Verse 3 gave us the child and the moon. Verse 4 raises the stakes from a pond to the ocean at the end of time.
The Verse
कस्ते क्षमः सुर-गुरु-प्रतिमोऽपि बुद्ध्या ।
कल्पान्त-काल-पवनोद्धत-नक्र-चक्रं
को वा तरीतुमलमम्बुनिधिं भुजाभ्याम् ॥४॥
Transliteration:
vaktuṁ guṇān guṇa-samudra śaśāṅka-kāntān
kas te kṣamaḥ sura-guru-pratimo’pi buddhyā |
kalpānta-kāla-pavanoddhata-nakra-cakraṁ
ko vā tarītum alam ambunidhiṁ bhujābhyām ||4||
Meaning (community translation): O Ocean of Virtues! Who, even were he the equal of Brihaspati, the teacher of the gods, could recount your virtues, radiant as moonbeams? And who could swim with his two arms across an ocean churning with crocodiles, whipped by the gales of the deluge at the end of the age?
What to Notice
The honest measure of the task. The hymn keeps escalating its own impossibility: a child and a reflection, now a lone swimmer and a cosmic ocean. Manatunga is teaching by structure. Real reverence begins with an accurate estimate of how far the goal is, and then proceeds anyway. Sugar-coating the distance is what the fear-selling astrologer does; measuring it truly and starting to swim is what the practitioner does.
Guna-samudra, the ocean of virtues. In verse 1 the ocean was samsara, the thing to escape. Here the ocean is the Jina’s virtues, the thing to approach. The same image holds terror or refuge depending on what fills it. Any student of their own birth chart will recognize the lesson: the same configuration reads as threat or as training, depending on the frame you bring.
Traditional Use
The practice tradition assigns verse 4 to courage in overwhelming circumstances, and specifically to safety concerning water: fear of drowning literal and figurative. The manuals describe recitation for those facing dangers of water and for dissolving deep-seated fears. The riddhi given in the Tattva Gyan manual is:
One documented modern tradition; variants exist; no verse replaces a lifeguard, a therapist, or your own two arms. The tradition’s actual claim is subtler and better: courage is a quality that recitation cultivates, and cultivated courage changes outcomes.
Practicing It the Jain Way
- Recite when the task ahead genuinely exceeds you: the verse does not shrink the ocean, it strengthens the swimmer.
- Pair with kayotsarga, the standing meditation of deliberate letting-go, the Jain practice for facing what cannot be controlled.
Previous: Verse 3 · The series continues; new verses are added regularly.
Text verified across jinvani.in, DigJainWiki, and bhaktamarmantrahealing.com editions; background from Jainpedia.