IIT Kanpur English Commentary

Modern synthesis of traditional Sanskrit commentaries (Desiraju Hanumanta Rao & K.M.K. Murthy)

This long passage (verses 7-20) is Narada beginning to answer Valmiki's question, running through Rama's qualities one by one: niyatatma (in command of his inner self), dhrtiman (steady in mind through both adversity and prosperity), vasi (master of his senses), and vagmi (eloquent). It also works through his physical description according to the samudrika tradition of reading auspicious bodily marks -- broad shoulders, a neck marked like a conch shell, long arms reaching to the knee. The commentary raises directly a question a reader might ask: how can Rama be described here as knowing himself to be Brahman, yet elsewhere say plainly that he considers himself a mortal, the son of King Dasaratha? Its answer is that while in human form, in ordinary waking consciousness, rajas and tamas periodically come forward and Rama's awareness of his own nature recedes the way it does for anyone in sleep or dream -- so his grief at Sita's abduction is read as genuinely human, not a contradiction to be explained away.