All his three brothers then prostrated themselves along with Hanuman and were greatly delighted. The sages, as they gazed on Raghunatha’s peerless beauty, were beside themselves with rapture; they had drunk the cup of ecstasy.

They remained gazing with unwinking eyes on the abode of comeliness, who brings about release from worldly existence and has a dark-hued frame and louts eyes. With folded hands the Lord folded hands the Lord in his turn bowed his head before them.

When Raghunatha perceived how they were enraptured, his eyes streamed with tears and the hair of his body bristled with delight. Taking the great sages by the and, the Lord seated them and addressed them in these most gracious accents:

‘Listen, noble sages; blest am I today, for at the sight of you all sins are annihilated. By extreme goodluck one is able to enjoy the company of the good, for through such communion the round of birth and death is brought to an end without the least exertion.

Communion with the saints is the road to liberation, but the fellowship of the sensual is the road to endless transmigration; so declare the saints themselves, the men of wisdom and the learned, the Vedas and the Puranas and all holy books.’

The four sages rejoiced to hear the Lord’s words, and with quivering bodies they began to hymn his praises: ‘Glory to the Almighty Lord, infinite, immutable and sinless, one and many, the all-gracious!

Glory to the Lord who is beyond the modes of nature! Glory, glory to the ocean of goodness, the shrine of bliss, handsome and most urbane in manners! Glory to Indira’s (Lakshmi’s) spouse! Glory to the supporter of the earth, peerless, unborn and from everlasting, a mine of elegance.