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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.58.9
Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa, sarga 58: The curse and Daśaratha’s death. The youth’s father condemns him to die grieving for a son, Daśaratha recalls the curse and dies calling for Rāma
In the sequence: Daśaratha identified himself and confessed that he had mistaken the sound of the filling pot for an animal → he told the father that the youth had died when he withdrew the arrow
2.58.9
munim avyaktayā vācā tam ahaṃ sajjamānayā
hīnavyañjanayā prekṣya bhīto bhīta ivābruvam
Looking upon that sage, I, frightened, spoke to him in an indistinct, faltering voice with its consonants failing, as one afraid.
Words: munim — the sage; avyaktayā — indistinct; vācā — with (my) voice; tam — that; ahaṃ — I; sajjamānayā — faltering, sticking; hīnavyañjanayā — with consonants failing; prekṣya — having looked upon; bhīto — frightened; bhīta — afraid; ivābruvam — as it were, I spoke
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.