Aranya Kanda, Sarga 21

Meaning

Seeing Śūrpaṇakhā, who had come to bring disaster to her brothers’ family in her wake, fallen again, Khara spoke to her once more in anger in the following clear words : (1)

Meaning

“Those brave flesh-eating ogres have just now been despatched by me to oblige you. Why are you crying again? (2)

Meaning

“They are devoted to me, attached to me and are ever friendly to me. They cannot be killed even though being attacked; nor is it possible that they will fail to do my bidding. (3)

Meaning

“What is the reason on account of which you are tossing about on the ground like a serpent again, crying ‘O lord !’ I wish to hear this. (4)

Meaning

“With me standing as your protector, why on earth should you wail like a forlorn creature? Get up. Rise. Don’t, don’t behave like this. Cease to be unnerved.” (5)

Meaning

Feeling comforted in everyway when spoken to in these words by Khara, and rubbing her tearful eyes, the ogress (who was hard to placate) replied as follows to her brother Khara : (6)

Meaning

“I called on you a little while ago with my ears and nose lopped off, drenched in a stream of blood, and was fully consoled by you. (7)

Meaning

“Nay, in order to make short work of the terrible Rāma, a scion of Raghu, with Lakṣmaṇa, his younger brother, and thereby to please me, those fourteen valiant ogres were despatched by you. (8)

Meaning

“Though full of indignation and armed with darts and Paṭṭiśas, they were all, however, killed in battle by Rāma with arrows piercing the vital parts. (9)

Meaning

“Ever since I saw those ogres of great impetuosity fallen in an instant and witnessing the extraordinary exploit of Rāma, a great fear has seized me. (10)

Meaning

“Dismayed, highly perturbed and dejected, and seeing fear on all sides, O night-stalker, I have sought you as my protector once more. (11)

Meaning

“Why do you not rescue me, drowned as I am in a vast ocean of grief, infested with the crocodile of dejection and rough with billows of terror? (12)

Meaning

“And those flesh-eating ogres who followed me are lying on the ground, killed by Rāma with exceptionally sharp arrows. (13)

Meaning

“If you have compassion for me and if you have mercy for those ogres, nay, if you have power or prowess to contend with Rāma, O prowler of the night, make short work of that thorn in the side of the ogres, who has taken up his abode in the Daṇḍaka forest. If, however, you do not kill Rāma, the slayer of his foes, today, I shall give up the ghost, already divested as I am of my honour (in the shape of my mutilated nose and ears). I can vividly see with the eye of my intuition that, even though followed by your army on the battlefield, you cannot stand in front of Rāma in a major combat. Even though you account yourself to be brave, you are not really valiant; you have falsely assumed that you are brave. (14—17)

Meaning

“Kill the two princes in a combat, or get away quickly with your kinsmen from Janasthāna, O fool ! If, on the other hand, O disgrace of your race, you cannot really dispose of those two human beings, Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, how shameful indeed is your residence in this forest, lacking in strength and scanty of valour, as you are! (18-19)

Meaning

“Humbled by his energy, you will surely perish in no time. Richly endowed with energy is the aforesaid Rāma, son of Daśaratha, as also his brother, possessed of extraordinary prowess, by whom I stand mutilated.” Wailing in many ways as above, the ogress of sunken belly fell unconscious beside her brother, stricken with grief, so the tradition goes; and, beating her belly with her hands, highly afflicted as she was, burst into tears. (20—22)