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राम
Sacred Tableau

Scripture Hides in the Mountain Caves

Bala Kanda, Chhand 3

Doha 84 · Movement 2 of 3

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Viveka flees with all its allies. Warriors of restraint and righteousness break from the field, unable to hold formation against the universal surge.

Sacred texts themselves appear to retreat into mountain caves, carrying their wisdom away from minds no longer able to hear it. What was once clear becomes inaccessible beneath the clamour of longing.

The worlds fall into uproar. Who can protect what destiny is driving forward? Kamadeva, angered and armed with bow and flower arrows, seems to possess two heads, so completely does force join cunning in his advance.

The scriptures vanish into stone while desire marches across the abandoned field.

Read the passage from the Manas
A symbolic figure of Discernment shelters in a quiet cave beside closed manuscripts.

AI-created devotional illustration · Chhand 3

Personified Viveka taking refuge in scripture-mountain caves; a symbolic selected portion, all four lines retained.

Source reference and artistic choices

Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 101 · printed pages 99. Reader passage: bala-kanda-chhand-003. Printed numbering may differ.

Source facts

  • Viveka, Discernment, fled together with his allies; his warriors turned away in battle.
  • At that time they hid in the caves of mountains that signify sacred scriptures; the agents are Viveka and allies, not scriptures fleeing.
  • The world was thrown into turmoil and asked what would happen and who would protect it.
  • The last line asks who has two heads that Rati's lord Kama has angrily taken up bow and arrows against him; two heads is a rhetorical challenge, not a literal anatomy description.

Artistic choices

  • One ordinary adult represents personified Viveka; unspecified allies remain outside the selected crop. Human face, robe, posture and cave landscape are imaginative. Two closed manuscripts indicate the scripture-mountain metaphor; no literal historical army, two-headed person or spring attack asserted.
  • Complete source facts remain in metadata; source and existing translations are unchanged.
  • Standing figure gazes slightly left/down rather than purely inward; valley, winding pale track, green trees and two closed bound manuscript-like volumes are artist scenery, not source-certified ancient book construction.

An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.

भागेउ बिबेक सहाय सहित सो सुभट संजुग महि मुरे। सदग्रंथ पर्बत कंदरन्हि महुँ जाइ तेहि अवसर दुरे।। होनिहार का करतार को रखवार जग खरभरु परा। दुइ माथ केहि रतिनाथ जेहि कहुँ कोपि कर धनु सरु धरा।।

Viveka, discrimination, fled the field along with all its allies; even brave warriors of righteousness turned their backs on the battlefield. Good scriptures (sadgrantha) hid themselves away in the caves of mountain ranges during that terrible hour.