The Manasa is most inaccessible to those who have no faith-provision for the journey-nor yet enjoy the company of saints and love for the lord of Raghus (Rama).

Even if a man makes his way to it with great hardship, he is forthwith overpowered by sleep like an ague and numbness affects his heart like benumbing cold, so that the luckless wretch is deprived of a dip though he has come to the lake.

Finding himself unable to take a plunge into the lake or to drink from it, he returns with all his old arrogance, and if anyone comes to ask him about the lake, he tries to satisfy the questioner by vilifying it.

All these obstacles, however, deter not the man whom Rama regards with special favour. He alone reverently bathes in the lake and thus escapes the threefold agony of the fiercest kind. (The three afflictions, trayatapa, are: adhyatmika, mental or physical distress; adhidaivika, acts of God; adhibhautika, pain caused by others.)

Those men who cherish ideal devotion to the feet of Rama never leave this lake. Let him who would bathe in this lake, brother, diligently seek good companionship (association with saints).`

Having seen the said Manasa lake with the mind’s eye and taken a dip into it, the poet’s understanding got purged of all its dross. The heart was filled with joy and ecstasy and torrent of love and rapture welled from it.

Then from that lake a stream of beautiful poetry, carrying the water of Rama’s fair glory, flows out; Sarayu is the name of this river, which is the very fountain of all that is most blessed. The secular and scriptural (Vedic) doctrines represent its two charming banks.