Paduka Prabhavam.
Swami Desikar glorifies Sri Rama Paduka in several ways by means of anecdotes, metaphors and simile. The following will open up the Pandora box of such exhibition of His poetic frenzy.
1. There lies a lion's den. The male lion walks up to the entrance to trounce an elephant in a fight at its gate. The she lion walks along but returns to suckle its cub. That is the story of Paduka Pattabisheka, he portrays.
The den is Ayodhya. The male lion is Rama who goes to Dandakaranya, from where He is drawn into a fight with Ravana, the elephant. The she lion is Rama Padhuka going up to the Dantaka but returns to suckle Bharata, its cub. This symbolically means that Bharata left the care of himself and his subjects to the Paduka's prevalence.
2. Despite several requests and pleading by Bharata, Rama commits Himself further into forest journey. This He does, says Swami Deska by pledging His Padukas to instill confidenc that He will return to Rulership after fulfilling His vow to His father.
It is common knowledge that the thing pawned is more valuable than the amount loaned. So much so, Rama Padukas are of greater daya and Her presence would have acted against Rama's nir-daya in terminating the evils in the shape of Vali and Ravana, extrapolates Swami Desika.
3. Her greatness is told in one more way: at the time when Rama decided to surrender to the Lord-of-the-seas, the call was not acknowledged. Rama got angered and set the arrow in His bow and threatened to dry the whole of sea waters. Swami Desika believes that Rama would have failed in His attempt as the bathing waters of the Paduka, through river Sarayu and the Ganges flowing east ward in to the Bay of Bengal forming part of Rameswaram shores, would have made it impossible for Him.
4. He invents a novel way to explain why the sandals-Rama Padukas are curved at the middle and broad and wide at the ends like a woman of slender waist. And the reason he gives is that the center portion is not in contact with the feet of Rama in as much as the two ends and out of longing for it, the center had gone weak and shrunk.
5. To cap them all he adds: the Vedas being great source of enlightenment paves the way for redemption or moksha. The Dramido-upanishad of Sri Namalwar does the same thing by being the means and end in itself, like the Lord it's subject matter. The wise and the common man alike benefit not even by learning them but by simply battening 'satari' on their head, as sri Namalwar resides in the Lotus feet of Lord Sriman Narayana.
It doesn't end with this. Swami Desika goes on 1000 such ways to invoke the "daya" of Sri Ranga Mani Padula.
Let the sacred waters of satari - Sri Pada Theertam - sprout Rama Bhakti in us, who quench it.
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