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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.57.32

Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa, sarga 57: Daśaratha’s arrow aimed at a sound. He recalls mistaking a filling pot for an elephant and shooting a youth who directs him to his blind parents

In the sequence: he directed Daśaratha to his parents' hermitage and asked him to confess and seek their forgiveness → he also asked him to remove the arrow, explaining that his father was a Vaiśya and his mother a Śūdra, to relieve the prince's fear of having killed a brāhmaṇa → Daśaratha drew it out, and the youth gasped from the wound.

2.57.32

na nūnaṃ tapaso vāsti phalayogaḥ śrutasya vā
pitā yan māṃ na jānāti śayānaṃ patitaṃ bhuvi

'Surely there is no reward of austerity or of sacred learning, since my father does not know that I lie fallen on the ground.'

Words: na — not; nūnaṃ — surely; tapaso — of austerity; vāsti — there is; phalayogaḥ — attainment of fruit, reward; śrutasya — of sacred learning; vā — or; pitā — father; yan — since, in that; māṃ — me; na — not; jānāti — knows; śayānaṃ — lying; patitaṃ — fallen; bhuvi — on the ground

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.