Padukasahasra 5

We devoutly attend to the two sandals praised by the feet of Rāma,
whose benevolence toward those seeking refuge was unrestrained.

‘What need have I for this foot that wants to protect the forest instead, acting as it pleases to shatter the love of my deeply grieving brother?’
As if thinking this, having abandoned it, you yourself returned of old; I honour this foot-covering of the Lord of Raṅgam which upholds the three worlds.

His expedition to the Daṇḍaka forest made Daśaratha a man of blameless word, as he desired the destruction of the ten-headed one;
and that Lord of the Raghus remained true to his promise during Bharata's pleading because of you, O footwear of the Lord of the Raghus, as you departed for the capital.

Undertaking the boldness of returning, O goddess, jewelled sandal of the Lord of Raṅgam,
you surpassed the daughter of Mithilā by the grandeur of your profound subservience.

To the earth bearing the unbroken pledge of the Lord of the Raghus, when her delight in mounting his shoulder was thwarted,
you, O jewelled footwear, returning, granted direct contact with your foot, devoid of the distress of separation.

Bharata bore you, O jewelled sandal, upon his head—purified by the absence of consecration with mantras, and consecrated through the abandonment of adornment—
like the regal splendour bestowed by Rāma's command.

As both relinquished Rāma’s lotus foot simultaneously for the protection of this world, O jewelled footwear:
which was harder to bear—your assumption of sovereign power, or that wretched state of the daughter of Videha?

Having stepped directly from the lotus foot of Sītā’s consort onto Bharata’s head bowed low in devotion,
and having mounted the elephant, you spread around you an abundance of peacock fans through the mass of rays from your gems.

As Bharata, a rutting elephant of the hero of the Raghus, bore you upon his head, O foot-protector of Mukunda, while his joy overflowed,
the earth at long last received a beautiful unguent from the fragrant streams of his rut-water.

When you, O Mother, arose to adorn the quarters, as if by fate an untimely autumn had arrived,
the cloud-like eyes of the young women of Sāketa suddenly had only a little water remaining.

Living near that foremost poet, the sage [Vasiṣṭha], taking various excellent wild offerings,
went out to meet you, who were brought by Bharata and mounted upon the royal mount worthy of Raghu's race.

O Mother, through the darting bee-like eyes of the fine-lashed women of Sāketa watching the auspicious event of your arrival,
the windows there suddenly became filled with lotuses in the form of their faces, O jewelled footwear.

Being showered with heaps of auspicious parched grain on the border of Sāketa, O jewelled footwear,
at the time of Bharata's choice as husband by the maiden of Fame,

O Mother, you shone like the bridal fire-flame of Fame, whose chosen husband was Bharata.

Possessing the lunar orb in your parasol, O jewelled sandal, and having white autumn flowers in the fluttering chowrie clusters,
you immediately became the cause of the complete blossoming of the blue-lotus eyes of the citizen women of Sāketa.

With uplifted faces whose joy was recovered at the name of Rāma, the people of Northern Kosala
gazed at you, O jewelled footwear, who had mounted [the elephant] Śatruñjaya as if onto a mountain.

To see you then returning like Sītā, O footwear of Rāghava,
the eyes of the beautiful women of the city of Ayodhyā grew tremulous with longing.

Mounting an elephant of that form, with distinct dot and nasal sound, in the middle of the city,
you showed, O foot-protector, your reliance upon the syllable Om / upon those whose refuge is your devotion.

When the lion of the Raghus, whose heart was untamed in tearing apart the elephant of the Ten-necked one, entered the forest out of his free desire to roam, / you, embracing your own cub Bharata with affection,

O foot-protector, like a lioness with her cub, did not leave the safe cave of Kosala.

Brought back to Sāketa by virtuous-minded Bharata for the protection of the world, / which had lost its light in the stormy day of Kaikeyī's boons, / that foot-covering of the king of Raṅgam—whose separation was unbearable even to those who endured Rāma's departure, / and which is the crest of the Vedānta, the speech independent of human composition—we praise.

When twilight arrived, having returned quickly from the Citrakūṭa forest, / you, O sandal, returned to the land, like a cow to her calf.

Thus ends the fifth section, the Section on the Return, in the Thousand Verses on the Sandals of Śrī Raṅganātha, composed by the Lion among poets and logicians, the master of all systems, the venerable Veṅkaṭanātha, the venerable Vedānta teacher.

6. The Section on Assuming Authority (40)