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An old king at home, the fourth age of life on him, and no dispassion come with it. Svayambhuva Manu has ruled a long time and kept the Lord’s command in every way. The grief in his heart is that a birth has gone by without the Lord’s bhakti. Shiva is telling this to Parvati as another cause of the descent she asked him about. He comes to it from the end of the story of Narada. The two ganas who see Narada on the road, their fear, and the release the sage puts inside their curse.
What follows the grief is a kingdom made over to a son, a road to the Naimisha forest. Six thousand years on water, seven thousand on air, ten thousand on neither. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva coming again and again with boons that cannot move the two. Then a voice out of the sky, a form with Sita at its left. Once that form stands before them, three boons: the king’s, the queen’s, and the king’s once more. The answer to the first of them is that he will come himself, and be the son.
An ascetic king and queen, and Rama
The main figures in this episode
- Manu Svayambhuva Manu, from whom, with Shatarupa, the human creation came. He is a king of good dharma and conduct who rules a long time. He grieves in old age that his birth has gone by without bhakti and makes his son take the kingdom. He goes with Shatarupa to the Naimisha forest and does tapas. He asks the Lord for a son like the Lord himself, and then for such love for the Lord’s feet as one has for a son.
- Shatarupa Manu’s wife, who walks the road, bathes, hears the Puranas, repeats the mantra, and stands the years of tapas with him. Asked for her own boon, she calls the king’s boon dear to her. She names her doubt and holds the Lord’s word to be the proof. She asks for the happiness, the state, the bhakti, the love, the discernment, and the way of living of his own devotees. He calls her mother.
- Rama and Sita the Lord who appears before the couple when their words please him. He is dark as a blue lotus, a sapphire, and a water-laden cloud, with arrow and bow in hand, and the primal power at his left side. The verse names him Rama and her Sita as it sets her at his left. He gives the three boons and the vow, and says that his maya, the primal power, will descend too.
- Shiva and Parvati the teller and the listener, whose talk Yajnavalkya is telling to Bharadvaja. Shiva closes the story of Narada by saying that the Lord’s maya deludes wise sages. He turns to the cause for which the Lord she herself saw in the forest, in Sati’s body, became king of Ayodhya. She smiles at that, abashed and loving, and he goes on.
- Narada and Shiva’s two ganas met at the opening. The ganas, Shiva’s attendants, hold the sage’s feet in fear, own their wrong, and ask grace on the curse. Narada tells them what the curse will hold: vast wealth, splendor, and strength as night-walkers, a conquest of the world. Death in battle at the Lord’s hand, and no birth in the world again.
A release promised inside the curse
Shiva’s ganas saw the sage going along the road, free of delusion and with great joy in his mind. In great fear they came to Narada, held his feet, and spoke piteous words. “Sage, we are Shiva’s ganas and no brahmins. We did a great wrong, and we have got its fruit. Show grace about the curse, gracious one.” Narada, kind to the humble, answered. “Go and become night-walkers, both of you. Have vast wealth, splendor, and strength. When you conquer the world by the strength of your arms, then Vishnu will take a human body. Your death in battle will be at the Lord’s hand. You will be freed, and not born into the world again.” The two bowed their heads at the sage’s feet and went, and in time they became night-walkers. Their names are not given.
The doha closes their story. For this cause, in one kalpa, an age of the world, the Lord took a human avatar. He pleases the gods, gladdens the good, and lifts the burden of the earth. The Lord’s births and deeds are many, Shiva goes on, beautiful, gladdening, and strange. Kalpa after kalpa he descends and does fine deeds of many kinds. Each time the great sages sing the story in holy compositions and tell matchless episodes of many kinds. The clever, hearing them, do not wonder. The Lord is endless and the Lord’s story is endless. All the saints tell it and hear it in many ways. The handsome deeds of Rama cannot be sung in ten million kalpas.
“I told this episode, Parvati,” Shiva says. “The Lord’s maya deludes wise sages. The Lord is fond of sport, does good to those who come to him, is easy to serve, and takes away every pain.” He ends on the thought to hold: there is no god, man, or sage whom the strong maya does not delude. Thinking so in the mind, worship the lord of the great maya.
