Every Comparison Falls Short of Sita
Bala Kanda, Chaupai 244
Doha 247 · Movement 1 of 2
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Sita's beauty approaches the pavilion, and the poet refuses the ordinary treasury of comparisons. She is the Mother of the world, rich in form and virtue. Images suitable for mortal loveliness become too small when brought near her.
Saraswati, Parvati, Rati, and Lakshmi cannot serve as easy measures. Each comparison carries some incompleteness, sorrow, limitation, or troubling association. To praise Vaidehi carelessly would diminish the very splendour the verse seeks to honour.
So imagination builds an impossible cosmic churning. Let beauty become an ocean of nectar, supreme loveliness the tortoise beneath it, grace the rope, adornment Mount Mandara, and Love himself the churning force working with lotus hands. Even if Lakshmi arose from such a sea, language would still hesitate before placing her beside Sita.
The whole cosmos is churned for one comparison, and still Sita exceeds what rises.
Read the passage from the Manas
सिय सोभा नहिं जाइ बखानी। जगदंबिका रूप गुन खानी।। उपमा सकल मोहि लघु लागीं। प्राकृत नारि अंग अनुरागीं।। सिय बरनिअ तेइ उपमा देई। कुकबि कहाइ अजसु को लेई।। जौ पटतरिअ तीय सम सीया। जग असि जुबति कहाँ कमनीया।। गिरा मुखर तन अरध भवानी। रति अति दुखित अतनु पति जानी।। बिष बारुनी बंधु प्रिय जेही। कहिअ रमासम किमि बैदेही।। जौ छबि सुधा पयोनिधि होई। परम रूपमय कच्छप सोई।। सोभा रजु मंदरु सिंगारू। मथै पानि पंकज निज मारू।।
Sita's beauty cannot be told in words. She is Jagadambika, the Mother of the World, a treasury of form and virtue. Every comparison feels small to me. Beside her, the loveliness of ordinary women simply falls away.