The Measure Beyond Measure
Bala Kanda, Doha 23
Doha 23 · Movement 2 of 2
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Tulsidas sits in reflection before two immensities: Brahman beyond attribute and Ram radiant in form. No ordinary scale could hold either one, yet devotion places the Name beside them and discovers a mystery. The sound that reveals both appears greater than what the mind cannot reach and what the eyes may adore.
This is not a contest within the Divine. The Name is great because it gives the inaccessible a doorway and the beloved form an abiding place in memory. Through it, transcendence bends close without becoming less than infinite.
The poet offers his conclusion with wonder, as one who has weighed nothing and received everything.
Upon the empty scale, the Name makes both infinities present.
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AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 23
A luminous centre within broad flowing colour fields offers an abstract response to praise of the Name.
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 47 · printed pages 45. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-024. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Tulsidas states his considered view of the Name's limitless power relative to nirguna Brahman and Rama
Artistic choices
- Luminous centre and pigment bands are an abstract contemplative response to praise
- Colours, radiance, curves and leaf do not depict or define the Name, Brahman or Rama; no hierarchy diagram
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
निरगुन तें एहि भाँति बड़ नाम प्रभाउ अपार। कहउँ नामु बड़ राम तें निज बिचार अनुसार।।23।।
Thus the Name's power is infinitely greater than the formless Brahman. And now, according to my own understanding, I say the Name is even greater than saguna Ram Himself.