Verse 20 said the other gods do not have it. Verse 21 thanks them, and the thanks is not a courtesy. It is the argument.
The Verse
दृष्टेषु येषु हृदयं त्वयि तोषमेति ।
किं वीक्षितेन भवता भुवि येन नान्यः
कश्चिन्मनो हरति नाथ भवान्तरेऽपि ॥२१॥
Transliteration:
manye varaṁ hari-harādaya eva dṛṣṭā
dṛṣṭeṣu yeṣu hṛdayaṁ tvayi toṣam eti |
kiṁ vīkṣitena bhavatā bhuvi yena nānyaḥ
kaścin mano harati nātha bhavāntare’pi ||21||
Meaning (literal): I count it better that Hari, Hara and the rest were seen first, since it is having seen them that the heart comes to rest in you. And what has come of seeing you? That because of it no one else on earth takes my mind, O Lord, not even in another birth.
What to Notice
He is grateful for the detour. Manye varam, “I consider it preferable.” Not tolerated, not excused: preferable. The stanza says the looking elsewhere was necessary, that the rest in this place was produced by the comparison rather than in spite of it. A hymn that had spent verse 20 drawing a line now says the line could not have been drawn without the other side of it.
The second half is a complaint that is not one. Kiṁ vīkṣitena bhavatā, “what is the use of having seen you?” In any other sentence that is a dismissal. Here it is the setup for a grievance he is delighted to have: now nothing else can hold my attention, not in this life and not in the next. Manatunga praises by pretending to grumble, which is the same trick as āstām, “never mind that,” in verse 9.
“Toṣam eti”: the heart comes to rest. Not conquers, not concludes, not decides. Toṣa is contentment, the state of a search stopping. The verse describes something quieter than conviction and harder to manufacture, and it locates it in the hṛdaya rather than in an argument. In the Jain frame this is samyak-darśana, right insight, which the tradition counts as the first genuine turn and describes in exactly these terms: a settling, not a victory.
“Bhavāntare’pi”: in another birth as well. Rebirth is simply assumed, and the claim is deliberately extended across it. The stanza is not saying the mood will last the evening. It is saying the search has ended in a way that survives the loss of this body and this memory, which is a far larger claim and the reason the verse has stayed in daily recitation.
A pun that commentators have long noticed. Hari is, among other things, “the one who takes.” The verb Manatunga chooses for what no other being can now do to his mind is harati, he takes. The god who is named for taking has stopped being able to. We flag it as wordplay rather than doctrine, but it is hard to read the two lines together and think it accidental.
Traditional Use
Both modern lists attach something to this verse that the verse does not say, and one of them inverts it.
Vidyasagar.net’s arrangement labels verse 21 sarva vaśīkaraṇa, the complete subjugation or bringing-under-control of everyone. The Bhaktamar Mantra Healing manual assigns it to conceiving a child.
We print both because they are in circulation, and we decline both. The first deserves a specific objection rather than a general one. Vaśīkaraṇa is the power to bend another person’s will, and a tradition whose first vow is non-injury has no room for it; the Ratnakaranda Shravakachara and the lay conduct manuals that follow it treat the deliberate overriding of another’s will as a violation, not a boon. Worse, the label reverses the stanza. Verse 21 is about a mind that can no longer be taken. The manual offers the power to take other minds. That is not an extension of the verse; it is its opposite.
On the second, this site’s position is fixed and applies wherever it comes up: we report what a manual prints, we say which manual prints it, and we do not treat any scripture as an instrument for obtaining a child. Nothing in the Sanskrit of verse 21 concerns conception.
No riddhi is printed here. The verse-by-verse manual this series cites publishes only through shloka 6, and we do not reproduce mantras we cannot check against a second source.
Practicing It the Jain Way
- Recite it if you came to this by a long route through other things. The verse insists the route was not wasted, and it is the only stanza in the hymn that says so.
- Notice what the verse does not claim. He does not say the other gods were false, or that seeing them was a mistake he has repented. He says the heart settled afterwards. Keep the distinction.
- The rest described here is what the tradition means when it puts samyak-darśana first among the three jewels, ahead of knowledge and conduct. For what the settled attention is settling on, see Rishabhanatha.
Previous: Verse 20, the glass shard also catches light · Next: Verse 22, every direction has stars.
Sanskrit collated across jinvani.in, vidyasagar.net, jain24.com and DigJainWiki, which agree on this verse; vidyasagar.net omits the avagraha in भवान्तरेऽपि, which is typesetting rather than a variant. Verse 21 is identical in the Digambara and Shvetambara recensions. Verse-use labels from vidyasagar.net and bhaktamarmantrahealing.com, which disagree here. On the lay vows and the standing of vaśīkaraṇa, the reference is the Ratnakaranda Shravakachara. No riddhi printed: not verifiable against two sources.