qMonk literal translation — draft, pending review
You are the one who keeps the door at Ram's house.
Nobody gets inside without your leave.
Rakhavārā is from rakhnā, to keep — the same word used of keeping a field, keeping cattle, keeping house. It is not a soldier's title. Paisāra is entry, from the Awadhi paisnā, to get in, and ājñā covers both an order and permission, which is what a doorkeeper's word is.
The figure at the threshold is an old one and a serious one. Gaṇeśa stands at doorways in the same way, and the reason he is invoked before every beginning is the reason there is a keeper here: a threshold is precisely the place where you may be let through or held, and the two possibilities are the same job.
Under it sits a claim the bhakti poets make without apology: the way to Rāma runs through Rāma's servant. This is not a demotion of the lord of the house. It is the servant being handed the one thing he would actually want, which is to be useful at the door.
And the chaupais on either side keep it from turning into a locked gate. Four chaupais earlier, Vibhīṣaṇa — a rākṣasa out of the enemy's own family — is received and crowned. In the next chaupai, whoever comes into his shelter finds ease there. The door is kept. It is not shut.
Who decides who comes into your home? What do they say when they open the door?
qMonk literal translation — draft, pending review·Devanagari checked against two printings·Draft — awaiting reviewer·How these texts were made