O lord, my infatuation and delusion disappeared as soon as I entered your hermitage. How could all this happen? Be pleased, my lord, to explain it all.’

The crow (Kakabhushundi) rejoiced to hear Garuda’s petition, Uma, and replied with the utmost affection: ‘Blessed, blessed indeed is your intellect, Garuda! Your questions are most agreeable to me.

On hearing your loving and sensible questions, I recalled a great many of my former lives. Listen, my son, with full and reverent attention while I tell you the whole of the story.

Prayer, austere penance, sacrifice, subjugation of the mind and the senses, undertaking sacred vows, charity, dispassion, discernment, austerity and mystic intuition – the fruit of all these is devotion to Raghunatha’s feet, without which no one can enjoy lasting peace.

It was in this form that I was blessed with devotion to Rama, and that is why I have a special liking for it. Everyone loves that by means of which he gains his private end.

This is a sound maxim, O Garuda, approved by the Vedas and declared by holy men, that love should be shown even to the meanest, if you think it is doing you a great good.

Silk, for instance, comes from a worm, but of it are beautiful silken garments made; therefore, utterly vile as the worm is, everyone tends it as he would tend his own life.