Jayanta Deceives the One Whose Nature Is Mercy
Aranya Kanda, Doha 1ख
Doha 1ख · Movement 2 of 2
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Raghunayaka is supremely compassionate. His affection rests always upon the lowly and distressed, and no helpless being needs to earn the tenderness that already flows from him.
Yet Jayanta approaches this very Lord through disguise and deceit. The foolishness is not merely that he challenges immeasurable power. He turns cunning against the refuge to whom cunning could have been surrendered, and injures Sita in the presence of the protector of all who seek shelter.
The contrast hangs over the launched arrow. On one side stands a storehouse of faults, fleeing beneath a borrowed form. On the other stands mercy itself, whose justice cannot be separated from compassion. The offender does not yet understand that the only escape from Rama's arrow will be to stop escaping from Rama.
The crow flees from mercy, not knowing that mercy is the only place where the flight can end.
Read the passage from the Manas
अति कृपाल रघुनायक सदा दीन पर नेह। ता सन आइ कीन्ह छलु मूरख अवगुन गेह।।1।।
The Lord of the Raghus is supremely merciful; His love for the lowly and the deena never fails. Yet even with Him, that storehouse of faults, the foolish Jayanta, came and practiced deceit. How strange that anyone would scheme against the very source of compassion! Like a moth attacking the moon, like a beggar robbing the kalpataru; such is the madness of the wicked.