Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/435

Rh in your extravagant pride you paid no heed to your wife's warning. You knew that he had taken refuge under the might of my arm, and yet in your wicked pride you wished to kill him."

"Hearken, Ráma; I dealt craftily with my lord; to-day, guilty as I am, I obtain, sire, at my death a place in heaven."

When Ráma heard this most tender speech, he touched Báli's head with his hands: "I restore the soundness of your body; retain your life." Said Báli: "Hearken, All-merciful; the saints are born again and again and labour throughout their life, and yet even to the last Ráma never comes near them. But he, the everlasting, by the virtue of whose name Sankara at Kási bestows heaven upon all alike, has come in visible form before my very eyes; can I ever, my lord, have such a chance again?

He has become visible to my eyes, whose praises the scriptures are all unequal to declare, to whom scarcely the saints attain after profound contemplation accompanied by laborious suppression of the breath, abstraction of soul, and control of the senses. Seeing me the victim of excessive pride, the Lord has told me to retain my body. But who would be such a fool as to insist upon cutting down the tree of paradise and watering a wild babúl tree? Now, my lord, look upon me with compassion and grant me the boon I beg; whatever the womb, in which it be my fate to be born, may I ever cherish a special devotion to the feet of Ráma. O my lord, take this my son Angad and grant him like discretion, power and prosperity ; grasp him by the hand, O king of gods and men, and make him your servant."

After making a fervent act of devotion to Ráma's feet, Báli's soul left the body; as placidly as when a wreath of flowers drops from an elephant's neck without his knowing it;