Myths, Religions & Legends Power Ranking TOP100
I wrote a book ranking the most powerful gods, monsters, and heroes from world mythology, religion, and legend in order of strength! Of course, the rankings reflect a great deal of my own subjective judgment, but the reasoning behind each placement is grounded in the lore and episodes of each mythology, so I think it’s a book that will feel reasonably convincing.
This time I’d like to introduce some of the characters featured in the book’s ranking. Of course, many more characters appear in the ranking beyond those introduced here, so I think anyone interested in mythology, religion, and legend will enjoy it!
Rank 45: Ravana (Indian Mythology)
Overview
Ravana is the great demon king in the Indian epic “Ramayana” and the most powerful Rakshasa king, who ruled the southern island kingdom of Lanka (present-day Sri Lanka).
He is characterized by his monstrous form with ten heads and twenty arms, and is said to possess not only unparalleled martial valor but also vast knowledge and the power of sorcery.
One of Ravana’s defining legends is that after performing ascetic austerities for a thousand years, he was recognized by the god Brahma and received a divine boon granting him “invulnerability against the gods” — an utterly broken ability.
With this boon, he was essentially invincible in battles against gods; together with his son Meghanada, he invaded Heaven and thoroughly defeated Indra and the heavenly gods, then attacked the underworld and fought ferocious battles against the gods of the dead (such as Yama) — conquering the world with overwhelming power.
However, in the end, Vishnu was reincarnated (as an avatar) as the human prince Rama, who ultimately defeated Ravana. The power of “invulnerability against the gods” is ineffective against humans — so it did not work on the human Rama.
Ravana, despite being the mightiest Rakshasa king, also has an episode in which he was defeated by a human king named “Kartavirya Arjuna.”
Kartavirya Arjuna was a human with a thousand arms who could reverse the flow of a massive river using arm strength alone — a being whose power rivaled the gods, despite being called human.
Accounts suggest the direct confrontation with Ravana was almost evenly matched, but Kartavirya Arjuna won by exploiting a gap in the overconfident Ravana’s guard — ensnaring and immobilizing him with a thousand arms.
Though one has to wonder whether something with a thousand arms that can reverse the flow of a river is truly just a human…
Reason for This Ranking
Ravana is one of the characters responsible for humiliating Indra (technically it was his son Meghanada who defeated Indra, but Ravana himself would undoubtedly have won as well) and possesses the power “invulnerability against gods” — which would certainly wreak havoc in this ranking.
As long as this power is active, he should win almost any battle against a god — but on the other hand, this power is ineffective against non-god entities (humans, monsters, giants, etc.), making him a rather difficult subject to evaluate.
Of course, there is presumably some limit to “invulnerability against gods,” and the absolute top-tier gods in the ranking likely have the power to simply ignore it and win regardless — but given that the one who granted it was Brahma, there is a strong possibility that it cannot be overcome by anyone less than Brahma’s equal or superior.
However, applying that assumption too literally would create a large gap between Ravana’s actual underlying power, so for the purposes of this ranking, I am evaluating him based on his intrinsic strength without counting “invulnerability against gods.”
Without this power, his base strength is probably just short of the destruction-god tier. Conversely, against opponents for whom the “invulnerability against gods” effect holds, he has the potential to fight on equal or superior terms even against destruction-god-tier entities.
