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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 3.10.55

Araṇya Kāṇḍa, sarga 10: Ten years among the hermitages. Māṇḍakarṇi’s lake music is explained, years of visits lead toward Agastya, Rāma recounts his digestion of Vātāpi

In the sequence: in his account, the mahāsura Ilvala used to disguise himself as a brāhmaṇa and invite brāhmaṇas to a funeral feast → his brother Vātāpi, also a mahāsura, would take a ram's form, be cooked, and be served to the guests

3.10.55

bhrātaraṃ saṃskṛtaṃ bhrātā tatas taṃ meṣarūpiṇam
tān dvijān bhojayām āsa śrāddhadṛṣṭena karmaṇā

Then the brother, having cooked his brother, who had taken the form of a ram, fed those brahmins with it by the rite prescribed for a śrāddha.

Words: bhrātaraṃ — the brother; saṃskṛtaṃ — cooked, prepared; bhrātā — the brother; tatas — then; taṃ — him; meṣarūpiṇam — in the form of a ram; tān — those; dvijān — the brahmins (twice-born); bhojayām āsa — fed; śrāddhadṛṣṭena — by (the rite) prescribed for a śrāddha; karmaṇā — by the rite, act

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.