Cool Sweet Water Holds Lotuses of Many Colors beneath the Singing Swans
Uttara Kanda, Doha 56
Doha 56 · Movement 2 of 2
Keep this contemplation
Preserve, print, or share
The mountain lake lies cool and stainless beneath the golden heights. Its water is sweet, as though purity itself has taken liquid form and gathered in a basin of blue stone.
Lotuses of many colors rise everywhere. Their open faces turn the surface into a quiet festival, while swans move among them and call to one another in lucid, melodious tones. Bees pass from flower to flower, and their low humming mingles with the voices of the birds.
Nothing hurried enters this soundscape. Water, blossom, wing, and song prepare the listener before the sage is seen. The Doha lingers at the threshold because the place of Rama-katha has already begun its teaching. Clarity is cool. Devotion is sweet. Many colors can bloom upon a single undivided depth, and the beings who dwell there make music without disturbing its stillness.
Before Bhushundi speaks, his lake teaches through cool water, many-colored lotuses, swan song, and the soft turning of bees.
Read the passage from the Manas
-सीतल अमल मधुर जल जलज बिपुल बहुरंग। कूजत कल रव हंस गन गुंजत मजुंल भृंग।।56।।
The water of that lake is cool, pure, and sweet. Many-colored lotuses bloom there in abundance. Flocks of swans call melodiously. Lovely bees hum their gentle songs.