O longarmed, mighty and powerful Rama in the past I was handsome like the Moon or Indra or the Sun inconceivable to all the three worlds.

With my appearance, I was a great nuisance to the world and used to terrorise the sages living in the forest.

With my appearance I invited the wrath of Sthulasira who I assaulted among the many seers, while he was collecting food in the forest.

Seeing me he pronounced a dreadful curse on me saying, 'You will get a cruel, despicable form.'

When I sought to know how the curse angrily pronounced on me would come to an end, he said:

'When Rama gets your arms in a desolate forest amputated and your body cremated, you would get back your gloriously auspicious form.'

O Lakshmana know that I was the prosperous son of demon Danu. By the wrath of Indra in the battlefeild I obtained this form.

I pleased the creator Brahma with great penance. He blessed me with long life. Then this pride and confusion overtook me.

Having been blessed with long life and thinking, what can Indra do to me?, I attacked him.

The thunderbolt having a hundred nodes deployed by Indra pierced my thighs and my head.

Entreated, he did not send me to the abode of Yama ( lord of death) and said, 'Let the words of the creator be true' .

Hit by the thunderbolt, my thighbones, head and face were broken. Somehow I could manage to live for a long time without food.

Having been entreated, Indra created in me two long arms extending upto a yojana and set my mouth with sharp teeth in the stomach.

Stretching the long arms in the forest, I dragged creatures like lions, tigers, elephants and deer moving in the forest and ate them.

Indra too had said, 'When Rama along with Lakshmana cuts off your arms in a fight, you would reach heaven.'

O Rama, the best of kings I thought it was only proper in this forest and with this body to catch whatever creature I saw.

O Rama, I was struggling to preserve my body all the time thinking that some day you would certainly come into my arms.

You are that Rama. Be blessed. As stated by the seer I cannot be really killed by any one except you.

O best among men I will help you with my wisdom and give you friendly advice when I am purified by you both through cremation on the funeral pyre.

Rigteous Rama spoke the following words in response to the story of Danu within Lakshmana's earshot:

My illlustrious wife Sita was carried away by Ravana comfortably when I was away from Janasthana along with my brother.

I only know his name. We do not know how he looks, where he lives and what influence he has.

Creatures like you may help those who, like orphans, run here and there, stricken with sorrow.

O hero we will cremate you in a huge pit to be prepared for this occasion, collecting dry logs of wood broken by elephants.

If you really know where SIta has been kidnapped and by whom, tell me. You will be doing a great service.

Danu who was proficient in speech spoke with chosen words to Rama who was a great speaker himself:

I do not have divine wisdom (now). Nor do I know Sita. When you cremate me, I shall assume my original form and will tell you the name of the person who knows it.

O lord before I am cremated, I do not have the ability to know about that powerful demon by whom Sita has been abducted.

O Rama due to the curse I have lost my wisdom. By my own deed, I have attained this form despicable to the world.

Before the Sun disappears with his tired horses drop me into a pit and cremate me in accordance with tradition, O Rama

O heroic Rama, delight of the Raghus, if you drop me in a pit and cremate me as per custom, I will tell you about him who knows the demon.

O Rama you should establish friendship with him in a just manner. That hero of swift action will help you when he is pleased.

O Rama, there is nothing that he does not know in the three worlds. In the past for a different reason he roamed all the (three) worlds. इत्यार्ष श्रीमद्रामायणे वाल्मीकीय आदिकाव्ये अरण्यकाण्डे एकसप्ततितमस्सर्गः।। Thus ends the seventyfirst sarga of Aranyakanda of the holy Ramayana the first epic composed by sage Valmiki.