Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.4492

c9.4492

"With sunken eyes and swollen stomach, widened mouth and an enormous body, with a fierce appearance, of very great height an uncouth figure, body wet with fat, clad in the hide of a leopard, looking like Yama with open mouth, with three lions, two wolves, four leopards, ten spotted deer and the head of a big tusker with tusks smeared with fat, all these caught pierced in an iron trident, and shouting in a roaring sound", he ran to them and after taking Sītā, he began to run. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa followed him. Vīradha placed Sītā down and, taking Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa on each of his shoulders he began running. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa cut off each of his hands. But Vīradha did not die. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa decided to bury him alive. Vīradha recognized Śrī Rāma and told him his story. Instantly his demoniac form changed and he regained his original form of a Gandharva. Thus Tumburu returned to the world of Devas. (See under Tumburu).