Lanka- Hindu LocationLocation · Landmark"City of Gold"

The Golden Fortress

Vishwakarma, architect of the gods, built Lanka on the three peaks of Mount Trikuta, rising from the southern ocean. The Sundara Kanda describes walls of gold, gates that could withstand any army, and towers visible from leagues across the water. The ocean surrounded it on every side. Sea creatures loyal to its lord patrolled the depths. No conventional force could reach it.

From Kubera to Ravana

Lanka's first lord was Kubera, god of wealth, who ruled the golden island with his treasury and his flying chariot, the pushpaka vimana. His half-brother Ravana wanted both.

Ravana's mother Kaikesi had urged him to surpass Kubera in power. The young rakshasa took her at her word. He performed austerities for thousands of years until Brahma granted him near-invulnerability to gods and demons. Then he returned to Lanka and drove Kubera out by force, seizing the city, the treasury, and the vimana.

Under Ravana, Lanka became the seat of a rakshasa empire. The wealth remained. The gold still gleamed. But now it funded conquest, and Ravana's armies terrorized the three worlds from behind those impregnable walls.

The Ashoka Grove

Ravana abducted Sita from the forest and flew her across the sky to Lanka in his aerial chariot. She cried out for Rama the entire way. He installed her in the Ashoka Vatika, a grove of ashoka trees within the palace compound, surrounded by rakshasi guards. For nearly a year she refused him. He offered her the position of chief queen and everything Lanka contained. She would not look at him. Among her guards, only Trijata, who had dreamed of Ravana's defeat, treated her with kindness.

Hanuman found her there. He had leaped the ocean in a single bound, then shrunk to the size of a cat to slip through Lanka's defenses by night. He searched the palaces and the pleasure gardens, and finally reached the Ashoka Vatika. Sita was thin and grieving but unbroken. He gave her Rama's signet ring. She gave him her chudamani, a hair ornament, and a memory that only Rama would recognize.

Before leaving, Hanuman let Indrajit capture him. He wanted to see Lanka's defenses and deliver a warning to Ravana. The demons set his tail on fire as punishment. Hanuman stretched the tail to a monstrous length and leaped from rooftop to rooftop, dragging flame across the golden city. Much of Lanka burned that night.

The Bridge and the Siege

Rama's vanara army could not reach Lanka without crossing the ocean. At Rama's prayer, the ocean god Sagara permitted the building of a bridge. Nala directed the construction: stones inscribed with Rama's name floated when cast into the water, and in five days the Rama Setu stretched from the mainland to Lanka's shore.

The war lasted days. Ravana's brother Kumbhakarna, a giant who slept for months at a stretch, woke and tore through the vanara ranks before Rama brought him down. Ravana's son Indrajit wielded weapons of illusion that seemed impossible to counter until Lakshmana killed him. Vibhishana, Ravana's own brother, had defected to Rama's side.

Rama and Ravana met last. Their weapons lit the sky. Rama, armed with the Brahmastra given by the sage Agastya, struck Ravana down. The ten-headed king fell, and Lanka's war ended.

Vibhishana was crowned king of Lanka. Sita, recovered from captivity, walked into fire before the assembled armies to prove her purity. The fire god Agni bore her out unburned. Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana left Lanka for Ayodhya aboard the pushpaka vimana, the same chariot Ravana had stolen from Kubera.

The Shoals

The Rama Setu is identified with the chain of limestone shoals between India and Sri Lanka, known in English as Adam's Bridge. Lanka itself has been associated with Sri Lanka since ancient times, though the Ramayana's golden fortress on three mountain peaks belongs to a geography beyond the ordinary. Pilgrimage sites across Sri Lanka mark the places where Sita was held and where the battles raged.