with Sugreeva and the troop leaders, ascended the top of Suvela mountain which was having a circumference of sixteen miles. Halting there just for a while and surveying the ten cardinal points, Rama saw the city of Lanka, which was beautifully constructed by Visvakarma, the divine architect on the top of Trikuta Mountain with nice arrangements and ravishing with enchanting groves.

          There, standing above a gateway, was the invincible Ravana the lord of rakshashas, who was being fanned with white whisks on both sides, was being graced with a triumphal parasol,  smeared with red sandal paste, adorned with scarlet ornaments, attired in raiment embroidered in gold, resembling a dark cloud, with scars of wounds inflicted on his breast by Airavata  with his tusks, wrapped in a cloak of red colour resembling the colour of hare's blood and looked like a mass of clouds in the sky enveloped with sunshine at sunset.

             Seeing Ravana, Sugreeva was not able to contain his anger and got up at once, while Rama and the chiefs of the army of vanaras were looking on. Gathering up his strength and courage, Sugreeva, in an impulse of fury, bounced from the summit of the mountain and landed on the top of that gate where Ravana was standing.

        Alighting in front of Ravana, he (i.e. Sugreeva) shouted with an ugly sneer "You Rakshash! I am Sugreeva, a friend and a servant of Rama, the Lord of the world. You will not be spared by me today, by the inspiring grace of Rama."

       Without any further notice Sugreeva leapt on Ravana, felling him on the ground, and pulled some of his brightly coloured crowns from his heads and threw them away on the ground.

       Seeing Sugreeva about to rush upon him again, Ravana told him gruffly  with unmitigated anger "You will be Sugreeva (one who has a handsome neck) until this moment. But in a few moments, you will become Hinagriva (one who does not have any  neck)." Instantaneously Ravana raised up and quickly flung Sugreeva on to the ground with a few of his arms. Bouncing like a ball, Sugreeva flung back on his adversary with his arms.

          Ravana and Sugreeva carried on a duel which was unbearable, with perspiration broke out on their limbs, with their bodies red with blood, each clung to other, paralyzing his opponent's movements, resembling silk-cotton and Kimshuka trees, followed by blows of fists, slaps of hands, blows of elbows and blows of fingers on each other.
          Having wrestled for a long time on the center of the flat floor of the gateway, each in turn repeatedly lifting their bodies and bending their feet in a particular way, the two highly competent combatants remained on that flat roof of the gate way. Crushing one another and their bodies clung together, they both dropped down between the defensive walls and the moat. They would leap up again, seizing each other from the ground, after pausing an instant to regain their breath.

      With arms interlaced like ropes joined together, they remained locked together in the struggle many a time. Both of them were fully trained in wrestling and found themselves matched evenly. The two champions in wrestling were fighting like a tiger and a lion  or two young lordly elephants encountering in a hostile manner. In view of this the obvious result was both with arms interlaced and having become tired absolutely with their strength getting depleted, fell on the ground together.

     Thereafter rising slowly with great difficulty, those two champs hurled themselves on each other, circling around the arena again and again, like we view in a slow motion video clipping.

       Like two great tuskers with their enormous arms resembling the trunks, those two warriors were keeping back each other, fought vehemently for a long time and moved speedily in a circular area. Approaching each other like two wild cats fighting over a piece of meat, trying to kill each other, they stood growling again and again.

      As both Sugreeva and Ravana were skilled in wrestling, they executed innumerable and myriad evolutions, taking up diverse postures, moving in a curved line like an ox's urine, coming and going, stepping side ways, having a retrograde motion to avoid blows, turning about abandoning the attack, dashing towards each other, leaping, standing firm and erect, retreated, turned sideways, rushed in a bent posture, ran lifting their foot to kick the opponent and by letting go or stealing away.

          As Ravana could not defeat Sugreeva, he decided to invoke his  magic power. Sensing it, Sugreeva flew into the sky triumphantly, shaking off all fatigue.  Ravana, baffled by Sugreeva's retreat, stood confounded there gaping at the receding Sugreeva. As Sugreeva was endowed with the speed of the wind, returned to Rama in a jiffy.

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