सा बहून्यमनोज्ञानि वाक्यानि हृदयच्छिदाम्।
अहं श्रोष्ये सपत्नीनामवराणां वरा सती॥
sā bahūny amanojñāni vākyāni hṛdaya-cchidām
ahaṁ śroṣye sapatnīnām avarāṇāṁ varā satī
sā = the; bahūni = many; amanojñāni = displeasing; vākyāni = statements explicitly spoken; hṛdaya-chidām = that pierce the heart of our husband; aham = I; śroṣye = will have to hear; sapatnīnām = co-wives; avarāṇām = by my junior; varā = chief queen; satī = as.
I, as the chief queen, will have to hear many displeasing statements explicitly spoken by my junior co-wives that pierce the heart of our husband.
1 Therefore she was disturbed so much.
2 Sapatnīnām is grammatically in the plural which in Sanskrit is generally used to refer to three or more persons. But here she is using that word to talk about her two co-wives Sumitrā and Kaikeyī in anger, and so it is grammatically permissible.
3 A woman without a son or with a banished son is considered inauspicious and even up to 20 years back such criticisms have been leveled at childless women. Though it is a fact that having a responsible, affectionate, dutiful and protective son is a source of great relief for a woman and that one’s material happiness is generally due to one’s piety from past lives, such sharp critical words from others are extremely painful to hear. At least practicing Vaiṣṇavas and Vaiṣṇavīs should rather be sympathetic and compassionate to ladies in such unfortunate situations and impel them to take shelter of the Supreme Lord in spiritual enlightenment. This world of prakṛti (matter), kāla (time) and karma (karmic reactions) is nothing but an abode of undesirable unhappiness with fleeting happiness—duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam—and so it is best to consider such inevitable distresses as sample distresses intrinsic to material existence itself and increasingly focus on bhakti-yoga as taught in Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Kausalyā hadn’t received the sort of happiness due to her as mentioned in the previous verse. She now told Rāma that she would have to hear many displeasing, that is, harsh statements by her junior co-wives. (“Many” implies that previously she had heard such displeasing statements to a small extent.) And they would speak such harsh words explicitly, they wouldn’t just use insinuating words. These would be words that only she could speak to them, [for she was Daśaratha’s seniormost wife] and they were her juniors, not independent women. She [thus] implies that if she had been a junior wife [of King Daśaratha], she would not have experienced such distress.
Hṛdaya-cchidām indicates that the harsh statements of her junior co-wives would pierce the heart of their husband, that is, they would make his heart despondent.1 Sapatnīnām indicates that Kausalyā was angry [while speaking this].2
The sort of words she expected to hear from her co-wives were: “Don’t come to my house,” “Go away from our husband” and “Why do you participate in this festive occasion when you are without your child?”3