Sandalwood Rises to the Gods while the Axe Enters Fire
Uttara Kanda, Doha 37
Doha 37 · Movement 2 of 2
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Because sandalwood answers cutting with fragrance, it is lifted onto the heads of gods and cherished throughout the world. Its wound becomes the place from which its nature travels outward.
The axe receives another destiny. Its blade is thrust into fire and beaten beneath the hammer, the very violence it gave returning through heat and blow.
No judge appears within the image. Conduct carries its consequence through the kind of world it creates around itself. Sandalwood gives what it is and rises toward worship. The axe gives what it is and enters the forge. Saintly response is not wasted because the aggressor seems to prevail for a moment. Fragrance and cutting are already shaping two different futures.
Fragrance rises to the altar, while the blade that refused every language but cutting is taught by fire and hammer.
Read the passage from the Manas
ताते सुर सीसन्ह चढ़त जग बल्लभ श्रीखंड। अनल दाहि पीटत घनहिं परसु बदन यह दंड।।37।।
Because of this quality, sandalwood adorns the heads of gods and is beloved throughout the world. But the axe-blade receives this punishment: it is burned in fire and beaten with hammers. The sandal gives fragrance to what cuts it. The axe only knows how to cut. One rises, the other falls. Such is the law of karma.