रूपसंहननं लक्ष्मीं सौकुमार्यं सुवेषताम्।
ददृशुर्विस्मिताकारा रामस्य वनवासिनः॥
rūpa-saṁhananaṁ lakṣmīṁ saukumāryaṁ suveṣatām
dadṛśur vismitākārā rāmasya vanavāsinaḥ
rūpa-saṁhananam = proportioned beauty; lakṣmīm = overall splendor; saukumāryam = tenderness; suveṣatām = and auspicious charm 7; dadṛśuḥ = observing; vismita-ākārāḥ = appeared astonished; rāmasya = Lord Rāma’s; vanavāsinaḥ = the residents of the forest.
Observing Lord Rāma’s proportioned beauty, overall splendor, tenderness and auspicious charm, the residents of the forest appeared astonished.
1 Rāmāyaṇa-bhūṣaṇa: saukumāryaṁ puṣpa-hāsa-tulya-komalatām.
2 To not be disturbed in one’s spiritual meditation in the absence of external temptation is one thing, but to not be disturbed in one’s spiritual meditation even in the presence of external temptation is something else. The sages living in the forest were of the second type. See the note to Rāmāyaṇa 1.63.23.
3 The translation of rūpa and saṁhananam is based on the quotations referred to here.
In this verse, the author describes the beauty, tenderness and other features [of Lord Rāma] that caused them to invoke auspiciousness [upon Him].
Rūpa-saṁhananam indicates that Rāma’s bodily limbs were arranged in a special manner as stated earlier:
samaḥ sama-vibhaktāṅgaḥ
“He is neither too tall nor too short. The parts of His body such as His hands and feet are equally sized.” (Rāmāyaṇa 1.1.11)
Saukumāryam indicates that Śrī Rāma was soft as flowers in a garden.1 Vanavāsinaḥ (“the residents of the forest”) indicates that the sages’ minds were not disturbed even in the presence of a cause of disturbance.2 Despite being residents of the forest, they became visibly astonished, and watched Rāma’s proportioned beauty and so on.
Rūpa refers to that [sort of beauty] by which one’s body appears ornamented even in the absence of [any] ornamentation 8. Saṁhananam refers to [that sort of beauty] in which the limbs of one’s body are appropriately placed and joined together 9.3 Lakṣmīṁ saukumāryaṁ suveṣatām also indicates that Rāma [not only] possessed auspicious charm and tenderness, He was [also] appropriately ornamented.
GLOSS. Suveṣatām and vanavāsinaḥ [also] indicate that Rāma’s unnatural appearance as an ascetic living in the forest was very beautiful.
NOTE. In this regard, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.301-302) quotes the following two verses from Padma Purāṇa:
purā maharṣayaḥ sarve daṇḍakāraṇya-vāsinaḥ
dṛṣṭvā rāmaṁ hariṁ tatra bhoktum aicchan suvigraham
te sarve strītvam āpannāḥ samudbhūtāś ca gokule
hariṁ samprāpya kāmena tato muktā bhavārṇavāt
“All the sages previously living in Daṇḍakāraṇya saw Rāma and desired to enjoy His very handsome form as Lord Hari. They attained female forms and took birth in Gokula. Attaining Lord Hari by their determination, they became liberated from the ocean of material existence.”
In The Nectar of Devotion, Prabhupāda explains these two verses thus:
The material body has nothing to do with spiritual loving affairs. A woman may develop an attitude for becoming a friend of Kṛṣṇa, and, similarly, a man may develop the feature of becoming a gopī in Vṛndāvana. How a devotee in the form of a man can desire to become a gopī is stated in the Padma Purāṇa as follows: In days gone by there were many sages in Daṇḍakāraṇya. Daṇḍakāraṇya is the name of the forest where Lord Rāmacandra lived after being banished by His father for fourteen years. At that time there were many advanced sages who were captivated by the beauty of Lord Rāmacandra and who desired to become women in order to embrace the Lord. Later on, these sages appeared in Gokula Vṛndāvana when Kṛṣṇa advented Himself there, and they were born as gopīs, or girlfriends of Kṛṣṇa. In this way they attained the perfection of spiritual life.
The story of the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya can be explained as follows. When Lord Rāmacandra was residing in Daṇḍakāraṇya, the sages who were engaged in devotional service there became attracted by His beauty and immediately thought of the gopīs in Vṛndāvana, who enjoyed conjugal loving affection with Kṛṣṇa. In this instance it is clear that the sages of Daṇḍakāraṇya desired conjugal love in the manner of the gopīs, although they were well aware of the Supreme Lord as both Kṛṣṇa and Lord Rāmacandra. They knew that although Rāmacandra was an ideal king and could not accept more than one wife, Lord Kṛṣṇa, being the full-fledged Personality of Godhead, could fulfill the desires of all of them in Vṛndāvana. These sages also concluded that the form of Lord Kṛṣṇa is more attractive than that of Lord Rāmacandra, and so they prayed to become gopīs in their future lives to be associated with Kṛṣṇa.
Lord Rāmacandra remained silent, and His silence shows that He accepted the prayers of the sages. Thus they were blessed by Lord Rāmacandra to have association with Lord Kṛṣṇa in their future lives. As a result of this benediction, they all took birth as women in the wombs of gopīs at Gokula, and as they had desired in their previous lives, they enjoyed the company of Lord Kṛṣṇa, who was present at that time in Gokula Vṛndāvana. The perfection of their human form of life was thus achieved by their generating a transcendental sentiment to share conjugal love with Lord Kṛṣṇa.