Individual verses with meanings
Hari Om.
Let us begin the fortieth sarga of the bAlakAnDam with offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
In this sarga, maharshi describes the sighting of the yajna horse by the sons of sagara…
Hearing the plea of the dEvas terrified at the deeds of the sixty thousand sons of sagara, brahma said, the entire world belongs to the wise vAsudEva who protects it assuming the form of kapila. He will reduce the princes to ash by virtue of his fiery wrath! The effervescence of the lives of sagarakumAras as well as the digging up of the earth is predetermined. The thirty three gods (some say there are thirty three crore gods, but they are actually only thirty three! ) heaved a sigh of relief and returned to their abodes.
The sons of sagara in the meanwhile dug around and not finding the horse, returned to their father and humbly apprised him of the lack of success in finding the horse in spite of killing a number of demons, piSAchas, uragas, kinnaras et al (whom they suspected of having hijacked the horse). They prostrated to him and having uttered propitiatory words, awaited his further directions.
Angered at the failure of his sons to identify the captor and rescue the horse, and yet composed, the king ordered them to return to the nether worlds, dig further till they find and bring back the horse.
The sons of sagara went to the nether worlds and continued their excavation in the eastern, southern, western and northern directions respectively. In these directions they found mighty, mountain like elephants bearing the earth in their head, whose weary movements cause earthquake (arguably these are descriptions of tectonic plates as we know them today)!! Their names were virUpAksha (east), mahApadma (south), saumanasa (west) and bhadra (north) respectively. In each case, the sagara princes respectfully touched, circumambulated the elephant and moved on to the further directions. After finding elephant bhadra, bright as snow, the earth bearing elephant in the northern direction, the brothers moved in the northeastern direction and began excavation aggressively.
After digging in this direction, their eyes fell on the eternal vAsudEva – sage kapila. And not too far from him, the yajna horse was grazing! The agile and mighty princes were ecstatic at having spotted the horse but were terribly infuriated thinking sage kapila stole the horse! They charged at him shouting and wielding various weapons and projectiles and abusing him to be the stealer of their yajna horse.
The great kapila looked at them and angrily uttered a menacing sound (h-u-m) and the sixty thousand sons of sagara at once reduced to heaps of ashes.
Here we conclude the fortieth sarga of the bAlakAnDam of SrImath vAlmiKi rAmAyaNam and humbly offer it at the lotus feet of SrIrAma. Hari: Om!
jAi SrIrAma.
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rAmabhaktisAmrAjyam 