Indra Guards a Dry Bone from a Lion
Bala Kanda, Doha 125
Doha 125 · Movement 2 of 2
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Shiva gives Indra's fear the shape of a stark woodland image. A foolish dog sees a lion approaching and runs with a dry bone clenched between its teeth. The lion has no hunger for that worthless scrap, yet the dog imagines its treasure desired and flees in panic.
So Indra guards the pleasures and rank of heaven. Narada's tapasya is vast as a lion, but the king of the gods sees only a rival coming to seize what he holds. Possession makes his own fear appear reasonable.
There is no dignity left in the retreat. Indra feels no shame before the power of austerity because insecurity has already narrowed his sight to the bone in his mouth.
The lion passes in majesty while Indra runs with heaven clenched like a dry bone.
Read the passage from the Manas
AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 125
Explicit symbolic dog/lion/drybone simile, not physical flight by Indra
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 139 · printed pages 137. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-126. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Foolish dog flees seeing lion with dry bone fearing lion will snatch it; dog's flight belongs simile
- Comparison concerns Indra's shameless fear that Narada wants his realm; verse does not narrate Indra fleeing tapasya
- Witness सूख हाड़ drybone differs from historical snapshot सुख हाड़, retained unresolved
Artistic choices
- Explicit SYMBOLIC SIMILE plate rather than actual witnessed animal encounter; dog/lion represent sourcecomparison, no literal Indra/Narada physicalflight
- Imagined healthy brown shorthaired village dog running away left lookingback at calmgolden maned lion behind, cleanwhite drybone acrossdogmouth; exact breeds ages coloring posture geometry artistchoices, no injury/flesh
- Flattened ochre ground rust field teal bushes creamflowers simplifiedlocation decorative artaddition unauthenticated; lion still unthreatening fourlegs coherent, no throne/crown/personification
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
सुख हाड़ लै भाग सठ स्वान निरखि मृगराज। छीनि लेइ जनि जान जड़ तिमि सुरपतिहि न लाज।।125।।
Like a foolish dog who, upon seeing a lion, runs away clutching a dry bone, afraid the lion will snatch it. Just so, Indra feels no shame in fleeing from the power of tapasya.