“If, Lord, you are pleased with me and would grant me a boon and if you are kind and affectionate to me, then, master, I will ask the boon which my soul desires, for you are generous and know the secrets of all hearts;

It is that uninterrupted and unalloyed devotion to your person which the Vedas and the Puranas hymn, which the greatest ascetics and sages search after and few by my Lord’s grace can find!

O Lord Rama, tree of Paradise to the devotees, friend of the suppliant, ocean of compassion, abode of bliss! Of your clemency grant me that devotion to yourself!”

“So be it!” said the lord of the house of Raghu, and added these most comforting words: “Listen, crow; you are by nature sagacious; no wonder, therefore, that you ask for such a boon as this.

No one in the world is so highly blessed as you, for you have sought the gift of devotion, which is the fountain of every blessing and which even sages cannot win for all their infinite labours, though they consume their bodies in the fires of prayer and yoga.

I am charmed to mark your prudence; by seeking devotion you have shown a judiciousness most pleasing to me. Listen, bird; now by my grace all qualities, good and propitious, shall dwell in your bosom.

Faith, knowledge, spiritual wisdom, dispassion, yoga, my exploits as well as their secrets and the several distinctions of devotion, knowledge, etc. – you shall understand the mysteries of all these by my favour and shall need no other means thereto.