Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Araṇya · 22 of 50
22. Khara's army
Araṇya (अरण्य)
Khara does not treat a sister's face as a small matter. He sends, and then he comes, with Dūṣaṇa and an army, to the hut. Rāma tells Lakṣmaṇa to take Sītā into a cave, a shelter in the rock, and to stay with her. He faces the army alone. They fall. The page says the army falls, and that Khara falls. It does not describe the killing. Janasthāna, which was a rākṣasa province, is empty of its rulers by the end of a day.
Śūrpaṇakhā now has a larger ruin to carry. She goes to Laṅkā, to Rāvaṇa, and she does not lead with her own face only. She describes Sītā. A woman in a forest, beautiful, guarded by a man who has just destroyed a garrison, and available to a king strong enough to take her. The appeal is to his pride and his appetite together. Rāvaṇa, who has conquered gods and is bored by his own conquests, listens.
The strategic fact is simple. Rāma has made himself the enemy of the rākṣasa house by keeping a promise to the sages. Rāvaṇa is about to make himself the enemy of Rāma by a theft. Two vows that have nothing to do with each other are about to become one war. Sītā, in the cave, does not yet know she has been described to a king.
नेपालीमा
खर दूषणसहित सेना लिएर आयो। रामले लक्ष्मणलाई सीतालाई गुफामा लगेर साथै बस्न भन्नुभयो, र आफैँ सेनाको सामना गर्नुभयो। सेना ढल्यो। खर ढल्यो। यो पृष्ठले ढल्यो भन्छ। मारिने तरिका लेख्दैन। शूर्पणखा लङ्का गइन्। उनले सीताको वर्णन गरिन्। रावणले सुन्यो। ऋषिहरूलाई दिएको वचन र रावणले गर्न लागेको चोरी, एकअर्कासँग नजोडिएका दुई प्रतिज्ञा, अब एउटै युद्ध बन्दै छन्।