No Shore to Shiva's Story
Bala Kanda, Doha 103
Doha 103 · Movement 3 of 3
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The deeds of Girija's Lord spread like an ocean without a farther shore. Even the Vedas enter that immensity and cannot reach its end. Wave after wave of divine play passes beneath their searching hymns.
Tulsidas looks at his own small vessel of speech and calls himself dull, rustic, and unable. The confession is not refusal. It is the reverence with which a finite voice approaches the infinite.
The wedding has been told, but Shiva has not been exhausted. Every ending upon this ocean is only the place where one telling must turn.
The poet lowers his voice while Shiva's ocean continues beyond sight.
Read the passage from the Manas
चरित सिंधु गिरिजा रमन बेद न पावहिं पारु। बरनै तुलसीदासु किमि अति मतिमंद गवाँरु।।103।।
The story of the husband of Girija (Shiva) is a boundless ocean; even the Vedas cannot reach its far shore. How then can the dull-witted, rustic Tulsidas ever hope to describe it?