With a fierce and unwavering resolve, Triśiras stood before Khara and the assembled rākṣasas. He declared solemnly, “I pledge to you the truth, and I take up arms: I shall slay Rāma, who alone among all the rākṣasas deserves death. Either I shall be death to him in battle, or he to me. Hold back your eagerness for combat for a moment and be witness to this encounter. If Rāma falls, you will return joyfully to Janasthāna; but if I am slain, you may go forth to fight him yourselves.” Moved by Triśiras’s words and driven by a hidden desire for his own end, Khara granted him leave. “Go, fight,” he commanded. Thus, Triśiras mounted a radiant chariot drawn by spirited horses and advanced toward Rāma, his presence in the field like a towering, three-peaked mountain. As he approached, Triśiras unleashed a torrent of arrows that filled the sky, their sound like thunder rolling from a rain-laden cloud. Rāma, seeing the rākṣasa’s approach, readied his bow and met him head-on, his own sharp arrows trembling in readiness. A tumultuous clash erupted between the two, both warriors of immense strength, their conflict reminiscent of a lion and an elephant locked in mortal struggle. Triśiras, swift and deadly, struck Rāma on the forehead with three arrows. Stung and incensed, Rāma cried out, “Ah, what strength this valiant rākṣasa possesses! He has wounded my brow with his arrows, yet they feel as light as flowers.” His anger blazing, Rāma continued, “Now accept from me these arrows, loosed from my bowstring!” He seized a handful of deadly shafts, and in a storm of fury, struck Triśiras on the chest with fourteen arrows. With four more, keen and well-feathered, he brought down all four of Triśiras’s horses. Then, with eight swift arrows, he felled the charioteer onto the chariot’s floor. Not yet finished, Rāma cut down Triśiras’s raised banner with a single arrow. As the night-stalking rākṣasa leapt from his ruined chariot, Rāma struck him in the heart, rendering him senseless, and furiously pierced him with a further volley of arrows. Then, with three swift shafts, Rāma severed Triśiras’s three heads, which fell streaming smoke and blood, tormented by Rāma’s relentless assault. Overwhelmed and mortally wounded, Triśiras collapsed amid the battlefield. The remaining rākṣasas, routed and defeated, fled in terror to Khara, like deer scattering before a tiger. Seeing his troops in flight, Khara’s rage flared; he turned them back, rallying them, and himself charged at Rāma with the swiftness and ferocity of Rāhu pursuing the moon. Now begins the twenty-eighth sarga of the glorious Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇyakāṇḍa. Khara, beholding Dūṣaṇa and Triśiras both slain in battle, was struck with fear at the sight of Rāma’s unmatched valor. He gazed upon the vast and mighty army of rākṣasas, now destroyed by Rāma alone, and saw his own power broken. Yet, though his spirit was shaken, Khara advanced on Rāma, as Namuci once advanced upon mighty Indra. Drawing his powerful bow, Khara hurled barbed and bloodthirsty arrows at Rāma, swift and venomous as enraged serpents. His bowstring sang as he loosed his shafts, displaying his mastery of weapons, his chariot wheeling through the fray. Arrows rained down, filling every quarter and direction, so that the sky itself seemed crowded and without space, as if a torrential storm had swept the heavens. Rāma, undaunted, took up his own mighty bow. With arrows impossible to withstand, like sparks of fire, he filled the sky so densely that there was no room left between the shafts. The sun itself was hidden by the multitude of arrows, and darkness fell upon the battlefield as both warriors fought fiercely, intent on each other’s destruction. Khara, wielding nalikas, narachas, and sharp-tipped vikarni arrows, struck Rāma again and again, as an elephant is goaded and tormented. All living beings beheld Khara standing in his chariot, bow in hand, surrounded by destruction, like Death himself holding a noose. Khara, seeing Rāma—slayer of armies, steadfast in valor, and mighty in spirit—thought him exhausted. Yet Rāma, gazing upon Khara, bold as a lion and moving with a lion’s stride, felt no fear, just as a lion does not fear a lesser beast. Khara, his chariot shining like the sun, rushed upon Rāma, as a moth rushes heedlessly into fire. With skillful hands, Khara cut Rāma’s bow and arrow at the grip in the heat of battle. But Rāma, undeterred, seized seven blazing arrows, radiant as Indra’s thunderbolt, and struck Khara in his vital points. Khara, in his fury, assailed Rāma with a thousand arrows, tormenting him, and roared aloud in the fight. Rāma’s splendid armor, radiant as the sun, was shattered and fell to the earth under Khara’s onslaught. Yet Rāma, pierced with arrows and burning with anger, shone in the battle like a smokeless, blazing fire. Then, resolute and undaunted, Rāma readied another great bow, stringing it with a deep, resonant sound that echoed across the field. He took up the mighty Vaishnava bow, bestowed upon him by a great sage, and advanced toward Khara, prepared to bring the struggle to its destined end.