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In the Ramayana, we know that Ravana was the King of the golden city of Lanka. How did he get this city? I know very little other than that it was offered by Shiva.

Keshav Srinivasan
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Mr_Green
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1 Answers1

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The story of Lanka is described in detail in the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana. (The links in my answer link to different excerpts from the Uttara Kanda.) There were three Rakshasa (demon) brothers named Sumali, Mali, and Malyavan who obtained a boon of invincibility from Brahma and then told the divine architect Vishwakarma, "Erect a mansion for us resembling the mansion itself of Maheshwara [i.e. Shiva]." So on the island mountain Suvela, Vishwakarma "construct[ed] a city of Lanka there, having an area of thirty yojanas, and measuring an hundred (sic) in length; surrounded by a golden wall and furnished with golden gateways ... having a strong wall and a moat, abounding in hundreds of golden edifices". But then Vishnu defeated the three brothers, killing Mali and driving Sumali, Malyavan, and their Rakshasa comrades away to Patalaloka (the netherworld). Since Lanka was abandoned by the Rakshasas, when Kubera son of the sage Vishravas was made the god of wealth, he moved into Lanka at his father's suggestion.

Later on, the demon Sumali I mentioned earlier got his daughter Kaikeshi married to Kubera's father Vishravas, and they had many children including Ravana. Ravana got a boon of near-invincibility from Brahma, so at his grandfather Sumali's urging he attempted to retake Lanka for the Rakshasas. When Kubera heard that his half-brother Ravana wanted to move into Lanka, he was more than happy to have him, saying this:

My father had given [Lanka] to me, when it had been emptied of Rakshasas; and ... I have inhabited this place, furnished with charity, honor, and other virtues ... [A]s this city and kingdom are mine, so they are thine, O mighty-armed one. Do thou enjoy this kingdom without a foe. May my kingdom and wealth never undergo division when thou art present.

But Ravana wasn't willing to share the kingdom; he wanted it exclusively for him and his fellow Rakshasas, so Kubera at his father's suggestion abandoned Lanka and went to the Himalayas. That is how Lanka came to be under Ravana's possession. (Contrary to popular belief Ravana did not fight Kubera over Lanka; like I said he got Lanka without a fight. The battle between them happened later, when Ravana was attacking everyone under the sun in his attempt to take over the three worlds. It was during that battle that Ravana defeated Kubera and took the Pushpaka Vimana.)

