Lanka Kaanda
165 - Mandodari expostulates with Ravana; dialogue between Ravana and Prahasta (his son)
Chaupais
Description
Then, realizing his own nervousness, he laughed and left for his palace forgetting his fear. When Mandodari (Ravana's consort) heard that the Lord had arrived and bridged the ocean in mere sport, she took her spouse by the hand, led him to her own palace and spoke to him in most sweet accents. Bowing her head at his feet, she spread the end of her garment as a token of supplication and said, "Listen to my words without getting angry, my beloved: one should enter into hostilities with him alone whom one may be able to conquer by wit or physical force. The disparity between you and the Lord of the Raghus, however, is certainly analogous to that obtaining between a fire-fly and the sun. He who disposed of the most powerful Madhu and Kaitabha and finished the most valiant sons of Diti (Hiranyakasipu and Hiranyaksa), nay, who bound Bali and despatched King Sahasrabahu (so-called because he was possessed of a thousand arms)-it is He who has descended on earth in order to relieve it of its burden. My lord, you should not oppose Him who is the Master of Time, fate and the soul."