The Sages Gaze upon Rama Like Chakoras at the Autumn Moon
Aranya Kanda, Doha 12
Doha 12 · Movement 2 of 2
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Rama sits facing the gathered sages in the midst of their assembly. The hermitage has become a circle of still attention, every face turned toward the dark form seated before them.
The sages are like a flock of chakora birds, and Rama's body shines as the full autumn moon. Countless gazes rise together toward one radiance, drinking the beauty for which the moon-loving birds are famed.
No speech is needed within the image. The whole assembly shares one act of beholding, made luminous by the clarity of autumn. Rama remains at the center, and the sages around him become a living constellation of devotion oriented toward that single moonlike form.
One autumn moon fills the assembly, and the gathered chakora-hearts cannot turn their gaze away.
Read the passage from the Manas
मुनि समूह महँ बैठे सन्मुख सब की ओर। सरद इंदु तन चितवत मानहुँ निकर चकोर।।12।।
Seated in the midst of the assembly of sages, Rama faced every one of them at once. Each sage saw the Lord looking directly at him alone, as though a flock of chakora birds were gazing at the full autumn moon.