A want that rose in the middle of a kingdom
“Hear another cause, Parvati,” Shiva says. “I tell its strange story at length: the cause for which Brahman, unborn, without qualities, and without form, became king of Ayodhya. The Lord you saw wandering in the forest with his brother, in a sage’s guise, whose deeds you watched, Parvati, and went mad in Sati’s body. Even now the shadow of that has not left you. Hear his deeds, which take away the disease of confusion. The lila he did in that avatar, all of it, I will tell as my wit allows.” Here Yajnavalkya turns to Bharadvaja: hearing Shiva’s words, Parvati smiled, abashed and loving, and Shiva began again to tell the cause of that descent. “All of that I tell you,” Yajnavalkya says. “Hear it, sage, with attention. Rama’s story takes away the dirt of the Kali age, brings good, and is handsome.”
Then Shiva’s telling resumes. Svayambhuva Manu and Shatarupa, from whom the matchless creation of human beings came: a couple of good dharma and conduct, whose example the Vedas sing even now. Their son was King Uttanapada, whose son was Dhruva, the Lord’s devotee. The younger son was named Priyavrata, whom the Vedas and Puranas praise. Their daughter was Devahuti, the beloved wife of the sage Kardama. She bore in her womb Kapila, the first god, kind to the humble. He set out the Sankhya shastra openly and was skilled in weighing the principles of things. That Manu ruled a long time and kept the Lord’s command in every way. The commentary reads the command as the bounds the shastras set.
Late in that good life the want rose. While he lived at home the fourth age of life came, and dispassion from the objects of sense did not. Great grief took his heart: the birth had gone by without the Lord’s bhakti. Then he made his son take the kingdom and went to the forest with his wife. Which son, the verse does not say. The Naimisha forest, the best of holy places, famous, very holy, the giver of attainment to seekers. Companies of sages and perfected ones live there, and there King Manu went, glad at heart.
Two travelers, one longing
On the road the two shone, steady of wit, as if knowledge and bhakti had taken bodies. They came to the bank of the Dhenumati, the river the commentary calls the Gomati, and bathed, glad, in its clear water. Perfected ones and wise sages came to meet them, knowing them for royal sages who carried the yoke of dharma. Wherever there were handsome holy places the sages had them visit every one with honor. Their bodies grew lean. They wore the cloth of sages, which the commentary says was bark. In the company of the saints they heard the Puranas every day. They repeated the twelve-syllable mantra with love, whose words the commentary gives as a bow to the blessed Lord Vasudeva. The couple’s mind clung fast to the lotus feet of Vasudeva.
They ate greens, fruit, and roots, and remembered Brahman, who is being, consciousness, and bliss. Then they began tapas for the Lord’s sake, gave up roots and fruit, and lived on water. In the heart was one constant longing: to see with their own eyes that supreme Lord who is without qualities, undivided, endless, and beginningless. Those who speak of the highest truth contemplate him. The Vedas set him out as neti neti, not this, not this. He is his own bliss, free of every adjunct, and matchless. From his portions many Shivas, Brahmas, and Vishnus arise. Even such a Lord, the longing ran, is in his servant’s power, and takes a lila-body for his devotees’ sake. If this word the Vedas speak is true, then their longing will be fulfilled.
The years of tapas, and a voice out of the sky
In this way six thousand years passed on water. Then for seven thousand years they lived on air. Then for ten thousand years they gave up that too, and both stood on one foot. Seeing a boundless tapas, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva came near Manu many times. “Ask a boon,” they said, and tempted the two in many ways. Supremely steadfast, they did not stir for all the stirring. Their bodies were no more than bone, and yet in their minds there was not the least pain.
