Into the Beyond
Yes. This is one of the more interesting word-play passages in the Anurag Sagar, because Kabir is not merely giving an etymology of Rama; he is telling a cosmological story about how a lower, apparently sacred Name can arise within the domain of Niranjan/Kal.
The passage in your photograph says:
“Many times the Ra ra was uttered, and ma from the word ‘maya.’
Both words were united, and the name Rama was given to them…”
The published translation/commentary explicitly explains Ra as “beyond” and says that, in this cosmology, this Rama-mantra was created by Kal rather than originating beyond Maya.
1. What could “Ra Ra” mean?
There are two different levels here that are easy to confuse.
Historically/linguistically, this is not the normal Sanskrit derivation of Rāma. Classical Sanskrit derives Rāma from the verbal root √ram, “to delight, rejoice, enjoy, take pleasure in,” rather than from ra + mā. So we shouldn’t treat Kabir’s explanation as a historical Sanskrit etymology.
But within the Anurag Sagar’s spiritual word-play, Ra is assigned the meaning “beyond.” The commentary explicitly says:
“Ra means ‘beyond’”
and contrasts this mantra with the higher Ram Naam or Sound Principle.
So when Niranjan says Ra Ra, I think the important idea is:
RA → beyond
RA → beyond
MA → māyā
and then:
RA + MA → RAMA
The repetition of Ra is significant poetically: Niranjan is producing the sound/seed from which the apparently liberating Name will be constructed.
2. And why add
MA from māyā
?
This is where the cosmology becomes quite clever.
The word māyā represents the power of manifestation/illusion in the lower creation. Niranjan is operating precisely in that realm. So the story effectively says:
Take a syllable suggesting “beyond” and join it to the syllable belonging to Maya → RAMA.
Thus something that sounds as though it promises transcendence has been manufactured inside the realm of Maya.
That’s why the text immediately says that the whole world became involved in the name of Rama, while “nobody understood the trap of Kal.”
That is the punchline.
3. What is happening cosmologically?
The sequence in the Anurag Sagar is roughly:
Sat Purush
↓
Niranjan / Kal
↓
Void / causal realm
↓
Brahma, Vishnu, Shambu, Sanak
↓
They ask: What Name should we meditate upon?
↓
Niranjan produces the Rama-name
↓
The lower creation receives a sacred-sounding mantra
↓
Souls become attached to it
↓
Kabir later teaches them to distinguish this from the true Shabd/Naam
So Niranjan isn’t portrayed simply as “the devil” inventing an evil word. He’s much more subtle: he creates a spiritual substitute that resembles the genuine path of transcendence.
That fits the larger architecture of the Anurag Sagar: Kal’s greatest instrument is not gross evil but misidentification.
The soul thinks it has found the transcendent Name, but it has actually attached itself to something belonging to the lower cosmological sphere.
4. This becomes especially interesting because there are several “Rams”
The commentary associated with this edition makes the distinction explicit:
Rama-mantra — the Rama created by Niranjan in this story.
Rama Chandra — the Vishnu avatar.
Ram Naam — the transcendent Sound Principle/Shabd.
And elsewhere the Kabir teaching is summarized with a fourfold Rama: Rama the son of Dasharatha, Rama as the mind within the heart, Rama as Kal/creator of the three worlds, and the fourth Rama beyond the three qualities.
That is much more interesting than simply saying “Kabir doesn’t like the Rama mantra.”
He’s effectively saying:
Don’t mistake the name, the deity, the mind, or the cosmic creator for the ultimate Reality to which the Name points.
5. And notice the extraordinary placement of this episode
Your photograph has just told us that Brahma, Vishnu, Shambu and Sanak enter Void Samadhi.
Then they ask Niranjan:
“Which Name should we repeat and on which Name should we meditate?”
This is almost a test of the whole Kabir cosmology.
They are already in samādhi, but they don’t yet possess the transcendent Naam. They are still within the Void.
So Niranjan supplies them with a Name.
That makes the story’s logic:
Samadhi ≠ necessarily liberation.
One can enter a profound inner state and still be within the jurisdiction of Niranjan.
That is remarkably close to the distinction you were asking about recently in connection with Jot Niranjan and the inner light: in this system, seeing light or entering the Void is not automatically the same thing as reaching Sat Purush.
The Anurag Sagar even identifies Niranjan with the light in the Void in its later discussion of the inner body.
6. One important historical caution
There is a fascinating textual-history issue here. The Anurag Sagar is attributed to Kabir within the Kabir Panth, but its authorship and textual history have been debated by scholars. The edition you’re reading itself acknowledges that manuscripts differ substantially, while defending its transmission.
So I’d phrase the conclusion carefully:
This is a very important piece of Anurag Sagar cosmology, but we shouldn’t automatically assume that its ingenious “Ra + Ma = Rama” explanation is an ancient Sanskrit etymology or necessarily a verbatim historical statement of Kabir himself.
And that distinction actually makes the passage more interesting: as theology, the word-play is extraordinarily precise.
Ra = “beyond”
Ma = Maya
Rama = the promise of going beyond Maya, constructed within Maya
And Kabir’s deeper answer is essentially:
Don’t stop at the word that points beyond. Find the Shabd that actually takes consciousness beyond.
That contrast between a sacred word and the transcendent Sound to which the word is supposed to point is one of the central ideas running through this whole cosmology.
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