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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.57.37

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.

2.57.37

na dvijātir ahaṃ rājan mā bhūt te manaso vyathā
śūdrāyām asmi vaiśyena jāto janapadādhipa

'I am not a twice-born, O king — let there be no anguish in your mind; I was begotten of a Vaiśya upon a Śūdra woman, O ruler of the land.'

Words: na — not; dvijātir — a twice-born; ahaṃ — I; rājan — O king; mā — let not; bhūt — there be; te — your; manaso — of the mind; vyathā — anguish; śūdrāyām — upon a Śūdra woman; asmi — I am; vaiśyena — by a Vaiśya; jāto — born; janapadādhipa — O ruler of the land

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.