The Boon Is Sealed with Secrecy
Bala Kanda, Doha 165
Doha 165 · Movement 2 of 2
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So be it, says the deceitful sage. The king hears the ancient formula of divine assent and believes the hundred kalpas have already entered his future.
Then the voice turns crooked again. Pratapbhanu must forget the meeting before others and never speak of what passed in the forest hermitage. Secrecy is made to seem a condition of sacred power rather than protection for a fraud.
If the encounter is revealed, Ekatanu warns, the blame will belong to the king alone. The deceiver shifts responsibility for the coming ruin onto the one being deceived, binding fear to the promise so that Pratapbhanu will guard the plot himself.
The false boon closes around Pratapbhanu with silence as its final seal.
Read the passage from the Manas
एवमस्तु कहि कपटमुनि बोला कुटिल बहोरि। मिलब हमार भुलाब निज कहहु त हमहि न खोरि।।165।।
"Evam astu, so be it," said the deceitful sage, then spoke crookedly once more: "If you forget our meeting and speak of it to anyone, the blame will not be mine."