I Was Born with the First Creation
Bala Kanda, Doha 162
Doha 162 · Movement 2 of 2
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Ekatanu places his claimed birth at the beginning of creation itself. As the first world arose, he says, this same body came into being.
No death, rebirth, or exchange of form has touched him since. The name One Bodied is presented as literal history, giving the poor forest hermit an antiquity beyond dynasties, scriptures, and the ordinary span of human life.
Pratapbhanu sits before a defeated contemporary, yet hears the voice of a primordial sage. The greater the claim, the more his reverence expands, because deceit has found the exact doorway of his faith.
In the dark hermitage, a fallen king claims the age of the first dawn.
Read the passage from the Manas
आदिसृष्टि उपजी जबहिं तब उतपति भै मोरि। नाम एकतनु हेतु तेहि देह न धरी बहोरि।।162।।
When the first creation arose, that is when I was born. My name is Ekatanu, 'the One-Bodied,' for I have never taken another body since.