“O thou best of sages, tell me precisely who and what this Ráma was, what was his bondage and how he got freed from it.”
55. Válmíki said:—
Hari was proscribed under an imprecation to take upon himself the form of a prince, with an assumed ignorance as that of a man of little understanding.
56. The prince said: “Tell me who was the author of that imprecation, and how it could befal on Ráma, who was the personification of consciousness and felicity, and the very image of wisdom.”
57. Válmíki replied: Sanat-kumára, who was devoid of desires, had been residing at the abode of Brahmá, to which Vishnu, the Lord of the three worlds, was a visitor from Vaikuntha.
58. The Lord God was welcomed by all the inhabitants of the Brahmaloka as well as by Brahmá himself, except by Sanat-kumára who was thus beheld and addressed to by the god.
59. “Sanat-kumár, it is ignorance that makes thee forsake thy desires for fear of regeneration (on earth), therefore must thou be born under the name of Sara-janmá to be troubled with desires.”
60. Sanat-kumára in return denounced Vishnu by saying:—“Even all discerning as thou art, thou shalt have to sacrifice thine omniscience for some time, and pass as an ignorant mortal (on earth).”
61. There was another anathema pronounced upon Vishnu by the sage Bhrigu, who seeing his wife killed (by him), became incensed with anger and said: “Vishnu thou shalt have also to be bereft of thy wife.”
62. He was again cursed by Vrindá to be deprived of his wife, on account of his beguiling her (in the form of her husband).