A fan theory, not the film's plot. S. S. Rajamouli's Varanasi — starring Mahesh Babu as Rudhra, Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Mandakini and Prithviraj Sukumaran as Kumbha — is in cinemas on 7 April 2027.
A post going viral on Reddit on 9 November 2026 argues that the villain Kumbha is Kumbhakarna reborn, and that his real goal is Ravana's Navaratna Mala — a necklace of nine gems. In the Jain Ramayana telling the theory cites, Ravana's face reflected in all nine stones at once, making one head look like ten — hence the name Dasanana, the ten-headed one. When Ravana fell, the mala broke and the nine stones scattered across the world. Kumbha, the theory says, sends Rudhra on a worldwide quest to collect them, only for Rudhra to discover that bringing all nine together would make Kumbha unstoppable — so he travels back through a wormhole to the Ramayana war and interferes with a crucial event, rewriting the necklace's fate so the gems are never separated.
It is a neat theory, and it went viral for a reason: it fits the shape of what has actually been reported about the film unusually well. But fitting is not confirming. Nothing in it has been confirmed by the makers, and the outlets that covered the theory on 9 November — Indulge Express and Tupaki — both labelled it unconfirmed fan speculation.
The confirmed skeleton is smaller, and worth keeping separate from the theory built on top of it:
That is the ground the theory stands on. Everything else below is reported, not confirmed — or fan theory, not reported at all.
Three separate synopses, from three directions that do not cite each other, describe the same skeleton:
Priyanka Chopra Jonas has also said the story is not a Back to the Future-style trip: it lives in each era it visits, from 7200 BCE to 2027.
The theory's job is naming the unnamed things in those synopses. The "cosmic artefact" becomes Ravana's Navaratna Mala. The "calculating mastermind" becomes Kumbha as Kumbhakarna reborn, hiring the hero to do the gathering for him. The "most crucial moment in Earth's history" becomes a moment inside the Ram-Ravana war itself.
Expanded into a full story, the quest takes shape like this: nine gems, nine chapters. A ruby in Amboseli, Africa; coral in a Roman wreck in the Mediterranean; an emerald in a ship frozen in the Ross Ice Shelf; a pearl in a drowned shrine in the Arabian Sea; a yellow sapphire in the Ugrabhatti Cave; a diamond in a war vault in the Alps; a blue sapphire in a royal collection in Europe; a hessonite in a temple in the Andes; and a cat's eye kept openly by monks in the Himalayas, who refuse to hand it over — because a mala worn whole, they warn, does not grant strength; it lets what wore it last look out through the wearer's eyes.
Two additions in this expanded version are new, and belong to the fan story rather than any report. Mandakini is not just along for the quest: she is the scholar who knows the old tellings, including the Jain Ramayana version, and without her Rudhra would not know what he is carrying. And Rudhra's father is held hostage — the quest becomes a bargain: collect the nine gems, one by one, or the old man pays for every refusal. Cutaways back to the father in Kumbha's red-lit hall keep the stakes alive between gem chapters, and give the twist its second edge.
The twist itself is the theory's cleanest idea. In the expanded story, Kumbha cannot turn Shambhavi aside and never could: the asteroid is a countdown, and at its closest pass a whole mala, worn at that hour, makes its wearer what Ravana was. So Rudhra does not fight Kumbha in 2027. He uses the cat's eye — held against the sealed chamber stone under the ghat at the appointed hour — to open the way back to the last day of the Ram-Ravana war, reaches the regalia tent one breath before a dying loyalist smashes the mala, takes the blow himself, and seals the necklace whole beneath a ghat not yet built. It was never broken, the story says. It was hidden — whole.
One choice in that ending is worth flagging, because it is a story decision, not something any report says: in this version the rewrite does not free Rudhra's father. The future is freed; the bargain made in the old history still holds an old man prisoner, and the rescue still has to happen in the finale — Mandakini's shot, across the whole width of the ghat, at the steel on his wrists, while Shambhavi fills the sky and the mala rises whole above the river.
The makers have confirmed the cast, the eras, the places and Rama. The asteroid-and-artefact skeleton is reported from multiple synopses but not studio-confirmed. The Navaratna Mala is a fan theory that fits that skeleton unusually well — which is why it went viral, and why it makes a good story. None of it should be quoted as the film's actual plot.
Read the full predicted story below
Sources: Polygon (teaser and plot report from the 15 November 2025 reveal at Ramoji Film City); Hollywood Reporter India (7 April 2027 release date); Variety India (partner synopsis naming asteroid Shambhavi); Pinkvilla and Filmfare (April 2026, the Cinesite-attributed synopsis and the reported 25-minute Ramayana sequence); Pinkvilla (November 2025, the Letterboxd synopsis); Indulge Express and Tupaki (9 November 2026, coverage of the Navaratna Mala theory, both labelled unconfirmed); OTTplay (teaser breakdown).
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