Summary
Shuurpanakha narrates her woeful story to her brother Khara criminating [blaming] Seetha in particular. She wants Khara to wage a war so that she could drink Seetha's blood. Khara in order to appease his sister sends fourteen demons to eliminate Rama.
Chapter [Sarga] 19 in Detail
On seeing her who fell before him in a misshapen and blood-soaked condition, demon Khara is all stewed up and asked her. [3-19-1]
"Rise up, first tell me clearly putting away your flurry and fluster, who disfigured your form in this way. [3-19-2]
"Who for sport is poking his fingertip at a venomously fanged black-cobra that has chanced in his close proximity but slouching down inoffensively. [3-19-3]
"Who on harrowing [plundering] you is now heedless [thoughtless] about his gulping a deadly poison, or about his foolish bracing the noose of time around his own neck. [3-19-4]
"You are gifted with boldness and braveness, a whimsical rover, a guise changer by your wish, a coequal of Terminator, but to whom you have gone and by whom you are led into this kind of plight. [3-19-5]
"Who is that kind of highly intrepid [characterized by resolute fearlessness] warper [act wrongly or abnormally], either from gods, or from celestials or from high-souled sages who indeed rendered you shapeless. [3-19-6]
"Indeed, I do not find anyone who causes displeasure to me in this world, even among divinities including the thousand eyed Indra, the controller of demon Paaka. [3-19-7]
"Now, I will take away the lives of that miscreant with my arrows that are terminators of lives, as a swan would drink milk to dregs even if it is mingled in water, duly separating milk from water. [3-19-8]
"Whose frothy blood is it that the earth wishes to quaff when I cut off his crucial organs by my arrows and drop him dead in a combat. [3-19-9]
"Whose body is it from which birds pressing round gladly wish to wring flesh to pieces for eating when I slay him in war. [3-19-10]
"Now, when I haul him easily on the ground in a battle that villain will be unredeemable either by gods, celestials, evil spirits, or by demons. [3-19-11]
"It will be apt of you to gather your sensitivity slowly and tell me as to which miscreant attacked and worsted you in the forest." Thus Khara spoke to Shuurpanakha. [3-19-12]
On hearing this kind of words of her brother, especially who is rancorous, then Shuurpanakha spoke these words, tearfully. [3-19-13]
"Those two are in adulthood, good-looking, gentle yet greatly mighty, eyes broad like lotuses, dressed in jute-cloths and deerskin, subsistent on fruits and tubers, composed, sagacious and celibate, and they are the sons of Dasharatha, namely Rama and Lakshmana. [3-19-14,15]
"Having all the aspects of kings they equal the kings of Gandharva celestials, and I am ill-disposed to differentiate whether they two are gods or demons. [3-19-16]
"I have seen a curvaceous lady between those two, a ripely beauty, rich in comeliness, adorned with lots of ornaments. [3-19-17]
"Owing to that woman I am led into this sort of situation, together by those two, as with an insecure female. [3-19-18]
"Staying in the van of war I wish to drink the frothy blood of that guileful Seetha along with that of those two, Rama and Lakshmana, when they are killed in war. [3-19-19]
"I shall drink her blood and also that of those two in war, this being my prime longing let it be fulfilled by you." Thus wailed Shuurpanakha before her brother Khara. [3-19-20]
While she is saying like that Khara vengefully summoned fourteen great mighty demons that are similar to the Terminator. [3-19-21]
"Wielding weapons and wearing jute-cloths and deerskin two humans have got into ghastly forest of Dandaka along with a woman of age." Thus Khara is ordering the fourteen demons. [3-19-22]
"You shall return to me only on killing those two and also that treacherous woman, and their blood this sister of mine will drink. [3-19-23]
"Oh, demons, on going there swiftly stamp them out by you own vigor, thus let the fanciful hearty desire of my sister be achieved. [3-19-24]
"On seeing your finishing those two brothers flatly in a war she this sister of mine will be gladdened, and then she drinks their blood in war, amusingly. [3-19-25]
In this way when Khara ordered those fourteen demons, they have gone to Panchavati along with Shuurpanakha like black-clouds glided by gales. [3-19-26]
But then, though the nightwalker wielding sharp arrows have become ineffectual to trounce Rama like the wild elephants which will become ineffectual to overcome the blazingly uprising wildfire. [3-19-27]
Thus, this is the 19th chapter in Aranya Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana, the First Epic poem of India.
Sriman Moola Rama Vijayate
