रामेण खरस्य निर्भर्त्सनं गदाच्छेदनं च

In the last sarga Rāma had destroyed Khara's chariot, bow, charioteer and horses, and Khara now stood on the ground without a chariot, a mace in his hand. Seeing him there, the splendid Rāma began to speak, and the poet describes his words as beginning gently and growing harsh: the opening calm, the end fierce. Rāma did not praise his own strength; he simply held up Khara's deeds. "Standing in the midst of a great army, crowded with elephants, horses and chariots, you have done a savage thing that the whole world loathes. One who terrifies all creatures, who is cruel and does evil, cannot last long, even if he is lord of all three worlds. A night-rover who does fierce deeds the world abhors is struck down by everyone, as people kill a wicked snake that has got into the house." Then he drove the point home with an example: "A man who sins out of greed or desire and does not see where it leads meets his own end while he is still rejoicing, like the little insect called the brāhmaṇī that eats a hailstone fallen in the rains and dies of it." And at the last came the root question: "What fruit, rākṣasa, do you think you will reap by killing the illustrious ascetics, men of righteous life, who dwell in the Daṇḍaka forest?" That question is the seed of the whole sarga, and everything Rāma says afterwards unfolds from it. Notice that he did not belittle Khara's strength; he only reckoned up what his deeds would bring him. So his speech, though it sounds like a rebuke, is really a lesson in dharma.

Rāma now set out a general truth. "Evildoers, cruel and hated by the world, do not keep their power long, even when they have won it; they are like trees whose roots have rotted away." When the root has withered, the very height of the tree is what brings it down. "The doer of an evil deed is sure to reap its terrible fruit, though he must wait for its time, as a tree puts out the flowers of its season when the season comes round." Then he shortened even the waiting: "In this world, night-rover, the fruit of evil deeds comes before long, like the effect of poisoned food once it has been eaten"; with poison there is no delay at all. From the general he came down to the particular: "I have been sent here by the king to take the lives of those who do dreadful evil and wish the world harm." By saying "the king" Rāma recalls his father Daśaratha's command, for in his eyes even his exile is a charge to protect dharma. He ended with a vow: "Today the gold-adorned arrows I loose will split your body open and pass clean through it, as snakes break through an ant-hill and come out on the other side." The simile is precise: as the snakes burst out of the ant-hill, so his arrows would burst through Khara's body and out at his back.

Rāma finished his speech in three verses. First came the justice of retribution: "The men of righteous life whom you devoured in the Daṇḍaka forest, you will follow them today, killed in battle along with your army"; the killer, that is, will go the way of those he killed. Next came a scene: "Let the great seers you killed long ago look down from their sky-chariots today and see you struck down by my arrows and sent to hell." Their fates are set in contrast, the slain seers in their heavenly chariots, their slayer Khara in hell. Last came an open challenge: "Strike as you please, basest of your line, try what you will; today I shall bring down your head like a palm fruit." The palm fruit is well chosen: once it drops from its high stalk it falls of itself and never rises again. So Rāma's speech, which began with justice, ended with a vow. The course of these verses is clear: the remembrance of past deeds, the pointing to the witnesses, and finally the fixing of the hour with the word "today", said twice.

At Rāma's words Khara grew furious and his eyes turned blood-red; the poet calls him senseless with rage, meaning that anger had overpowered his judgement. Yet he laughed as he answered, and he mocked the very manner of Rāma's speech. "Son of Daśaratha, you have killed some common rākṣasas in battle, so why do you praise yourself for what deserves no praise? Bulls among men, those who are truly valiant or strong, say nothing about themselves, however proud of their own power they may be. It is common men, undisciplined, a disgrace to the warrior class, who boast for nothing, as you are boasting now, Rāma. What hero, on the field of battle when his hour of death has come, recites his lineage and sings his own praises when nothing calls for it?" He closed with an image: "Your boasting has only shown how small you are, as false gold shows its blackness when it is heated in a fire of kuśa grass"; imitation gold reveals its dark base the moment it meets the heat. So Khara took even Rāma's plain truth for self-praise, and that was his delusion. His reasoning was not wrong in itself, but it should have been turned on himself, for it was Khara who was about to describe his own might.

Now Khara spoke of himself. "Do you not see me standing here with my mace, as unshakable as a mountain streaked with ores that holds up the earth?" He meant the mountain to show how firm he was, but for a man without a chariot, standing on the ground, that firmness is only pitiful. "Mace in hand, I alone am enough to take your life, and the lives of all three worlds too, like Death with his noose. There is much I could say to you, but I will not: the sun is setting, and that would put a stop to the battle." Mention of the sunset shows that time was running short and the matter would be settled that very day. Last he gave his reason: "You have slain fourteen thousand rākṣasas; today, by destroying you, I shall wipe away their tears." So saying, in a towering rage, he hurled at Rāma his mace with its splendid bands, like a blazing thunderbolt. Words were over; action had begun. Comparing the mace to a thunderbolt conveys its speed and fire, as though it filled the sky like Indra's weapon.

The tale of the mace ends in three verses. Flung from Khara's arm, the huge blazing mace burned trees and thickets to ash along its path and came on close to Rāma; its power to burn was seen before it ever reached its mark. But as that great mace, like the noose of Death, came hurtling at him, Rāma cut it into many pieces with his arrows while it was still in the air, and never let it touch the ground. Then the poet gives an image: shattered and split by the arrows, the mace fell to the ground like a she-serpent brought down by the power of spells and herbs. The weapon that had been like poison was made harmless, like a snake robbed of its venom by charm and remedy. So the sarga ends. Khara is now weaponless, and in the next he will hear Rāma's smiling reply. The image of the serpent carries the point: the mace's power was like venom, and Rāma's arrows, like spells and healing herbs, drained that venom of all its force.