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राम
Contemplative Interlude

The Question at the Heart of the Manas

Bala Kanda, Doha 46

Doha 46 · Movement 2 of 2

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The hermitage grows still around a single question. Is the Ram whom Shiva chants the same Ram who was born as Dasharatha's son, or does the Name belong to another Lord beyond the prince of Ayodhya?

Bharadvaja asks one who is an abode of truth and knower of the whole. He does not seek a quick assertion. He asks Yajnavalkya to reflect with discernment and reveal how the humanly visible and the eternally worshipped are one.

Every later forest, battle, tenderness, and revelation waits within this question like a tree folded inside its seed.

A prince and the infinite stand within one Name, awaiting the sage's reply.

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Yajnavalkya listens attentively as Bharadvaja asks him to clarify which Rama Shiva chants.

AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 46

Yajnavalkya listens attentively as Bharadvaja asks him to clarify which Rama Shiva chants.

Source reference and artistic choices

Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 70 · printed pages 68. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-047. Printed numbering may differ.

Source facts

  • Bharadvaja asks Yajnavalkya, abode of truth and all-knowing, to discern whether the Rama Shiva chants is the same or another

Artistic choices

  • Select Yajnavalkya receiving the question, without depicting an answer or theological resolution
  • Right elder appearance follows approved imaginative portrait; long white beard, hair knot, tilak, cream tunic, sage shawl, attentive gaze, resting hands, river, hills, foliage and crimson ochre background added

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

प्रभु सोइ राम कि अपर कोउ जाहि जपत त्रिपुरारि। सत्यधाम सर्बग्य तुम्ह कहहु बिबेकु बिचारि।।46।।

Is that Lord the same Ram, son of Dasharatha, or is it someone else, whose Name even Tripurari chants? You are the abode of truth and all-knowing. Please tell me, reflecting with your discernment.