317. Hanuman scored again with Akampana.

              Seeing the carnage created by the chiefs of vanaras in the battle, Akampana decided to stop it. He ordered his charioteer "Drive the chariot quickly to that place, where those vanaras are killing quite a lot of our chaps. I wanna wipe out all those animals without any trace.

       "Those enormous and massive vanaras of terrific ferocity, armed with trees and rocks, dare to affront me arrogantly. I will eradicate all those audacious monkeys, who are harassing all our guys."

           Akampana the most skillful of chariot-warriors, with a hail of darts, assailed the vanaras from a distance very effectively. With the result the vanaras were unable to maintain their tranquillity, ipso facto their formation, and loosing the inclination to fight the battle. Quite a many of them were crushed under the shafts of the arrows of Akampana. Seeing that slaughter almost all the vanara warriors ran away. Seeing those companions, getting under the sway of death pursued by Akampana's darts, the mighty Hanuman decided to stop that carnage by Akampana.

            Seeing Hanuman, their great leader, who had come to protect them, all the vanaras rallied and regrouped themselves boldly around him. Being under the protection of the great Hanuman, all the vanaras felt themselves becoming very powerful.

          Akampana assailed a hail of arrows on Hanuman, who took them nonchalantly like a rock and decided to slay Akampana without any delay. Looking around he noticed a mountain nearby. Lifting that mountain quickly, letting up a roar, threw it at Akampana. Akampana shattered it even before it started to gain momentum, by means of his great crescent-shaped arrows.
         Undaunted with his failure, Hanuman quickly went to an Ashwakarna tree as large as a mountain. Uprooting it quickly and taking a firm hold of that Ashvakarna tree with large branches, Hanuman with immense delight threw it towards that rakshash Akampana with a terrific force.

        Hanuman was disappointed to see that tree missed Akampana. At the same time he was happy to note that the tree struck down elephants with their riders on them and charioteers with their chariots and quite a number of infantry rakshashasas. This unnerved the infantry rakshashas who ran away from the battle ground to save their lives.

       The undaunted and valiant Akampana, seeing what was happening by the onslaught of Hanuman who was enraged and rushing on, sowing terror among his (i.e. Akampana's) soldiers, was greatly perturbed. With a view to stop that Hanuman from doing any more harm to his rakshashas, Akampana, with  fourteen sharp arrows tore the flesh of Hanuman. Riddled with sharp-pointed shafts, Hanuman appeared like a mountain with a number of plants on it.

        That large body of the mighty Hanuman of great strength was shining  like a fire without smoke and resembled a blooming Ashoka tree. Hanuman then decided to finish that rakshash without any further delay.

         Fortunately for him, Hanuman found nearby a large tree which looked very strong and sturdy. He quickly pulled out that tree and hit Akampana with a force. That was the last straw for Akampana who fell down and died. Seeing Akampana lying lifeless on the earth, all his warriors ran away.

         The triumphant vanaras shouted with their might and killed the rakshashas who were still alive there on the battle-field.

        Then, Rama himself, the exceedingly strong Lakshmana, Sugreeva and other vanaras and the mighty Vibhishana paid tributes to Hanuman for killing the very strong rakshash Akampana.

====================================================