Keshav Srinivasan
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  • I was going to replace your link shorteners with the actual links, but then I found that this breaks the URLs... sigh. See here for a bug report: http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/234423/224428. (Great answer, by the way.) – senshin Jun 23 '14 at 04:13
  • Thanks! It took a lot of work to find the right passages, as there are less resources for the Uttara Kanda than for other Kandas. By the way, the reason I'm using gdurl.com is that Google Drive doesn't seem to provide a simple way to directly link to PDF files (short of forced-download links). Do you know any other way to share PDFs on the internet? This should be simple but it isn't: xkcd.com/949/ – Keshav Srinivasan Jun 23 '14 at 07:29
  • You know, that's a great question. There's a bunch of sites that let you embed PDFs into some sort of custom viewer (e.g. Scribd), but those are annoying to deal with too. Beats me, maybe I'll ask on [softwarerecs.se]. – senshin Jun 23 '14 at 07:46
  • @senshin Yeah, Google Drive is the same way: it shows the PDF in a viewer. That's what I want to avoid. – Keshav Srinivasan Jun 23 '14 at 07:50
  • If Mali was invincible, how could Vishnu kill him? – Say No To Censorship Feb 08 '16 at 17:02
  • @sv. Well, I suppose Brahma's boons can be overcome by Vishnu's omnipotence. By the way, it's somewhat surprising that Brahma would grant these three brothers immortality outright; in the cases of Hiranyakashipu and Ravana, he denied them immortality and then they were forced to ask the boon in a different way that allowed for a loophole. It's also interesting that Shiva didn't try to stop Vishnu from killing Mali, whereas when Surya tried to kill Mali Shiva killed him! See my answer here: http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/3710/36 – Keshav Srinivasan Feb 08 '16 at 18:57
  • I always believed that Ravana fought Kuber to take Lanka, until now :P – Amit Saxena May 18 '16 at 08:15
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    @AmitSaxena Yeah, I also used to believe that. There's a lot of misconceptions about the Ramayana that were only cleared up for me when I started reading the Valmiki Ramayana. You might want to do the same: http://valmikiramayan.net More generally, in my younger days I had all sorts of misconceptions about Hinduism; I thought the Jivatma emerged from Paramatma, I thought the Dasavatara all happened in the present Mahayuga, etc. Reading Hindu scripture set me straight. – Keshav Srinivasan May 18 '16 at 15:06
  • uttara kanda is an interpolation – Knowledge Seeker Nov 13 '17 at 07:21
  • @ThePhone999 Well, that's what Western Indologists believe, but I think they're wrong. Certainly the Uttara Kanda contains some interpolations within it, but as a whole it is still an authentic part of the Valmiki Ramayana. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 13 '17 at 07:23
  • is it not possible that it actually IS? After all it states that Bali (the Vanara) defeated Ravan in a fight, but Bali himself never says this, Angada never claims that his father defeated Ravan in a fight, it's only shown in TV series and Uttara Kanda. Their is no cross reference in the Ramayan for many incidents written in Uttara Kanda. – Knowledge Seeker Nov 13 '17 at 08:03
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    @ThePhone999 Well, there are cross references to lots of incidents recounted in the Uttara Kanda - the story of Sugriva and Vali's father, the story of Hanuman, various stories involving Ravana etc. Not all incidents are referenced, but that's to be expected. Vali just talked to Rama for a short time before he died, and even then he brags that he could have defeated Ravana and gotten Sita back. And who knows, Angada might have mentioned to Rama the Vali and Ravana incident in some conversation not recorded by Valmiki. And again, it may have some interpolations without being an interpolation. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 13 '17 at 08:38
  • @ThePhone999 Also, incidents mentioned in the Uttara Kanda are mentioned in numerous later scriptures, like various Puranas, so if we accept the authority of Vyasa then we should accept the authenticity of these incidents. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 13 '17 at 08:41
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    I also have a question, if Sumali was already blessed with invincibility by Brahma, then why would he go to great lengths to look for establishing a relationship with Pulatsya's clan to get a successor like Ravan (who was not invincible)? Also purana's are POST-VEDIC TEXTS, they are not as authentic as Ramayana & Mahabharata. – Knowledge Seeker Nov 13 '17 at 09:02
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    @ThePhone999 First of all, the whole terminology of "post-Vedic texts" is based on a flawed premise. The Vedas are eternal, so all humanly composed texts are post-Vedic. And the Mahabharata and the Puranas were both composed by Vyasa, so they're equally authentic. In any case, even though Sumali was blessed with whatever limited "invincibility" Brahms granted him, he and his brothers were still defeated by Vishnu. So he presumably hoped that the next generation would be able to achieve what he couldn't. And indeed, Ravana got a boon that prevented the gods from defeating him. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 13 '17 at 09:09
  • No it doesn't make sense in Uttara Kanda when Sahastrarjuna is described as defeating Ravana it is said that he killed Prahasta Source: https://archive.org/stream/Ramayana_201309/Ramayana-VOL-4-Uttara-Kanda#page/n153/mode/2up How is it possible for Prahasta to die BEFORE the lankan war? It is interpolated. – Knowledge Seeker Nov 19 '17 at 05:07
  • @ThePhone999 I think "Prahasta being slain" is a mistranslation, because later on in the chapter it says "Regaining his senses and beholding Ravana bound, Prahasta, in great anger, pursued, king of Haihaya." And again, I agree that the Uttara Kanda has interpolations, just as other parts of the Ramayana (and other scriptures) do, but that doesn't mean it is an interpolation. Its corroboration in the Puranas, which were authored by Vishnu's incarnation Krishna Dvaipayana Vedavyasa, confirms that. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 19 '17 at 20:22
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    Theirs also another problem. Chanakya considered Ramayana as itihaasa (history) but he never mentioned Uttara kanda as a part of Ramayana in his Arthashastra. Ramayana is narrated 3 times in Vana Parva (3rd part of Mahabharata) first by Lomasa, then by Hanumana, and finally by Markandeya no one, not one of them, neither of these narrators ever mentioned Uttara Kanda. – Knowledge Seeker Nov 20 '17 at 06:38
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    @ThePhone999 Well, just on a quick search, this Drona Parva chapter says "Taking at last his four kinds of subjects with him Rama went to heaven" http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m07/m07056.htm And this Vana Parva chapter says Rama gave Hanuman a boon to live as long as his story is heard among men: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m03/m03147.htm And another Vana Parva chapter describes the Tapasya of Ravana, Kumbhakarna, and Vibhishana: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m03/m03273.htm All these occur in the Uttara Kanda. And again, the Puranas aren't any less authoritative than the Mahabharata. – Keshav Srinivasan Nov 20 '17 at 15:03