The all-knowing Lord knew the ascetic king and queen, whose one resort was he, for his own servants. “Ask, ask a boon.” A voice came out of the sky, deeply grave, steeped in the nectar of grace. That handsome voice, which could bring the dead to life, came in through the ears and reached the heart. Their bodies became hale and handsome, as if they had just come from home. Home is the verse’s word, too, for the house where old age found him. Hearing words that were nectar to the ears, their bodies thrilled and bloomed. Manu prostrated himself and spoke, with a love his heart could not hold.
The form they ask to see with eyes filled
Manu begins with what the Lord is to a servant: a wish-tree and a wish-cow, one whose foot-dust Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva bow to. Easy to serve, the giver of every happiness, the keeper of those who come for refuge, the lord of all that moves and all that stands still. Then the asking. “If you, who do good to the unprotected, have love for us, then be pleased and give this boon. The form that lives in Shiva’s mind, for which sages make their effort, which is the swan in the Manas-lake of Kakabhushundi’s mind. The Vedas praise it as with qualities and without them: that form let us see with eyes filled. Be gracious, you who free from distress those who come for refuge.”
The couple’s words, soft, humble, and steeped in the rasa of love, were very dear to the Lord, and the Lord, loving to his devotees, appeared. The one the longing had described as without qualities and endless now has a color: a blue lotus, a blue sapphire, a blue cloud heavy with water. Three likenesses for one dark body, and the commentary draws from them, in order, softness, light, and freshness. Seeing the beauty of that body, a hundred times ten million times ten million Kamadevas are put to shame.
Then the verse goes from the face to the feet. A face that is the limit of beauty, like the autumn moon. Lovely cheeks and chin, a neck like a conch. Red lips, beautiful teeth, a beautiful nose, and a smile that shames the moon’s rays. Eyes lovely as new lotuses, a lovely glance dear to the heart, brows that take the beauty from Kamadeva’s bow, a tilak bright on the forehead. Earrings in the shape of the makara, which the commentary reads as a fish’s, a crown on the head, curled hair like swarms of bees. On the breast the Shrivatsa mark, a lovely garland of forest flowers, a necklace set with gems, ornaments of jewels. A lion’s neck and a fine sacred thread. Arm ornaments, beautiful too. Arms like the trunks of elephants. A quiver at the waist, arrow and bow in hand. A yellow garment that shames lightning, three fine lines on the belly, and a navel so enchanting that it seems to steal the beauty of the Yamuna’s eddies. The lotus feet cannot be described. The bees of sages’ minds live in them.
Sita at his left, and two devotees before him
At his left side shines the primal power, favorable, a treasury of beauty, the root of the world. From her portion arise countless Lakshmis, Parvatis, and Brahmanis, mines of virtue. At the play of her brow the world comes to be. She is Sita, at Rama’s left side. The line names them both. The commentary names her already at the words primal power, before the verse does.
Seeing the Lord’s form, an ocean of beauty, the two stayed with unblinking eyes, their eyelids held back, gazing with reverence at the matchless form. Manu and Shatarupa could not have enough of it. Overcome with joy, they lost all sense of their bodies and fell like staffs, holding his feet with their hands. The Lord, a mass of compassion, touched their heads with his own lotus hands and raised them at once. Then he spoke. “Knowing me very pleased, and reckoning me a great giver, ask whatever boon your mind likes.” The three gods had said it many times, and the voice out of the sky had said it. Now it was said by the form they had asked to see. Hearing the Lord’s words, Manu joined both hands, took courage, and said in a soft voice, “Master, seeing your lotus feet, all our desires are now fulfilled.”
A son like you
“One great craving is in the heart,” Manu went on, “easy and hard, and it cannot be said. For you to give it is very easy, master. To me, by my own meanness, it seems hard. As a poor man who has found the wish-tree hesitates to ask it for great wealth, not knowing its power, so there is doubt in my heart. You know it, you who know what is within. Fulfill my desire, master.” Before the form appeared, he had called the Lord a wish-tree to his servants. The likeness he gives now for his doubt is a poor man who has found one.
The Lord answered. “Give up hesitation and ask of me, king. There is nothing of mine that cannot be given to you.” Then Manu said it. “Crown of givers, treasury of grace, master, I say it in true feeling: I want a son like you. What is there to hide from the Lord?” Seeing his love and hearing the priceless words, the Lord said, “So be it. Where would I go to find one like myself? King, I will come and be your son.”
