How the Hidden Lake Reached the World
Bala Kanda, Doha 35
Doha 35 · Movement 2 of 2
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A sacred lake lies first within Shiva's mind, unseen by the world it will one day refresh. Tulsidas pauses at its edge and turns toward the mystery of origin. How was this Manas formed? What path carried its waters outward? For what purpose did it spread among human voices?
He does not enter the account alone. Uma and the bull bannered Shiva are remembered together, the first listener and teller whose intimacy sheltered the story before its descent.
The poem now bends back toward its own source, following the river upstream into the divine conversation from which it came.
Remembering Uma and Shiva, Tulsidas begins to trace the lake toward its hidden spring.
Read the passage from the Manas
AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 35
Separate medallions of Shiva and Uma represent the poet’s invocation before explaining the story’s origin.
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 60 · printed pages 58. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-036. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Poet announces telling how Manas arose and was spread in the world
- He invokes/remembers Uma and Vrishaketu (Shiva)
Artistic choices
- Two separate iconic bust medallions select invocation, not an actual conversation or event
- Faces, clothes, jewellery, rudraksha beads, crescent, snake, trident/drum, floral frame and colours conventional/imagined
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
जस मानस जेहि बिधि भयउ जग प्रचार जेहि हेतु। अब सोइ कहउँ प्रसंग सब सुमिरि उमा बृषकेतु।।35।।
How this Manas (the holy lake of Ram's story) came into being, how it spread through the world, and for what purpose: I shall now tell the whole account, remembering Uma and Vrishaketu (Shiva, the bull-bannered one).