Verse 1

¹The doors of the inner rooms and of the outer were all shut as before. Then the guards of the house, hearing a child's cry, got up. ²They went at once and told the Bhoja king of that birth from Devaki's womb, the thing he had been waiting for in his dread. ³He sprang up from his bed, saying, this is the time, and shaken, went quickly to the birth-chamber, stumbling, his hair loose. ⁴The lady, a good woman, helpless, said to her brother pitifully: This is your daughter-in-law, good one. You should not kill a woman. ⁵Many children of mine have been killed by you, brother, bright as fire, sent by fate. Let this one daughter be given to me.

⁶I am your younger sister, wretched, my sons killed, master. Give this last child to one who has so little, dear one. You should. ⁷So begged by her, who wept most pitifully and held her daughter close, the wretch shouted her down and tore the child out of her hands. ⁸Taking his sister's daughter by the feet, newly born as she was, he dashed her against the face of a stone, his own interest having torn up his affection by the root.