One month after everyone believed he was dead, someone passing a well heard the dhuni of Shri Rama Nama rising from the earth.
Shri Keval, whom the world knew as a kumhar, a potter, had been digging that well. He had gone deep. Then sand was struck below, and thousands of maunds of earth collapsed upon him from above. He could not get out. Everyone concluded he had perished. They mourned and went away.
But the sound of Rama Nama never stopped.
The man who heard it ran to the village with the news. All the people came, and hearing that sound, fell into a whirlpool of priti. The utterance of the Nama was heard in an altogether different, supremely premaful manner. Everyone lost awareness of body and mind.
They gathered and, with great haste and care, removed the earth with their own hands. They found him. By the kripa of Shri Rama, a cave-like arch had formed below, and he had remained seated there for an entire month. A vessel filled with water was placed before him. He spoke the words 'Hare Rama, Hare Rama,' and it sounded indescribably sweet.
Because of the month underground, his back became hunched. From then on, he came to be known as Kubaji.
But how did he end up in that well? Many santas had come to his home. Seeing them, he felt boundless priti, but there was no grain in the house. He went to borrow from the baniyas, but they refused. After the santas departed, he went to dig the well, uttering Shri Sitarama Nama with prema, like a parrot, in a most cheerful manner. He dug all the way down. He was doing it so the baniyas would be pleased and lend to him. And then the earth swallowed him.
Prabhu kept him alive. The Nama kept him alive.
They brought him out with instruments playing and great prema, carried him home, and honoured him. Many people came; gifts were showered. Kubaji began performing santa-seva to his heart's content.
Then came another wonder. Certain santas were carrying a supremely beautiful shyama murti of Prabhu to install in their mandir. On the way, they halted at Kubaji's place. Seeing the Mohana-svarupa, he prayed silently: 'If Prabhu would stay here for me, it would be a blessing.' Hearing his prayer, Prabhu became achala, immovable. The santas tried a hundred thousand ways to lift the murti, but it would not budge. Kubaji laughed: 'Hari is ananta. He will not be moved by your efforts. He is pleased with me and will stay right here.'
The santas recognized his words as satya and left. Kubaji, overjoyed, said: 'You have understood the longing of my heart; therefore Your name is Janrayi.' He installed Prabhu and began pada-seva with great joy.
He resolved to go to Dvaravati for the marks of shankha and chakra. But Prabhu's ajna came: 'Stay here. Perform sadhu-seva with firm bhava. Do not leave. Wherever your mana has a longing, it will be fulfilled right here.' He obeyed and returned home. Near Shri Janrayi, the marks of shankha, chakra, and other insignia appeared of their own accord on his arms.
Kubaji had many shishyas, and the desire for sadhu-seva kept growing among them all. One day, santas came to his home. By coincidence, his wife's brother also arrived. His wife prepared the usual meal for the santas but made khira separately for her own brother. Kubaji saw this. He told her: 'Go and fetch water.' She went, but fearfully, suspecting he might give away the khira.
In her absence, setting aside even Tulasi and Prabhu, he served all that khira to the Hari-bhaktas present. The dearest ones must eat first. That was his way. A potter by the world's reckoning, but one who ferried his entire kula, varna, and indeed the whole jagat across the bhavasagara.
The Name Holds in the Dark
Keval Ji was buried alive beneath a collapsed well for a full month. The villagers mourned and moved on. But from the sealed earth, those who passed near it heard something remarkable: not a cry for rescue, not despair, but the continuous dhuni of Shri Rama Nama rising from below the ground. When they finally dug him out, the first words on his lips were simply: Hare Rama, Hare Rama. The Nama had not been a fair-weather practice for him, something held to when life was comfortable. It was his actual ground of being. What remains when all outer support collapses? This story answers that question without argument. The practice that is truly alive does not depend on circumstances. It does not require a clean cushion or a quiet room. It requires only the heart that has given itself fully.
Bhaktamal, Tilak of Keval Kuba Ji (Priyadas)
Wear Your Ordeal as a Mark of Honour
When Keval Ji emerged from the earth after thirty days in that low cavern, his spine had been permanently bent. He now stooped. The village began calling him Kuba Ji, a name derived from the word for hump, for the bent body, for the one who stoops. He accepted this name without complaint. He did not mourn what the ordeal had done to his body. He wore it as a mark. The hunch was not his failure. It was the record of a month spent beneath the surface of ordinary life, absorbed in the Nama when the world had written him off as dead. Every seeker carries some mark of their passage through difficulty. The question is not how to erase that mark but whether one can receive it as Keval Ji received his: as the posture of one who has bowed so deeply that the form simply followed.
Bhaktamal, Tilak of Keval Kuba Ji (Priyadas)
The Beloved Who Knows the Heart
When a group of saints passed through his village carrying a beautiful murti of Shyama, Kuba Ji looked at that form and felt something move in him without permission. He did not ask aloud. He prayed silently, from the innermost place in his heart, words not framed for anyone else to hear: if Prabhu would remain here with me, it would be the greatest of blessings. The murti would not move. Every effort the saints made to lift it failed. Kuba Ji said, with a laugh: He has become pleased with me and has chosen to remain. When the saints left, he turned to that form and named it Janrayi: the One Who Knows the Heart. This is one of the gentlest teachings in the whole of Bhakti literature. The Lord does not wait for a polished petition. He reads the interior. The longing that cannot even fully form itself into words is already heard.
Bhaktamal, Tilak of Keval Kuba Ji (Priyadas)
Sadhu-Seva as the Whole Architecture of a Life
Kuba Ji was not wealthy. He made perhaps thirty pots in a month, sold one each day, and fed his family on what that yielded. Whatever remained, he gave to sadhu-seva. That simple discipline was the entire structure of his spiritual life. He was not a man of great learning or public display. He was a man of astonishing consistency: every day, the Nama, the potter's wheel, the serving of the saints who came to his door. When a company of saints arrived and there was no grain in the house, he did not turn them away or offer apologies. He went out and dug a well to earn the credit for food. The tikakar says his santa-seva was of a thoroughgoing kind unlike any others had witnessed. His lineage spread to Ayodhya and beyond, and the whole of it was built on this one foundation: the feeding and honouring of those in whom Prabhu lives.
Bhaktamal, Tilak of Keval Kuba Ji (Priyadas)
The Journey Not Taken Brings the Arrival Intended
Kuba Ji wished to travel to Dvaraka to receive the traditional Vaishnava marks of shankha and chakra on his arms. He set out. Then the Lord's ajna came to him: turn back. Stay here. Perform sadhu-seva with firm and steady bhava. Whatever longing your heart holds will be fulfilled right here, in this very place, without the journey. He obeyed. He came home. And there, near Shri Janrayi Ji, the marks of shankha and chakra appeared on his arms of their own accord, without any ceremony, without any branding iron. The Bhaktamal delivers this teaching many times in different registers across many different lives: when the bhakta's relationship with Prabhu is real, all that is needed arrives of its own accord. The outer form comes inwardly when the inner ground is true. Surrender does not impoverish. It fulfils.
Bhaktamal, Tilak of Keval Kuba Ji (Priyadas)
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.