Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.2106

c8.2106

Pātālarāvaṇa knew from what he saw that any attempt to carry away Rāma from the surface of the ground was impossible and so he returned to Pātāla. From there they made a tunnel up to the base of the seat of Hanūmān and from there to where Rāma lay. Then they carried Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa to Pātāla before anybody could find it out by making them smell a sammohanadivyauṣadha (divine medicine causing unconsciousness). They brought them to a temple of Mahākālī with the intention of offering them in a sacrifice to the deity the next day morning. They made all preparations for the same. Hanūmān used to inspect the camp often and yet when after midnight he looked at the place where Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa were sleeping he could not find them. He immediately woke up all and made a search and they then found the big hole of a tunnel near the place where Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa were sleeping. All the leaders including Sugrīva and Vibhīṣaṇa assembled there and then Vibhīṣaṇa told them what had happened. He then took Sugrīva, Hanūmān, Jāmbavān and Aṅgada and a big army to Pātāla and went straight to the Mahākālī temple. There Pātālarāvaṇa had already started the ceremonies for the sacrifice.