Devotion to Raghupati is for Tulasidasa the season of rain; his faithful servants are the growing rice, and the two glorious consonants in Rama’s Name are the months of Shravana and Bhadon.

The two letter-sounds of the Name are sweet and attractive; they are the eyes, as it were, of the alphabet and the life of the faithful, easy to remember, bringing happiness to all, a gain in this world and salvation in the next.

They are most delightful to hear and to contemplate; as dear to Tulasi as the inseparable Rama and Lakshmana. When they are uttered, devotion separates them, but they are as naturally bound together as Brahma and the individual soul.

These two letters are twin brothers, like Nara and Narayana; preservers of the world and, especially, redeemers of the elect; lovely jewels in the ears of the beauteous Faith; the sun and the moon shining clear for the good of the world.

Sweet taste and contentment they bring, like the nectar of salvation; like the tortoise and the serpent, upholding the world; like a bee to the lovely lotus of the devotee’s mind; as sweet to the tongue as Krishna and Haladhara to Yashoda.

Of the two letters of the Name of Raghunatha one gleams like a royal umbrella and the other like a crest-jewel over all the letters of the alphabet, O Tulasidasa.

The name and the object named are regarded as one and the same, but the close connexion between them is that of master and servant. Both name and form are two attributes of God; they are ineffable and without origin and can be rightly understood only by pious understanding.