Said Gaadhi’s son (Vishvamitra), smiling to himself, ‘Everything looks green to the sage (Parashurama)! It is, however, a sword of steel that he is faced with, not sugar extracted from a sugar-cane (that one could easily gulp). It is a pity that he does not understand and still persists in his ignorance’. (Hari-ari may also be taken as enemy of Hari and khanra stands for both ‘sword’ and ‘sugar’.)

‘Is there anyone, O good sage’, said Lakshmana, ‘who does not know your gentle disposition? It is so well-known throughout the world. You have fully paid the debt you owed to your parents; the only debt which now remains to be paid by you is the one you owe to your guru, and that has been worrying your mind not a little.

It looks as if you had incurred the debt on our account; and since a considerable time has now elapsed, the interest must have mounted up. Now you send for the creditor and I will at once pay up from my own purse’.

When he heard these insolent words, Parashurama grasped his axe, and the whole assembly cried out, ‘Alack!’ ‘O chief of Bhrigus,’ said Lakshmana, ‘you still keep brandishing your axe at me, but I am sparing you, O enemy of princes, only because I hold you to be a Brahman.

You have never yet met real champions staunch in fight; you have grown important in your own little home, O holy Brahman!’ they all cried out, ‘This is wholly undesirable!’ Raghunatha now gave Lakshmana a sign to be quiet.

When he saw that Lakshaman’s words had added fuel to the flames of Parashurama’s wrath, the sun of the house of Raghu spoke words like water to quench it.

‘My lord, have compassion on the child’, he said, ‘and wreak not your wrath on this guileless youngster (who is an unweaned infant). Had he any idea of my lord’s might, how could he be so foolish as to claim equality with you?