Sri Rama Charita Manasa - Shri Sita Ram Foundation, USA

968 *
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›R∫ RÅMACARITAMÅNASA *
you with Your Spouse. Subject to Your relentless Måyå (deluding potency), O Hari,
gods and demons, Någas and human beings, nay, all animate and inanimate beings
wander for numberless days and nights in the path of metempsychosis impelled by
Time, Karma (destiny) and the Guƒas (modes of Prakæti). Those, O Lord, whom You
ever regarded with compassion have been rid of the threefold affliction. Protect us,
Råma, prompt as You are in putting an end to the toils of mundane existence; we
adore You. Intoxicated with the pride of wisdom, they who respect not Devotion to
You, which takes away the fear of transmigration, may climb up to a rank which even
gods find it difficult to attain; yet, O Hari, we see them fall from it. On the other hand,
they who have abandoned all other hopes and with unqualified faith choose to remain
Your servants easily cross the ocean of transmigration by merely repeating Your
name. It is for this reason, O Lord, that we particularly invoke You. O Mukunda
(Bestower of Liberation), O Råma, O Lord of Ramå (Lakm∂), we ever adore Your
lotus-feet, which are worthy of adoration to Lord ›iva and the unborn Brahmå, the
touch of whose blessed dust redeemed Ahalyå (the wife of the sage Gautama), from
whose nails flowed the heavenly stream (Ga∆gå)ówhich is reverenced even by the
sages and sanctifies all the three spheresó and the soles of which, while bearing
the marks of a flag, thunderbolt, goad and lotus, are further adorned by scars left by
thorns that pricked them in course of Your wanderings in the forest. We further adore
You as the tree of the universe, which, as the Vedas and the Ågamas (Tantras)
declare, has its root in the Unmanifest (Brahma) and has existed from time without
beginning; which has four coats* of bark, six stems, twenty-five boughs, numberless
leaves and abundant flowers; which bears two kinds of fruitsóbitter and sweet,
which has a solitary creeper clinging to it and which puts on ever fresh foliage and
evernew flowers. Let those who meditate on Brahma (the Absolute) as unborn, the
one without a second, perceptible only through intuition and as beyond the ken of
mind, preach and believe like that. We, for our part, O Lord, ever chant the glories
of Your visible form. O All-merciful and All-effulgent Lord, O mine of noble virtues,
this is the boon we ask of You: may we love Your feet, casting off all aberrations of
thought, word and deed.î (1ó6)
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* The four states of consciousness, viz., waking life (¡Êª˝˝Ã˜), dream (Sfl¬A), sound sleep (‚ÈcÊÈÁ#) and the
pure impersonal state (ÃÈ⁄UËÿ) are the four coats of bark referred to here; the six states of existence, viz., to be
(•ÁSàÊ), to come into being (¡ÊÿÃapple), to undergo transformation (Áfl¬Á⁄UáÊ◊Ãapple), to grow (flh¸Ãapple), to decay (ˇÊËÿÃapple) and to
perish (Ÿ‡ÿÁàÊ),are the six stems; the twenty-five categories of which this world of matter is composed (viz.,
Prakæti or Primordial Matter, Mahat or Cosmic Reason, Aha∆kåra or the Cosmic Ego-sense, Manas or the
Cosmic Mind, Citta or the Cosmic Intellect, the five senses of perception, viz., the senses of hearing, touch,
sight, taste and smell, the five subtle elements (Tanmåtrås) and the five Mahåbhµutas are the twenty-five
boughs; the countless latent desires are the numberless leaves, the numerous acts of volition to attain such
desires are the abundant flowers, pleasure and pain are the twofold fruit and Måyå (Cosmic Illusion) is the
creeper that clings to this tree of the universe.