Flowers Fall Through the Gods' Cry to the Ocean of Compassion
Lanka Kanda, Doha 86
Doha 86 · Movement 3 of 3
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The gods behold Rama armed for the final battle and joy opens through the heavens. Countless flowers begin to fall, crossing the air above a field already crowded with dust, arrows, and the omens of death.
Jaya, jaya, jaya, they cry. Their praise names the warrior not through wrath but as the ocean of compassion. The bow is drawn by the one in whom mercy is without shore, and the coming destruction therefore cannot be separated from the restoration for which the gods have prayed.
They praise him as the treasury of beauty, strength, and virtue. The three qualities remain joined in the figure below them. Beauty does not soften strength into helplessness, strength does not harden virtue into cruelty, and virtue does not withdraw from the demand of action. Flowers descend upon the Lord in whom all three have become a single visible splendor.
The heavens answer Rama's drawn bow with flowers because compassion itself has risen to end the cruelty before it.
Read the passage from the Manas
सोभा देखि हरषि सुर बरषहिं सुमन अपार। जय जय जय करुनानिधि छबि बल गुन आगार।।86।।
Beholding this divine splendor, the gods rejoiced and showered countless flowers from heaven. 'Jaya, jaya, jaya!' they cried to the ocean of compassion, the very treasury of beauty, strength, and virtue.