Fools do not understand their own error; on the other hand, those stupid creatures attribute their delusion to the Lord, just as senseless men, seeing a clouded sky, say that the sun has been hidden by the curtain of clouds.

He who looks at the moon with his eye pressed with a finger, fancies that there are two moons in sight. To fancy the existence of such delusion in Rama (or that Rama is subject to such delusion) is like seeing darkness, smoke and dust in the sky. (Delusion, says Shiva, affects Rama in the same way as smoke, or a cloud, or dust affects the brightness of the heavens.)

The objects of sense, the organs of sense, their presiding deities and the individual souls – all these derive their conscious existence one from the other. (That is to say, the objects are illumined by the senses, the senses by their presiding deities and the deities presiding over the senses by the conscious Self.) The supreme illuminator of them all is the eternal Rama, lord of Ayodhya.

The world of matter is the object of illumination, and Rama is its illuminator; he is the lord of illusion and the home of wisdom and virtue. It is due to his reality that even unconscious matter appears to be real, ignorance contributing to the deception.

Though (a polished) oyster-shell is mistaken for silver and a mirage for water, and these appearances are false at all times (in the past, present and future), yet no one can rid himself of the delusion.

In the same way is this world of matter dependent on Hari. Though unreal, it gives us pain nonetheless, as when a man’s head is cut off in a dream, he is not rid of pain till he awakes.

He whose grace wipes out such delusion, Girija, is none else but the gracious lord of Raghus, whose beginning or end nobody has been able to discover. Basing their conclusions on speculation, the Vedas have thus hymned him as best as they could.