Shatarupa’s discernment, and the boon of bhakti
Seeing Shatarupa with her hands joined, the Lord said to her, “Ask the boon that pleases you.” She answered. “Master, the boon the quick-witted king asked, gracious one, pleased me very much. But, Lord, it is great boldness, though it pleases you, who do good to devotees. You are the father of Brahma and the rest, the master of the world, Brahman, who knows what is within every heart. When one understands this, doubt comes to the mind. Moreover, what the Lord has said is the proof. Those who are your own devotees, master: the happiness they find and the state they reach. That happiness, that state, that bhakti, that love for your own feet, that discernment, that way of living: Lord, give these to us by your grace.” Six things, each with the same word before it, and the measure for all six is the Lord’s own devotees.
Hearing her soft, deep, and lovely words, finely shaped, the Lord spoke softly. “Whatever wish is in your mind, I have given it all. Have no doubt. Mother, your discernment is beyond this world. By my grace it will never fade.” The promise to come as a son was given to the king. The word mother comes now, in the Lord’s answer to the queen.
Love such as one has for a son, and a life that hangs on him
Then Manu bowed at his feet and spoke again. “Lord, I have one more request. Let love for your feet be such love as one has for a son, whoever may call me a great fool. As a snake without its jewel, as a fish without water, so let my life depend on you.” Asking this boon, he stayed holding the feet. The son is already promised. The love he asks for now is the love one has for a son, and he asks it of the one who will be the son.
The Lord said, “So be it. Now accept my command: go and live in the capital of the king of the gods. There, dear one, when you have enjoyed vast pleasures and some time has passed, you will be king of Ayodhya, and then I will be your son.” What he will be called as king, the verse does not say.
A true vow, and a home in Amaravati
“Putting on a human guise made of my will,” the Lord went on, “I will appear in your house. With my portions, dear one, I will take a body and do deeds that give devotees joy. And fortunate people who hear them with reverence will cross the ocean of being, leaving attachment and pride. The primal power who brought forth the world, she too will descend, this maya of mine. I will fulfill your longing. True, true, true is my vow.” Saying this again and again, the Lord vanished. Primal power is the verse’s word for the one at his left side, and it is the word here. Longing is the word of the water years, when it meant seeing him with the eyes. Now it is what Manu has asked for.
The couple, holding in their hearts the Lord who is gracious to devotees, lived some time in that hermitage. In time they left their bodies without effort and went to live in Amaravati. The commentary names it as Indra’s city, the capital the Lord had sent them to. The story stops at Amaravati, with the birth in Ayodhya still a promise. Yajnavalkya closes it: this very holy history Shiva told to Parvati. “Hear further, Bharadvaja, another cause of Rama’s birth.” Another cause is the word Shiva used when he turned from Narada to Manu, and it is the word Yajnavalkya ends on.
From a want to love
Manu’s road began with grief, a birth gone by without bhakti. The road he walks with Shatarupa: the two looking like knowledge and bhakti walking, the bath, the holy places, the Puranas heard every day. The mantra, the years on water, on air, on one foot. The want was answered first with a voice and then with a form. What Manu asked of the voice was what the longing of the water years had been: to see him with eyes filled.
Once the form stands before them, three boons are asked: a son like you. The happiness, state, bhakti, love, discernment, and way of living of your own devotees. Such love for your feet as one has for a son, with a life that depends on you as a fish’s on water. Shatarupa, who had called him the father of Brahma and the master of the world, is called mother in his answer. Manu, who had asked for a son, is answered with a question, where would he go to find one like himself, and with a promise.
The Lord’s last words to them are the vow, true, true, true, said again and again. Ahead of them, after Amaravati, in the order he gave, are a kingdom in Ayodhya and a son who has already told them who he will be.
Source: the Gita Press edition of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, Balkand, doha 139 to 152, read with Hanuman Prasad Poddar’s Hindi commentary.