Publisher’s Statement
Cloud-dark Rama is Shyamasundara, the dark and beautiful Lord. Śṛṅgāra, sovereign of the rasas, is likewise darkly beautiful; their complexion is one. Rama too is the presiding divinity of the primordial rasa. It is therefore entirely appropriate that devotion to Rama, the support of śṛṅgāra, should find fulfilment in sweet worship. This book establishes that appropriateness.
Beloved and beautiful Rama, together with Sita, his power of delight, is the very life-support of those who worship through the sweet disposition. Word and meaning are inseparable like water and its wave; likewise, the nectar, beauty, and sweetness shining in the inseparable Couple’s splendour is the life-restoring medicine of the devotees’ sweet worship. This is the book’s auspicious message.
Lord Ramachandra, the Supreme Person of sacred restraint, is a treasury of character, power, and beauty. Although devotees have profited greatly from his noble character, they have not been drawn toward him by it as powerfully as by his incomparable beauty. The majesty of his power has indeed made devotees fearless, but it has not by itself produced their intense attachment and loving devotion. His supernatural beauty alone releases within devotees the stream of worship in the sweet disposition.
Sweet worship cannot arise through character and power alone. It is possible only in response to incomparable beauty. Had Rama possessed character and power but not beauty of form, the mere sight of him could never have enchanted devotees. Character and power serve rather to enhance the splendour of beauty.
The other qualities of the worshipped Lord may attract the worshipper’s mind, but they cannot steal it. Only flawless beauty can be the thief of hearts. Beauty that steals the heart can make others worship it, and sweet worship can be offered only to one who is beautiful in every limb. Beauty is therefore supreme even among the Lord’s divine excellences.
Devotees often say that the heart-stealing form of youthful Rama took up residence in the eyes and minds of Janakpur’s young women; therefore they were reborn as the cowherd women of Vraja, and Rama himself became Krishna, beloved of the gopīs, to fulfil their desire. Let those who know ultimate truth judge this mystery. There can be no doubt, however, that Rama’s irreproachable and inexhaustible beauty achieved a wondrous success in casting its spell over conscious beings and insentient nature alike. Wherever Rama went, he enchanted the entire moving and unmoving world.
In Janakpur, Rama appeared as a bridegroom adorned with every ornament. He captivated even King Janaka, the disembodied yogi; what then need be said of anyone else? Later, the magic of his delightful form worked upon village men and women along the forest road, upon sages and seers in their hermitages, upon Kols and Bhils in Chitrakoot, upon enemy demons on the battlefield, and even upon wild and ocean-dwelling creatures. What astonishing beauty filled the body assumed by his own free will may be understood from Sita’s companion’s declaration: “Speech has no eyes, and the eyes have no speech.”
The eyes alone know the beauty and happiness of that form of Brahman;
They cannot speak, and those who can speak possess no eyes to see it. —Tulsidas