Doha 32b

The narrative of Śrī Rāma is a lovely wish-yielding gem, and a graceful adornment for saintly wisdom. The hosts of virtues possessed by Śrī Rāma are a blessing to the world and are the bestowers of liberation, riches, religious merit and the divine abode. (1) They are true teachers of wisdom, dispassion and Yoga (contemplative union with God) and celestial physician (Aśvinīkumāra) for the fell disease of metempsychosis, parents for bringing forth devotion to Sītā and Śrī Rāma and the seed of all holy vows, practices and observances, (2) antidotes for sins, agonies and griefs and beloved guardians in this as well as in the next world; valiant ministers to King Reason, and a veritable Agastya*, drinking up the unfathomable ocean of greed, (3) * Sage Agastya is said to have quaffed the ocean in three draughts. He was born of a jar; this earned him the title of ‘Kumbhaja’. young lions residing in the forest of the devotee’s mind to kill the herd of elephants in the shape of lust, anger and impurities of the Kali age; dear to Lord Śiva as a highly respectable and most beloved guest, and wish-yielding clouds quenching the wild fire of indigence. (4) They are spells and valuable gems, as it were, for counteracting the venom of serpents in the form of sensuous enjoyments, and efface the deep marks of evil destiny written on the forehead. They are sunbeams, as it were, dispelling the darkness of ignorance, and clouds nourishing the paddy crop in the form of devotees, (5) trees of paradise, as it were, yielding the object of one’s desire; easily available for service and gratifying like Viṣṇu and Śiva; stars, as it were, adorning the autumnal sky in the shape of the poet’s mind, and the very life’s treasure for the devotees of Śrī Rāma; (6) a rich harvest of enjoyments, as it were, yielded by the totality of one’s meritorious deeds and sincerely devoted to the good of the world like holy men; sporting in the mind of the devotees as swans in the Mānasarovara lake and purifying as the waves of the holy Gaṅgā. (7)

The hosts of virtues possessed by Śrī Rāma are like blazing fire to consume the dry wood of evil ways, fallacious reasoning, mischievous practices, deceit, hypocrisy and heresy prevailing in Kaliyuga. (32-A) The exploits of Śrī Rāma are delightful to one and all even as the rays of the full moon; they are particularly agreeable and highly beneficial to the mind of the virtuous, who can be compared to the white water-lily and the Cakora* bird. (32-B) * The white water-lily is proverbially noted for its attachment to the moon and is supposed to open its petals in moonlight alone. Similarly the Cakora is said to feed on moonbeams and supposed to be particularly enamoured of the moon.