Chapter X: Section VI: History of Ráma

53. Hear me Oh great and intelligent king, repeat to you the sacred conversation which took place between Ráma and Vasishtha relating the way to liberation, and which I well know from my knowledge (of human nature).

54. The prince said:—

“O thou best of sages, tell me precisely who and what this Ráma was, what was his bondage and how he got freed from it.”

55. Válmíki said:—

Hari was proscribed under an imprecation to take upon himself the form of a prince, with an assumed ignorance as that of a man of little understanding.

56. The prince said: “Tell me who was the author of that imprecation, and how it could befal on Ráma, who was the personification of consciousness and felicity, and the very image of wisdom.”

57. Válmíki replied: Sanat-kumára, who was devoid of desires, had been residing at the abode of Brahmá, to which Vishnu, the Lord of the three worlds, was a visitor from Vaikuntha.

58. The Lord God was welcomed by all the inhabitants of the _Brahmaloka_ as well as by Brahmá himself, except by Sanat-kumára who was thus beheld and addressed to by the god.

59. “Sanat-kumár, it is ignorance that makes thee forsake thy desires for fear of regeneration (on earth), therefore must thou be born under the name of _Sara-janmá_ to be troubled with desires.”

60. Sanat-kumára in return denounced Vishnu by saying:—“Even all discerning as thou art, thou shalt have to sacrifice thine omniscience for some time, and pass as an ignorant mortal (on earth).”

61. There was another anathema pronounced upon Vishnu by the sage Bhrigu, who seeing his wife killed (by him), became incensed with anger and said: “Vishnu thou shalt have also to be bereft of thy wife.”

62. He was again cursed by _Vrindá_ to be deprived of his wife, on account of his beguiling her (in the form of her husband).

63. Again when the pregnant wife of Deva-datta was killed (with fear) on seeing the man-lion figure of Vishnu;

64. The leonine Hari was denounced by the husband, who was sorely afflicted at the loss of his consort, to be thus separated from his wife also.

65. Thus denounced by Bhrigu, by Sanat-kumára, Deva-datta and Vrindá, he was obliged (to be born in this earth) in the figure of a human being.

66. I have thus explained to you the causes of all the imprecations (which were passed on Vishnu), and will now relate to you all other things which you shall have carefully to attend to.

CHAPTER II.

REASON OF WRITING THE RÁMÁYANA.