Chatur Das replied: 'O saint, the salagram and the necklace of sweet basil may indeed be useless as the irrigation of barren land, but tell me by what means the ground may be prepared and God found.' The Guru replied:—
Make God the well, string His name for the necklace of waterpots, and yoke thy mind as an ox thereto.
Irrigate with nectar and fill the parterres therewith; thus shalt thou belong to the Gardener.
The Pandit inquired: 'The soil is irrigated, but how can it yield produce until it hath been dug up and prepared for the seed? The Guru explained how this was to be done:—
Beat both thy lust and anger into a spade, with which dig up the earth, O brother:
The more thou diggest, the happier shalt thou be: such work shall not be effaced in vain.
The Pandit replied: 'I am the crane, and thou art the primal swan of God. My understanding is overcome by my senses.' The Guru replied:—
If thou, O Merciful One, show mercy, a crane shall change into a swan.
Nanak, slave of slaves, supplicateth, O Merciful One have mercy.[1]
The Pandit then admitted that the Guru was a saint of God, and asked him to bless the city and sing its praises. The Guru inquired in what the specialty of the city consisted. The Pandit said it was learning, by which wealth was acquired. 'The world admireth the ground on which the possessor of wealth treadeth. By applying the mind to learning, thou shalt become a high priest.' The Guru replied in a series of metaphors:—
