Muni Rama Receives Alms in the Forest

Rama, foremost of munis, again vows to fast for five days and takes a further vow of kantaracharya (the forest alms round): he will not enter a city for food, and will eat only if some lay devotee offers him pure food in the forest. Meanwhile King Pratinandi is carried far away by an unruly horse, out of everyone's sight, and his chief queen Prabhava, sick with worry, mounts a swift horse and rides after him with many warriors.

The runaway horse sinks into the mud of a lake in the forest and can go no further, and the queen soon catches up. She tells the king lovingly that had the horse not carried him off, they would never have seen this forest, lovely as the Nandana garden, and this lake, like Manasarovara; the king replies that the trip has become worthwhile because she came, and after playing in the water with their vassals and companions, the two prepare for a meal on the shore.

Just then the great sage Rama, keeping his forest vow, comes that way for alms. The king, well versed in the rites of feeding a monk, goes forward joyfully with the queen, bows and performs padgahan (the ritual invitation), crying, ‘Lord, stay here, stay, the food and water are pure’, washes the sage's feet with prasuka (pure) water and, with the ninefold devotion and the seven virtues of a giver, places pure food from a golden vessel into the sage's soft cupped hands.

The sage takes his meal without any obstacle, and the delighted gods perform the five wonders: a rain of five-coloured gems, a rain of fragrant flowers from the wish-fulfilling trees, a cool gentle breeze, the sound of kettledrums, and voices in the sky crying ‘victory, victory, blessed the gift, blessed the recipient, blessed the giver, blessed the rite.’ Because Rama possesses the akshina mahariddhi (the great power of inexhaustibility), the food in that kitchen never runs out that day.

The text lists the ninefold devotion: receiving the monk, offering a high seat, washing his feet and touching the foot-water to one's head, worship, bowing, purity of mind, of speech and of body, and declaring that the food and water are pure and inviting him to eat. The seven virtues of a giver are faith, devotion, capacity, freedom from greed, compassion, forbearance and discernment.

By this gift King Pratinandi is honoured by the gods; with right faith and a pure heart he takes the vows of a lay follower and his fame spreads across the earth, while the rain of gems lights every direction and ends the people's poverty. Bowing humbly with his queen, the king feels his human birth fulfilled, and Rama, the great yogi, withdraws to solitary places, keeping the twelve kinds of austerity, enduring every hardship and wearing away his karma in single-pointed meditation.