Verse 23

¹⁹Then the Bhagavan, the self of everything, to whom Prthu had brought his offering, had his lotus feet taken hold of by a devotion rising up in the king; ²⁰and though he had turned to go, his own kindness held him back, and the friend of the good, whose eyes are lotus petals, looked at him and did not go. ²¹The first king, his palms joined, could not look at Hari, his eyes full of tears. He said nothing, choked with weeping. He held him in his heart instead and stood there. ²²Then he wiped the tears away and looked at the Person the eye never has enough of, standing with one foot on the ground and the tips of his hands laid on the raised shoulder of the enemy of snakes, and he said:

²³Mighty one, how should a man who knows ask boons of you, the master of boon-givers, when they belong to those whose selves are turned about by the strands, and bodies in hell have them too? Lord of aloneness, I do not ask for them.