मारीचस्य रामभयवर्णनम्

Mārīca went on with his story. "So I escaped him somehow that day in battle. Now hear what happened to me afterwards. Even after being treated so, I was not discouraged"; the first defeat had not cured his pride. "With two rākṣasas in the shape of deer I entered the Daṇḍaka forest." His own form then was horrible: "With blazing tongue, huge fangs and sharp horns, a mighty, flesh-eating monster of a deer, I ranged the Daṇḍaka forest." He did not merely wander the woods but made holy places his target: "At the fire-sanctuaries, at the sacred bathing places and at the holy trees, Rāvaṇa, I roamed in a shape of utter horror and tormented the ascetics. I killed the ascetics of Daṇḍaka who walked in the way of dharma, drank their blood and ate their flesh; a cruel eater of seers' flesh, terrifying the creatures of the forest, drunk with blood, I ranged the Daṇḍaka woods." Mārīca tells this as self-condemnation; he now sees his past cruelty as guilt, and that very self-reproach proves he has changed. The last sarga described Rāma's boyhood; here begins the time of the grown Rāma's exile in the forest, so that Rāvaṇa might compare the two. His two companions too wore the shape of deer, and that becomes the seed of Rāvaṇa's request in the next sarga.

"Then, as I wandered through Daṇḍaka defiling all that is holy, I came upon Rāma, an ascetic grounded in dharma, and the illustrious Vaidehī, and Lakṣmaṇa the great warrior, an ascetic sparing in food, devoted to the good of all creatures." All three were in the dress of ascetics, and so he did not recognise their true strength. "I despised that mighty Rāma living in the forest, thinking him a mere ascetic, and remembering our old enmity I charged at him in a fury, sharp-horned, in the form of a deer, bent on killing him, my judgement gone, with that old blow still in mind." By saying his judgement was gone he admits the unsoundness of his own mind: he remembered the old blow and still made the same reckless attack, and the contradiction is plain. The ascetic's dress was the cloak over Rāma's strength, and Mārīca blundered by taking the cloak for the truth. By naming Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa he hints that all three were there, yet he charged with eyes for one alone.

"Then he drew his enormous bow and loosed three sharp, foe-destroying arrows, swift as Garuḍa and the wind. Those arrows, like thunderbolts, dreadful, drinkers of blood, their joints smoothly laid, came on all three together. But I knew Rāma's prowess and had tasted the terror of him before, so, crafty as I was, I leapt aside and escaped. My two rākṣasa companions were killed. Having escaped Rāma's arrow and somehow kept my life, I withdrew here and became a wanderer, disciplined, an ascetic, my mind collected." His escape from death twice over is the root of Mārīca's penance, and the hidden point is that fear, not detachment, made him an ascetic. The three descriptions of the arrows show in turn their sharpness, their speed and their terror, and the smoothly laid joints mean they were flawlessly made. His two companions died and he alone got away by cunning, and even now the memory shames him.

Then Mārīca described his present state, which moves us both to pity and to a smile. "At every tree I see Rāma, dressed in bark and black antelope skin, bow in hand, like Death with his noose. In my fear, Rāvaṇa, I see thousands of Rāmas; this whole forest seems to me made of Rāma. Even when I am alone, lord of the rākṣasas, I see only Rāma, and when I see Rāma in a dream I start up out of my senses. I live in such terror of Rāma that even words beginning with 'ra', ratna for jewel, ratha for chariot and the rest, fill me with dread." This is not mere exaggeration; it pictures the very workings of fear, in which even the first letter of the dreaded one's name deepens the dread. "At every tree", said twice over in the original, shows a fear that is everywhere. Bark and antelope skin are the ascetic's marks, the bow the warrior's, and bearing both at once Rāma seemed to Mārīca like Death with his noose. And the image of a forest made of Rāma is deeply moving: wherever he looks, there is Rāma.

"I know his power," Mārīca said firmly. "War with him is not for you. The delight of the Raghus could kill even Bali or Namuci." Then he gave two choices but drew his own line: "Fight Rāma in battle, Rāvaṇa, or else forgive him; but do not so much as speak of Rāma to me if you want to see me alive." He added a maxim: "Many good men in this world, disciplined and devoted to dharma, have been destroyed along with all they had through the wrongdoing of others. I too may perish through another's wrong, night-rover. Do what seems right to you, but I will not go with you. For Rāma is of great lustre, great courage and great strength; he may well prove the destroyer of the whole rākṣasa world." The refusal is plain: Mārīca says fearlessly that he will not help. Here he marks the limit of a subject's loyalty and duty: obedience as far as possible, but not self-destruction. With "I will not go with you" he makes it clear that he will not serve as Rāvaṇa's officer in this.

Finally Mārīca turned Rāvaṇa's own argument against him. "If Khara went to Janasthāna for Śūrpaṇakhā's sake, overstepped all bounds and was killed by Rāma, whose great deeds cost him no effort, then tell me truly: what wrong did Rāma do?" The attack was Khara's; Rāma only resisted, so the root of the enmity does not lie with Rāma. The closing verse, in a longer metre, says: "If you will not accept this word of mine, spoken by one who seeks his kinsman's good, you will lose your life in battle along with your kin, struck down this very day by Rāma's straight-flying arrows." So the sarga ends. Mārīca's whole speech is upheld by dharma, by policy and by fear alike, yet in the next sarga Rāvaṇa, driven on by Time, will reject it all.