He called for a boat, but the ferryman would not bring it. ‘I know your magic power,’ he said; ‘everyone says that the dust of your lotus feet is some magic herb possessing the quality of turning things into human beings.

A rock which touched it was transformed into a charming woman; and wood is no harder than stone! If my boat becomes a hermit’s wife (like Ahalya), I shall be robbed of my boat and my livelihood too. (Should my boat be turned into a sage’s wife, the ferry will be closed and the boat lost, which is the support of my whole family/)

It is by means of this boat that I support my whole family; I know no other trade. If, my lord, you must cross the river, then bid me wash your lotus feet.

I will take you on board, my lord, only when I have washed your lotus feet; I seek no toll from you. I swear by you, O Rama, as well as by Dasharath, that what I tell you is all true. Let Lakshmana shoot me with his arrows if he will; but until I have washed your feet I will not, O gracious lord of Tulasidas, ferry you across.’

On hearing these words of the ferryman, so absurd but so overflowing with love, the all-merciful Lord looked at Janaki and Lakshmana and laughed.

Said the all-compassionate Lord with a smile, ‘Do so, the, that your boat may not be lost. Brig water at once and lave my feet, for time has been lost, take us across.’

The same gracious Lord, by uttering whose name but once men cross the boundless ocean of birth and death, and for whose three strides the universe proved too small, thus importuned an ordinary boatman. (Rama is here identified with Vishnu who in the form of a dwarf outwitted King Bali.)