Thirteen Thousand Years of One Longing
Bala Kanda, Doha 144
Doha 144 · Movement 2 of 2
Keep this contemplation
Preserve, print, or share
Six thousand years pass while water alone sustains Manu and Shatarupa. Seasons cover the forest in rain, heat, falling leaves, and new blossom, but the longing within them does not alter its direction.
Then even water is released. For seven thousand further years they live upon air, drawing the body's smallest support from the breath that moves invisibly through the hermitage. Palaces, descendants, and the memory of former power recede beyond desire.
Time becomes almost measureless, yet the prayer remains exact. They do not seek heaven, dominion, or secret powers. Across thirteen millennia, one request survives every subtraction: to behold the Lord whom love can bring into form.
Years fall away by the thousand, and still one desire stands breathing in the forest.
Read the passage from the Manas
AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 144
Disclosed symbolic water stilllife selects waterphase; durations and later airphase preserved in sourcefacts
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 154 · printed pages 152. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-145. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- Source narrates SIXTHOUSANDYEARS waterasfood THEN SEVENTHOUSANDYEARS supportedbyair.
- Numbers retained withoutadjudicating historical/literary literalness; image cannotdemonstrateelapsedyears. No foreign cursekingdeath/childlessness.
Artistic choices
- Disclosed SYMBOLIC waterphase stilllife notactualasceticactivity or source-describedpossessions; claywaterbowl/pitcher stoneplacement invented, whiteflower reflections/petals decorativeartistdetail.
- Imaginaryforesthermitage river floweringbranch mutedagedwash unverifiedsite; no humanbody/dietregimen or literalairentity/timeline.
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
एहि बिधि बीतें बरष षट सहस बारि आहार। संबत सप्त सहस्त्र पुनि रहे समीर अधार।।144।।
In this way six thousand years passed with only water for food. Then for seven thousand years more they lived on air alone.