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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.38.7

Bāla Kāṇḍa, sarga 38: Story of Sagara: The stolen horse and the earth’s excavation. Indra steals the sacrificial horse, Sagara sends his sixty thousand sons to dig for it and the devastation drives the earth’s inhabitants to Brahmā

In the sequence: at a critical ritual moment, Indra takes a rākṣasa's form and steals the horse

1.38.7

tasya parvaṇi taṃ yajñaṃ yajamānasya vāsavaḥ
rākṣasīṃ tanum āsthāya yajñiyāśvam apāharat

As he was sacrificing, at the sacred juncture Vāsava (Indra), assuming the body of a rākṣasa, carried off that sacrifice's horse.

Words: tasya — his, of him; parvaṇi — at the sacred juncture (loc.); taṃ — that; yajñaṃ — sacrifice; yajamānasya — of the one sacrificing; vāsavaḥ — Vāsava (Indra); rākṣasīṃ — of a rākṣasa (fem. adj.); tanum — body, form; āsthāya — having assumed; yajñiyāśvam — the sacrificial horse; apāharat — carried off, stole

Composed by Maharṣi Vālmīki. Sanskrit: The Vālmīki-Rāmāyaṇa: Critical Edition, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1960–1975 (gen. eds. G. H. Bhatt, U. P. Shah); IAST from GRETIL (Göttingen). Translation and word glosses: Claude Opus 4.6–4.7; summaries and sequences: ChatGPT Astra (machine-made). Numbering follows the Critical Edition, not the vulgate (e.g. Gita Press, valmikiramayan.net), so sarga and verse numbers can differ from those editions.