Padukasahasra 7

Protect us, O sandal, for whose upcoming consecration / Rāma walked clockwise around / the vessels for the coronation!

Rāghava's two feet, O foot-protector, / desired to behold your consecration;
for this reason, his clockwise circumambulation / proceeded slowly in the presence of the consecration vessels.

Thinking, surely, that the feet of the Lord of the Raghus / must by rule be carried by crowned heads,
Bharata, younger brother of Rāma, consecrated you / seated on the jeweled throne, O gem sandal.

Indeed, by dependent subservience you two conquered both of them, / the two younger brothers of Rāma—
[Lakṣmaṇa] who would not turn back even at his brother's command, / and [Bharata] who abandoned the royal consecration.

Having placed you on the auspicious throne, / the self-controlled Vasiṣṭha, the family priest of the kings / born of the line of Manu, / reverently consecrated you, O footwear of the Lord of Raṅgam.

Duly consecrated, O foot-protector of Raṅgeśa, / upon the jeweled throne,
you surpassed the plateau lands of Mount Sumeru / bathed by the descent of the Gaṅgā.

Upon your consecration performed by Vasiṣṭha and the other sages / on the royal throne fit for Rāma's seating,
Prācetasa, the first among poets, / praised you, O footwear of the Lord of Raṅgam.

When the Lord of Raṅgam, embodied as Rāma, departed into exile / to slay the demons, O gem footwear,
you kept the capital of Kosala blessed with a true king / against any harm from the demons.

Having received consecration, O gem footwear, / and assuming fierce splendour,
you duly ruled the earth / as the sovereign empress of the Sāketa throne.

Because of the separation from the son of Daśaratha / who wished to conquer the ten-faced one and other demons, O gem footwear,
the earth was consumed with burning grief, / but breathed again through the holy waters applied to you.

Having placed you, O goddess, upon the golden throne / successively occupied by kings beginning with Manu,
Bharata placed under your control / the flawless royal consecration suited to Rāma, O gem footwear.

Consecrating you in the kingdom with love, O goddess, / as the radiant line of a lamp within the fourteen worlds,
Bharata removed the blind darkness of his subjects / that had arisen from separation from that sun, the best of the Raghus.

You are the root, O foot-protector, of the wish-granting Mukunda-tree / that yields the fruit of the aims of human life to be plucked by hand;
which [tree] bestowed superior shade upon the subjects, / because of the auspicious consecration waters poured out upon you.

At once, O gem footwear, in order to comfort the earth / whose conduct was sorrowful from separation from Rāma,
you then provided a fitting cooling treatment / under the pretext of consecration with sacred waters.

Having incurred defilement, O gem footwear, / through the mud arisen from the quarrel with the Kekaya king's daughter,
this earth attained supreme purity in an instant / through the consecration waters that fell from you.

The water purified by mantras, poured then upon you / by the host of sages for the prosperity of the world, O foot-protector,
became the water poured at the roots of the trees of the Vedas, / and water of a curse for the night-wanderers.

When the Lord of the Raghus went into exile, you, staying / in the venerated rank befitting those born of Manu's line,
wiped away the tears of your subjects / through the streams of consecration water poured upon yourself by experts in the Atharvaveda.

Its essence almost dried up by separation from its master, / its ocean-udders tossed in turmoil, the earth-cow, / drinking your consecration water, O Mother, / became a milch cow that yielded wealth and grain to the worlds.

When the consecration rite was duly concluded, O Mother, the crown placed upon you by Bharata / shone as if the Sun himself had approached you, O gem-encrusted sandal, in joy over the dispelling of the sudden catastrophe in his lineage.

Consecrated with mantras by the family priest of Manu's line, / the water of royal unction poured upon you, O sandal, instantly cooled down the rising heat of opposing kings.

Brought from that tree, the best of the Raghus, / and placed upon a pedestal like a young shoot in a basin of earth, / you were consecrated by sages of ascetic wealth, O sandal, like a tender Pārijāta vine.

Wishing to wash away the distress of the Sun's dynasty with the copious waters used for your consecration, / that son of the lotus-born [Brahmā, Vasiṣṭha], indeed, O sandal, / infused into the Atharvan mantras a power endowed with special disciplinary restrictions.

O goddess, when you attained unconditional authority / over the kings born of the Sun's lineage, / all the rivers became high and auspicious [Tuṅgabhadrās], O sandal, / from their contact with the water of your bath.

When your royal consecration as universal sovereign was duly undertaken / by the foremost ministers who knew Bharata's will, O sandal, / there appeared wondrous marks of the Kṛta age / for the subjects who remained steadfast in their duties up to your time.

O foot-guard of the Lord of the Raghus, when you had received royal consecration / and stilled the cries of your foes, you then truly enriched the chanting of mantras / with the jingling of gem bracelets on the whisk-bearing maidens / whose creeper-like arms were in motion.

O sandal, when you attained your proper consecration, / the roar of the sacred waters falling upon you, accompanied by mantras, O goddess, / was fully capable of dispelling the confused cries of distress / among the suffering people of Kosala.

O goddess sandal, if like Bharata you had not accepted / the royal consecration that satisfied the denizens of heaven, / how could the hero of the Raghus, with minimal effort, / have accomplished such a divine task with merely three or four arrows?

O foot-guard of the Lord of the Raghus, renouncing for some years / the joy of touching his lotus feet, you vigilantly maintained an peerless vow, / by which the gods, terrified by the rākṣasas, / had their kingdom freed from anxiety.

For Vasiṣṭha and the other sages who duly performed your consecration originated in the Atharvaveda, / because of the great wonder generated by your royal assembly, O foot-protector of the lover of the earth at Raṅgam, / the self-conceit of the Raghu council was rendered exceedingly small.

Let that Rāma consecrate you, or let him touch you with his foot, O sandal: / your majesty is beyond all distinction; or where can there be any difference for those full of patience and forbearance [like the earth]?

Thus ends the seventh section, the 'Section on Consecration', in the thousand verses on the sandals of Śrī Raṅganātha, composed by the Lion of poets and logicians, the master of all systems, the venerable Veṅkaṭanātha, the venerable Vedānta teacher.

8. Section on Restitution (30)