Sundar Kaanda
156 - Vibhisana sallies forth to obtain Sri Rama's protection and secures it
Chaupais
Description
Those men who worship anyone else, giving up such a (benign) lord, are mere beasts without a tail and a pair of horns. Recognizing Vibhisana as His own man the Lord accepted him in His service; the amiability of His disposition gladdened the heart of the whole monkey host. Then the All-wise, who dwells in the heart of all, is manifest in all forms, though bereft of all and unconcerned, and who had appeared in human semblance with a specific motive and as the exterminator of the demon race, spoke words strictly observing the rules of decorum: "Listen, O lord of the monkeys and O valiant sovereign of Lanka, how are we to cross the deep ocean full of alligators, snakes and all varieties of fishes, most unfathomable and difficult to cross in everyway?" "Listen, O Lord of the Raghus," replied the king of Lanka, "Although Your arrow ifself can dry up innumerable oceans, yet propriety demands that You should approach the ocean and request the deity presiding over it (to allow You a passage).