Shloka 5.54.31
लङ्कादाहः — The Burning of Lanka (Catuḥpañcāśaḥ Sargaḥ)
ततस्तु लङ्कापुरपर्वताग्रे समुत्थितो भीमपराक्रमोऽग्निः।प्रसार्य चूडावलयं प्रदीप्तो हनूमता वेगवता विसृष्टः।।।।
yugānta-kālānala-tulya-vegaḥ samāruto ’gnir vavṛdhe divi-spṛk | vidhūma-raśmir bhavaneṣu sakto rakṣaḥ-śarīrājyasamarpitārciḥ ||
Fanned by the wind, the fire grew and leapt up to touch the sky, swift as the cosmic blaze at the end of an age. Clinging to the mansions, its smokeless radiance flared, fed by the fat and oils of rākṣasa bodies.
The fierce fire lit by Hanuman, the hero endowed with great speed, spread around in circles and shot up flying high to the top of the Trikuta mountain on which Lanka was located.
The verse stresses moral causality: adharma culminates in self-consuming ruin. When violence and cruelty dominate, the same elements (wind, fire, bodies) become instruments of collapse.
The city-wide fire accelerates under strong winds, growing immense and nearly apocalyptic, burning intensely within the mansions.
The emphasis is less on personal virtue and more on the epic’s moral law: destructive consequences follow entrenched adharma, reinforcing the need for righteous conduct.