Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Araṇya · 23 of 50
23. The golden deer
Araṇya (अरण्य)
Rāvaṇa recruits Mārīca, who has met Rāma before and is afraid of him. Mārīca says the plan will kill them both. Rāvaṇa insists. Mārīca goes, in the form of a golden deer, and he is beautiful in the way a bait is beautiful. Sītā sees him and wants him. She asks Rāma to bring the deer. Lakṣmaṇa says it is not a deer. He is right, and he is not listened to, because the want has already become a test of whether Rāma will refuse her a small thing.
Rāma goes. He tells Lakṣmaṇa to stay with Sītā. The deer leads him a long way, which is the point, and when he is killed he cries out in Rāma's voice. The cry is the second hook. The page says Mārīca dies in that form. It does not describe the hunt. A man who hesitated to kill Tāṭakā has just chased a golden animal out of his wife's sight, and the animal was a strategist dying on an errand he warned against.
In the hut, Sītā hears the voice and believes it. The forest, which had become almost a home, has used her affection twice. Once to send him away. Once to make her unable to bear the man who remains.
नेपालीमा
रावणले मारीचलाई काममा लगायो। रामलाई पहिले नै भेटिसकेको मारीच डराएको थियो, र यो योजनाले दुवैलाई मार्छ भन्यो; तर रावणले जिद्दी गर्यो, र ऊ मान्यो। ऊ सुनको मृग भएर आयो। सीताले त्यो चाहिन्। लक्ष्मणले त्यो मृग होइन भने, तर सुनिएन। राम जानुभयो। रामले हान्दा मारीच रामकै स्वरमा चिच्यायो। यो पृष्ठले ऊ त्यो रूपमा मर्यो भन्छ। शिकारको तरिका लेख्दैन। कुटीमा सीताले स्वर सुनिन्, र पत्याइन्।