A Dialogue Opens Within a Dialogue
Bala Kanda, Doha 47
Doha 47 · Movement 2 of 2
Keep this contemplation
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Yajnavalkya prepares to speak according to the reach of his understanding. Within the conversation at Prayag, another conversation opens upon Kailash: Uma before Shambhu, devotion asking and divine wisdom replying.
The sage promises not only the words but the hour and cause from which they arose. A sacred question has a history, and its sorrow cannot be healed until the listener sees the path by which it entered the heart.
Bharadvaja attends. The outer hermitage remains in winter quiet while an older age begins to unfold inside the telling. The nested Katha becomes a temple of listening.
One pair of sages listens as Uma and Shambhu appear within their silence.
Read the passage from the Manas
AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 47
Yajnavalkya speaks gently while Bharadvaja listens, representing the introduction to the Uma–Shambhu dialogue.
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 71 · printed pages 69. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-048. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Yajnavalkya promises to recount the Uma-Shambhu dialogue according to his understanding and relieve Bharadvaja's bewilderment or sorrow
Artistic choices
- Representative two-sage attentive conversation, without claiming a new literal narrated gesture
- Approved imaginative portraits, posture, mats, tunics and shawls, flowering tree, river, hermitage, hills, palette and afternoon lighting added
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
कहउँ सो मति अनुहारि अब उमा संभु संबाद। भयउ समय जेहि हेतु जेहि सुनु मुनि मिटिहि बिषाद।।47।।
I shall now narrate, to the best of my understanding, the dialogue between Uma and Shambhu. Listen, O sage: learn when and why it took place, and your sorrow shall vanish.