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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 3.37.5

Araṇya Kāṇḍa, sarga 37: Mārīca’s second defeat and terror. His deer-form attack costs two companions, he abandons violence but still sees and fears Rāma everywhere

In the sequence: as a huge, sharp-horned, flesh-eating deer, he again attacked tapasvins and their sacred places

3.37.5

nihatya daṇḍakāraṇye tāpasān dharmacāriṇaḥ
rudhirāṇi pibaṃs teṣāṃ tathā māṃsāni bhakṣayan

Killing in the Daṇḍaka forest the ascetics who practised dharma, drinking their blood and likewise eating their flesh,

Words: nihatya — having slain; daṇḍakāraṇye — in the Daṇḍaka forest; tāpasān — the ascetics; dharmacāriṇaḥ — practisers of dharma; rudhirāṇi — the blood; pibaṃs — drinking; teṣāṃ — their; tathā — likewise; māṃsāni — the flesh; bhakṣayan — eating

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.