The Boon Is Sealed with Secrecy
Bala Kanda, Doha 165
Doha 165 · Movement 2 of 2
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So be it, says the deceitful sage. The king hears the ancient formula of divine assent and believes the hundred kalpas have already entered his future.
Then the voice turns crooked again. Pratapbhanu must forget the meeting before others and never speak of what passed in the forest hermitage. Secrecy is made to seem a condition of sacred power rather than protection for a fraud.
If the encounter is revealed, Ekatanu warns, the blame will belong to the king alone. The deceiver shifts responsibility for the coming ruin onto the one being deceived, binding fear to the promise so that Pratapbhanu will guard the plot himself.
The false boon closes around Pratapbhanu with silence as its final seal.
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AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 165
False ascetic secrecy warning source doha165
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 171 · printed pages 169. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-166. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- False ascetic says so be it then crookedly speaks again: do not disclose OUR MEETING or YOUR LOSING WAY; if disclosed do not blame me. भुलाब निज getting lost, not forgetting meeting.
- No grant miracle certified; invented sneer absent from witness.
Artistic choices
- Approved C158 former king identity imagined face age dress, hut flora moon and night lighting artist additions.
- Right index near own lips is artistic secrecy gesture; left own knee, calm guarded face no invented sneer.
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
एवमस्तु कहि कपटमुनि बोला कुटिल बहोरि। मिलब हमार भुलाब निज कहहु त हमहि न खोरि।।165।।
"Evam astu, so be it," said the deceitful sage, then spoke crookedly once more: "If you forget our meeting and speak of it to anyone, the blame will not be mine."