Listen, O wretch,’ said Rama; ‘a younger brother’s wife, a sister, a daughter-in-law and one’s own daughter are all alike. Whoever looks upon these with a lustful eye may be slain without any sin.

Fool! So boundless is your petty pride that you paid no heed to your wife’s warning; and though you knew that your brother had taken refuge under the might of my arm, yet in your overweening arrogance you sought to kill him!’

‘Listen, Rama,’ said Bali; ‘my craftiness cannot avail against a lord like you; but am I still a sinner, Lord, even though I have found shelter in you in my last hour?’

When Rama heard this most pathetic plea, he touched Bali’s head with his own hands; ‘I make your body immortal,’ he said, ‘retain your life.’ Said Bali, ‘Listen, most gracious Lord;

-sages continue their efforts in their successive lives, yet at the last moment they fall to utter the name of Rama. But he by the power of whose name Shankara at Kashi bestows the gift of salvation on all alike.

- has appeared in visible form before my eyes! Can I ever, Lord, get such an opportunity again?

He whose praises the Vedas ever hymn as "Not thus"; he whom the sages are scarcely able to perceive in their meditation even after they have controlled their breath, subdued their minds and freed their various senses from passion – he has appeared in visible form before my eyes. Knowing me to be the victim of excessive arrogance, the Lord has bidden me retain my body; but who would be such a fool as to insist on cutting down the tree of Paradise to fence about a mere acacia?