‘We adore you as the tree of the manifest world, which, as the Vedas and the Agamas (Tantras) declare, has its root in the Unmanifest (Brahma) and has existed from time without beginning; which has four coats of bark, six boughs, twenty-five branchlets, innumerable leaves and abundant flowers; which bears two kinds of fruit, one bitter, one sweet, which has but one creeper clinging to it and which ever puts forth fresh foliage and new blossoms.

‘Let those who meditate on the Absolute as unborn and without a second, perceptible only by intuition, beyond intellectual reach, speak of It and know It; we, O Lord, ever hymn the glories of your visible form. O all-merciful and all-effulgent Lord, O mine of noble virtues, this is the boon we ask of you, that inthought and word and deed we may impeccably maintain devotion to your feet.’

Thus in the sight of all the Vedas uttered this noble prayer, and then vanished and returned to Brahma’s realm (Satyaloka).

Listen, Garuda; then came Shiva to Raghunatha and with a faltering voice and every hair on his body erect he thus made supplication:

‘Glory to you, Rama, Lakshmi’s lord, queller of all worldly pains! Protect your servant, harassed with the terrors of birth and death! O sovereign of Ayodhya, Lord of the immortals, Lakshmi’s spouse, all-pervading Master, having fled to you for refuge, I implore you: pray extend your protection to me!

O destroyer of the ten-headed and twenty-harmed Ravana, remover of earth’s sore burden, the demon hosts were like moths that were reduced to ashes by the fierce flame of your fiery arrows.

An exceedingly beauteous ornament of the terrestrial sphere, you have armed yourself with an excellent bow and arrows and quiver; you are radiant as the sun to dispel the deep darkness of the night of pride, gross ignorance and attachment.