Kumbhakarna awakened by the rakshasas by the order of the demon king Ravana of Lanka. After Ravana was spared by Rama in a fight when Rama saw Ravana fainting, Ravana returned to Lanka humiliated and with lots of anger and planning for revenge from Rama. He decided to awake his younger brother Kumbhakarna who stays awake for six months and sleeps for six months. Since Kumbhakarna was patriotic and a very good fighter among the rakshasas, Ravana thought it suitable to awaken his brother in order to assist him in his war against Rama and Lakshmana. Thus, he ordered his rakshasas to wake Kumbhakarna and to inform him about the condition of Lanka.

Ravana sent a host to waken Kumbhakarna. They found the younger brother of Ravana sleeping in his cave. He lay like a mountain, drunk with sleep, and vast as Hell, his rank breath sweeping all before him, smelling of fat and blood. The rakshasa host who came to awake Kumbhakarna made ready for him heaps of buffaloes and deer, steaming rice and jars of blood, mountains of food piled up as high as mountain; then they prepared to wake him up. They winded conchs and shouted heavily and beat on drums, so that even the birds in the sky fell dead of fear, but Kumbhakarna slept the harder, and the rakshasas were unable to stand against the tornado of his breath.

Then the host of rakshasas girded their cloths the tighter and about ten thousand of them yelled, and struck heavy blows at him with logs of wood, and beat a thousand kettledrums. Then they waxed angrier, and work earnestly to wake him up. Some bit his ears, some poured water in them, some wounded him with maces and spears, and some drove against him thousands of elephants. At last, he woke and yawned, and yawned again, and a very storm was raging; and the pangs of hunger assailed him, and he moved his eyes around him for food.

When Kumbhakarna say the food around him, he fell too heartily, and ate and drank; and when the rakshasas thought that his stomach was filled, they stood around him and bowed, and told him of all that had befallen, and prayed for his help. Then Kumbhakarna, already half asleep again, told that he would regale the rakshasas with an abundant feast of monkey flesh and blood and would swill the blood of Lakshmana and Rama and.

Then Kumbhakarna bathed, and drank two thousand flasks of wine, and marched out like a moving mountain, clad in golden mail, in order to attack the monkeys. The monkeys fled in terror, but the brother of Ravana caught them and devoured them by handfuls, so that the fat and blood dripped from his mouth. Then Rama, with Hanuman and Angada and other brave monkeys fell on him with trees and mountain-tops, swarming round him like clouds about a mountain and he, still half asleep, began to rouse himself and fight in earnest. Hanuman, from the sky, threw down mountain-peaks on him but in vain and Kumbhakarna swallowed twenty and thirty monkeys at a mouthful, and slew hundreds of them at every stroke, and wounded Hanuman, and raged from side to side.