Kevat Ferries Rama Across the Ganga

Among the best-loved episodes of the Ramayana, especially as Tulsidas tells it in the Ramcharitmanas, is the meeting of Rama with Kevat, the humble boatman of the Ganga. It is a small scene with no battle and no demon, yet devotees cherish it above many greater ones, for in it the Lord of the universe is served by, and honours, the lowliest of men.

Rama reaches the Ganga

Setting out from Ayodhya into exile with Sita and Lakshmana, Rama came to the banks of the river Ganga at Shringaverpur, the kingdom of his friend Guha, the Nishada chief. To cross the river he called for a boatman, and the one who came was Kevat, a simple ferryman of the fisher community.

The boatman’s condition

Kevat, however, would not take Rama across at once. With folded hands and a knowing smile he said that he had heard what the dust of Rama’s feet could do: it had turned a stone into the woman Ahalya. His boat, he said, was his only livelihood, all that fed his family; if the touch of those feet should turn his wooden boat into a woman too, he would be ruined. And so, he asked, let him first wash Rama’s feet, and only then would he ferry him across. Rama, delighted by the boatman’s loving cleverness, agreed.

The washing of the feet

Kevat brought water and washed the feet of the Lord with his own hands, and then, overcome with devotion, drank the water with which he had washed them, taking it as the holiest of blessings for himself and his ancestors. Only then did he take Rama, Sita and Lakshmana into his boat and row them gently to the far shore.

A fare that could not be paid

On the far bank, Sita wished to give the boatman a ring as his fare, and Rama offered him payment for the crossing. But Kevat folded his hands and refused. “You and I are of the same trade,” he said. “We are both ferrymen. I carry people across this little river; you carry souls across the great ocean of birth and death. How can one ferryman take a fare from another?” He asked for nothing but a single gift: that when his own life’s crossing came, Rama would carry him across the ocean of existence to liberation. Rama blessed him, and went on his way.

The meaning of the story

The tale of Kevat is loved because it turns the order of the world upside down. The poorest and humblest of men serves God and asks for nothing of the world, and God accepts his service as the highest worship. It teaches that devotion needs no wealth, caste or learning, only a loving heart; that the Lord is most pleased by simple, selfless love; and that the true fare for life’s journey is not gold but faith. Kevat stands beside Shabari as one of the great humble devotees whom Rama honours above kings.