Summary
Rama averts [to turn away or aside in avoidance] Shuurpanakha advances toward him and asks her to seek Lakshmana instead. Lakshmana uses wordplay in retorting her in her own words. But she takes the apparent meaning of Lakshmana's words and rushes to eat away Seetha. Lakshmana defaces her and she noisily runs away from there, only to report to her brother Khara, a violent demon. This is the triggering situation of another round of troubles to Rama and Ramayana.
Chapter [Sarga] 18 in Detail
Rama then voicing clearly and softly spoke to her, whom the noose of lust has tethered [to fasten or restrain by] down, with a smile preceding his words. [3-18-1]
"Oh, honorable one, I am married and this is my dear wife, thus it will be distressing for your sort of females to live with a co-wife. [3-18-2]
"He is my younger brother named Lakshmana, he is with a good conduct, good looking, a promising and valiant one, and he is without a wife. [3-18-3]
"He is without a wife and in need of a wife… he is youthful, good-looking and he can become a fitly husband of yours, fit enough to your kind of features. [3-18-4]
"You woo him, oh, board-eyed [bulged-eyed] one, this brother of mine as your husband like sunshine seeking the Mt. Meru, then oh, great-waist [pot-bellied] one, you will be without a co-wife…" So said Rama to that demoness. [3-18-5]
When Rama clearly told that way to that demoness dazed in lust, discarding Rama quickly then she spoke to Lakshmana. [3-18-6]
"I with my best complexion will be your deserving wife meekly to you charm, you can happily take a jaunt [to make a usually short journey for pleasure] all over Dandaka forest along with me." So Shuurpanakha ran after Lakshmana. [3-18-7]
Thus said by the demoness that meaningful sentence maker Lakshmana, the son of Sumitra, then smiled and appropriately replied Shuurpanakha. [3-18-8]
"How you wish to become a female servant, oh, [black] lotus-coloured one, by becoming the wife of a servant like me? I am just a vassal of my adorable brother. [3-18-9]
"Oh, goggle eyed one, befitting to your complexion that is un-stainable further you better become the wife of my brother Rama who is abounding in means, and on becoming the younger wife of that adorable one, you too will achieve your means and thus you will be happy. [3-18-10]
"On discarding her who is disfigured, dishonest, diabolically deleterious old wife with a hallow stomach that Rama will adore you alone. [3-18-11]
"Oh, best complexioned one with best waist, is there any wiseacre to simply discard your kind of best personality, indeed, in preference to human females?" Lakshmana said so to Shuurpanakha. [3-18-12]
Thus said by Lakshmana that despicable one with slouching stomach Shuurpanakha presumed those words to be truthful, for she is equivocal [subject to two or more interpretations and usually used to mislead or confuse] of that equivoque [double meaning]. [3-18-13]
She who is fuddle by lust said to that unassailable enemy scorcher Rama who is sitting in the cottage along with Seetha. [3-18-14]
"Tenacious of her who is disfigured, dishonest, diabolical, hallow-stomached old wife of yours you are not regarding me high. [3-18-15]
"Now I wish to eat up this human female right before your very eyes, and then I can blithely make merry along with you, without the botheration of a co-wife." Said Shuurpanakha to Rama. [3-18-16]
Speaking that way she that torch-eyed Shuurpanakha dashed towards the deer-eyed Seetha in high exasperation as a great meteor would dash towards Rohini, the brightest star in the sky. [3-18-17]
By that the great-energetic Rama took umbrage and checking her who is like the noose of death swooping down on Seetha said to Lakshmana. [3-18-18]
"Punning in any way with the base and brutish [typical of a brute or beast] is inapposite [not apt or pertinent], oh, gentle Saumitri, mark note of Vaidehi, somehow surviving… [3-18-19]
"She is freakish, knavish [dishonest] and overtly ruttish [lustful], oh, tigerly man, it will be apt of you to deface this paunchy [having a potbelly] demoness…" Thus Rama said to Lakshmana. [3-18-20]
Thus said to that mighty Lakshmana he infuriately [to make furious] drew sword and chopped off her ears and nose before the very eyes of Rama. [3-18-21]
On hewing off her ears and nose she that ghastly Shuurpanakha blared highly and discordantly, and very speedily fled into forest as she came. [3-18-22]
She that very ghastly demoness when defaced is wetted by blood and blared many a blare like a cloud in cloudburst. [3-18-23]
She that gruesome one in her appearance clasped herself and thunderously entered similarly gruesome forest while her blood fountained [to flow or spout like a fountain] and profusely exuded [to ooze out]. [3-18-24]
Then she who is deformed neared her brother Khara who possess violent vigour, who is abiding in Janasthaana and who is presently surrounded by his band of his hench-demons, and before him she that Shuurpanakha fell onto ground like a thunderbolt from the sky. [3-18-25]
Then that sister of Khara who is convulsed in the fluster of fear and her body wetted with blood reported to her brother Khara, all about Rama’s arrival in forest with his wife and Lakshmana, and even about his misshaping her. [3-18-26]
Thus, this is the 18th chapter in Aranya Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana, the First Epic poem of India.
Sriman Moola Rama Vijayate
