Where the Two Guardians Walk

The gates of an immeasurable forest open. Rivers flash between ancient trees, high branches carry the murmur of unseen birds, and every path leads deeper into the virtues of Sita and Ram. Compassion grows there like sandalwood. Courage rises like the great sal trees. Truth moves through the forest as clean wind, and tenderness bends over the path in flowering boughs.

Valmiki enters with the stillness of a seer. Beneath each measured footfall, the silence gives birth to verse. Hanuman moves through the same wilderness with the power of service, crossing ravines and rising above the canopy, carrying the names of Sita and Ram in breath, strength, and remembrance. One guards the Leela through sacred poetry. The other guards it through devotion made action.

Neither stands outside the forest to describe it from afar. Both dwell within its living knowledge. At its threshold, Tulsidas folds his hands before the lord of poets and the lord of vanaras. Their footprints continue beneath the trees, bright upon the earth of the heart.

Valmiki and Hanuman pass beneath the trees. Tulsidas follows.