How can he be a mere man, Ten-headed, who killed Bali with a single shaft? You’re blind for all your twenty eyes; a curse on your ignoble birth, O base-born blackhead!

Rama’s arrows are all thirsting for your blood, and that’s why I spare you, insolent wrangler, contemptible demon!

I’m capable of smashing your jaws, but I have no command from Raghunatha to do so; otherwise, I am so enraged that I would smash all your ten heads and lifting up Lanka, sink it in the sea.

Your Lanka is like a fig on a gular tree and you demons the unsuspecting insects that live in it. A monkey as I am, I would lose no time gobbling up the fruit, but the gracious Rama has given me no order to do so.’

Upon hearing this ingenious comparison, Ravana smiled and said, ‘You fool, where did you learn to tell such big lies? Bali never boasted like this; it must be your association with the hermits that has made you such a vaunting liar.’

‘I’m,’ said Angad, ‘a blustering liar indeed, O Twenty-armed, if I don’t tear out your ten tongues by their roots!’ Then, as he recalled Rama’s might, Angad grew furious and planted his foot firm in the midst of the assembly.

(He offered this wager, saying) ‘If you can but move my foot, you wretch, Rama will turn back and I shall forgo Sita as a lost wager.’ ‘Listen, champions all,’ said Ravana, ‘seize the monkey by the leg and throw him to the ground.’