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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 3.18.5

Araṇya Kāṇḍa, sarga 18: Khara sends fourteen rākṣasas. Śūrpaṇakhā demands the blood of Rāma, Sītā & Lakṣmaṇa and leads Khara’s warriors to their hermitage

In the sequence: Khara sees his bleeding sister and demands to know who has dared injure her → he boasts that he will kill the offender and asks her to recover enough to explain

3.18.5

adyāhaṃ mārgaṇaiḥ prāṇān ādāsye jīvitāntakaiḥ
salile kṣīram āsaktaṃ niṣpibann iva sārasaḥ

Today I shall take his life-breaths with my life-ending arrows, as a sārasa crane drinks off the milk mixed in water.

Words: adyāhaṃ — today I; mārgaṇaiḥ — with arrows; prāṇān — life-breaths; ādāsye — I shall take; jīvitāntakaiḥ — life-ending; salile — in water; kṣīram — milk; āsaktaṃ — mixed in, attached; niṣpibann — drinking off; iva — like; sārasaḥ — a sārasa crane

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.