Chapter Eight: Literature of the Rasika Tradition in Hindi

Victory to your Name, giver of every happiness, destroyer of birth’s mystery and the multitude of sorrows.
Victory to the supreme form of the highest human end; victory to your indescribable, incomparable deeds.
Forgive, O Goddess, the grave offences we committed beneath delusion’s control.
Lady, show us that grace now, so that delusion may never again arise within us.

Victory to the supremely purifying root of happiness; victory to her who removes the weariness and pain of transmigration.
Victory, affectionate Lady of those who seek refuge, universal form and consciousness known by many names.
You are the very support of the life of Rama-Brahman; victory to the Mother who removes the reader’s distortions.

Victory to the abode of peace and beauty, forgiveness and noble character, the all-knowing one.
Victory to the supreme Power who grants devotion, simple in nature and grateful.

Victory to her who sports among the companies of companions; victory to her whose beautiful fame spreads through the world.
Victory to her who removes pride, delusion, anger, and exhaustion; refuge of the shelterless and destroyer of her servants’ fever.

“In ignorance we held the disposition of masculinity within our hearts and forgot your lotus feet.
We remained dressed as men—as creator, preserver, and destroyer of the world.
Now, through grace, you have revealed our true form and we have understood your ineffable, incomparable power.
May this vision dwell forever within our minds.” Saying this, all three fell again at her feet.

Supremely compassionate Sita smiled and spoke these simple, enchanting words:
“All three of you are exceedingly dear servants of mine; innocent ones, do not forget my majesty.
Whatever teaching of the Infinite I have told you, know it always as the truth.

“In whatever body a person turns toward me, let them worship me inwardly in the disposition of a chosen sakhī.
Those who bear my incomparable crescent ornament are all forms of mine.
Men and women who bear the bindu, crescent, and sacred seal will certainly attain me.

“Rama is the one Man and all others are women; he sports with all.
Yet he dwells close beside me like a pure dark reflection.

“He never leaves me, just as a body’s shadow does not depart. Understanding this, turn toward me and worship.
Wherever there is a body, the shadow remains; without the body, who can obtain the shadow?
Rama is my masculine shadow, and I sport with him through all eight watches.

“He never abandons me, nor I him; we two are one, like shadow and embodied form.
Whenever I wish, I manifest in dark Shyama’s incomparable masculine form
And, united with him, perform many deeds for the sake of devotion, a treasury of bliss.

“Those who read and hear these lovely, happiness-giving saguṇa līlās attain me directly.
Worshippers of the manifest who meditate upon the Couple’s form do not fall into the well of worldly existence.”