śrī rāma āratī

An arati to Rama whose refrain names him twice over and differently each time: let the lamps be turned for Raghuvara, for the one who is being and consciousness and bliss, for Shiva, for the beautiful. The verses after it fill in the household particulars — son of Dasharatha, delight of Kausalya — and then widen again. The movement between the two registers is the whole shape of the song: a prince with a father and a mother in one line, and the impersonal absolute in the next, with nothing done to reconcile them. Eighteen short lines carry it, in the plain singable Hindi of a text meant for the lamp rather than for study.