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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.53.16

Bāla Kāṇḍa, sarga 53: Story of Viśvāmitra: Śabalā resists seizure. The King seizes Śabalā, she returns to Vasiṣṭha and, with his permission, produces armies to resist the royal forces

In the sequence: Śabalā insists that spiritual power is greater than royal force and asks permission to fight through his power

1.53.16

niyuṅkṣva māṃ mahātejas tvadbrahmabalasaṃbhṛtām
tasya darpaṃ balaṃ yat tan nāśayāmi durātmanaḥ

'Set me to the task, O you of great splendour—me, sustained by the power of your brahman—and I shall destroy the pride and the strength of that evil-souled one.'

Words: niyuṅkṣva — engage, set (me) to the task; māṃ — me; mahātejas — O you of great splendour; tvadbrahmabalasaṃbhṛtām — (me) sustained by the power of your brahman; tasya — his; darpaṃ — pride, arrogance; balaṃ — strength; yat — which; tan — that; nāśayāmi — I destroy; durātmanaḥ — of the evil-souled one

Composed by Maharṣi Vālmīki, the ādikavi of the ādikāvya: the first poet of the first poem. 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.