Wave and Water, Sita and Ram
Bala Kanda, Doha 18
Doha 18 · Movement 2 of 2
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A spoken word and the meaning it carries can be distinguished, yet neither can travel into understanding without the other. A wave rises with a visible form, while every curve, crest, and falling line remains nothing but water.
So Sita and Ram are spoken of as two and known in an inseparability deeper than number. Power and the One who bears power, compassion and the Lord of compassion, Leela and the Reality shining through it meet without division.
Tulsidas bows at their feet and places the burdened there first. The sorrowful and distressed are not kept at the edge of the divine pair's affection. They are supremely dear.
The wave leans back into the water without losing the beauty of its form.
Read the passage from the Manas
AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 18
A wave rises from and rejoins still water, symbolizing the inseparability of speech and meaning.
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 42, 43 · printed pages 40, 41. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-019. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Speech and meaning, water and waves are called distinct yet inseparable
- Salutes Sita and Rama, to whom distressed people are dear
Artistic choices
- Continuous water and wave select the source comparison; no rescue episode
- Horizon, colours and lotus leaves imagined
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
गिरा अरथ जल बीचि सम कहिअत भिन्न न भिन्न। बदउँ सीता राम पद जिन्हहि परम प्रिय खिन्न।।18।।
Speech and its meaning, water and its wave: they are said to be neither truly separate nor truly one. I bow to the feet of Sita and Ram, to whom even the sorrowful and the distressed are supremely dear.