The tale begins in the aftermath of King Ravana’s great conquests across the three worlds. Ravana, the ten-headed demon king of Lanka, was a being of immense intellect, Vedic knowledge, and physical power. Having secured boons of invulnerability from the gods, his ego had grown to such heights that he believed no force in the cosmos could obstruct his path. Returning from the city of Alaka, the capital of his half-brother Kubera, Ravana traveled through the upper reaches of the Himalayas in the Pushpaka Vimana, a celestial golden chariot he had seized by force. As the chariot soared through the thin, biting air of the high peaks, it suddenly came to a grinding halt near the majestic, pyramid-shaped peak of Mount Kailash. The chariot, which was designed to move at the speed of thought and obey the will of its master, refused to budge, as if an invisible wall had been erected across the sky.
Infuriated by this delay, Ravana descended from his chariot to investigate the cause. At the base of the mountain, he was met by Nandi, the bull-faced guardian and primary attendant of Lord Shiva. Nandi informed the demon king that his master, Shiva, and his consort, the goddess Parvati, were currently enjoying the solitude of the mountain and that no being—mortal, demon, or god—was permitted to pass over the peak. Rather than showing respect to the sacred abode, Ravana erupted in laughter. He looked at Nandi’s unusual appearance and mocked him, comparing his face to that of a common monkey. Nandi, a being of great restraint but fierce loyalty, did not strike back with physical force. Instead, he issued a prophecy: since Ravana had mocked the form of a monkey, a race of monkeys would one day be the instrument of his downfall and the destruction of his kingdom. Ravana, dismissive of the curse, declared that if the mountain were an obstacle to his journey, he would simply remove the mountain from the face of the earth.
Ravana approached the base of Mount Kailash and thrust his twenty arms deep into the foundations of the earth. He began to heave with a strength that caused the very pillars of the universe to tremble. The mountain, the axis mundi of the world, began to rock violently. High above on the summit, the residents of Kailash were thrown into a state of panic. The Ganas, Shiva’s spirit-attendants, stumbled as the ground beneath them split and groaned. Even Parvati, the mother of the universe, felt a moment of alarm as the snowy peaks swayed like a ship in a storm. She sought refuge in the arms of her husband, the Great Mahadeva, who remained seated in a state of perfect, undisturbed meditation. Shiva, the Destroyer and the source of all stillness, opened his eyes and perceived the source of the disturbance. He saw the prideful king of Lanka below, straining with every muscle to lift the celestial abode, his ten faces contorted with the effort of his ultimate hubris.
Without breaking his meditative posture or raising a weapon, Shiva performed a deed of such subtle power that it defined the relationship between the divine and the ego forever. He simply shifted his weight and pressed the big toe of his right foot down onto the surface of the mountain. This tiny movement, performed with the casual ease of a father quieting a child, sent an unimaginable weight crashing down through the core of the peak. The mountain, which Ravana had partially lifted, was driven back into the earth with the force of a thousand falling stars. Ravana’s twenty arms and hands, still gripped tightly around the base of the mountain, were instantly pinned and crushed beneath the weight of the entire Himalayan range. The pain was immediate and absolute. The demon king, who had once boasted of his endurance, let out a scream so piercing and so loud that it was said to have shaken the foundations of the heavens and the underworld. It was from this terrible, world-shaking cry that he received the name 'Ravana,' meaning 'the one who roars.'