Sri Ram
A miniature painting from a Persian- language Ramayan commissioned by Emperor Akbar, c. A.D. 1594.
Photo courtesy: Museum 'Rietberg.
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The person
Relationship with brothers
Swami Tejomayananda, We Connect Differently To A Personal God, October 19, 2018: The Times of India
Sri Rama was the maryadapurushottama, the ideal man. The purpose of his avatara was to teach us how to live. On the same day, three other mahapurushas, his brothers, were born. Their goal was different. They taught us how to love and their importance should not be underestimated. We must remember to pray to these great devotees, because the path to discover bhakti in our hearts, is only through the grace of the bhakta.
The relationship of each of the brothers with Rama was different.
In the Bala Kanda portion of Sri Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas uses simple analogies to describe the bond they individually shared with Rama.
Bharata’s relationship with Rama is described as the love of a bee for a flower. The bee and the flower, by virtue of their very being, are not always in physical proximity. However, whether they are together or not, the bee enjoys the nectar, the very essence of the flower. In the same way, even though he was not always with Rama, Bharata remained ever absorbed in the avatar’s divine essence.
Lakshmana, on the other hand, always followed Rama everywhere. He is therefore described as the flagpole on which the flag of Rama’s glories is hoisted. Physical closeness is essential to this relationship. A flag that is folded and stored is never saluted, nor is a bare flagpole given a second thought. However, when the flag is hoisted on the pole, people salute it and sing anthems in its praise. Yet, the flagpole is not given any special attention or praise, nor is any expected.
Lakshmana never desired any fame for himself. He only wanted Rama’s glories to spread everywhere at all times.
And finally, there is Shatrughna. The very name Shatrughna means ‘killer of enemies’. At first glance this seems quite a misnomer, since the Ramayana never describes him slaying demons nor shows his physical prowess or military might. What enemy then has he slain?
When we observe life, we find that the mind alone is the source of all enemies, within and outside us. Inner enemies are desire, likes, dislikes, etc, which are the biggest obstacle to our peace and happiness. When we interact with the world under the influence of such a volatile mind, we cause both good and bad reactions. And so any enemy in the external world is only a reflection of some inner imperfection in us. By overcoming the mind, therefore, Shatrughna had destroyed all his inner demons, and had removed external enmity also at the very root.
Further, Shatrughna’s relationship with Rama was indirect. Both Bharata and Lakshmana directly served Rama by helping him to accomplish his goals and objectives, but Shatrughna served Rama’s devotee.
To serve anyone requires a modicum of humility. But Shatrughna served Bharata, who was himself a servant of Rama. To be the servant of a servant, in addition to the complete absence of egoism, one requires a nature that is truly humble.
Shatrughna’s example is one that we can strive to emulate. We may not be among the Bharatas and Lakshmanas of this world, who can directly interact with the Divine. But we are free to serve society and the nation.
The Rāmāyaṇ and Sri Ram
Sri Ram and the constitution of the Rāmāyaṇ
This section is an excerpt from HINDU GODS AND HEROES STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF BY LIONEL D. BARNETT, M.A., Litt The Wisdom of the East Series Indpaedia is an archive. It neither agrees nor |
Rāma is the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa, the great epic ascribed to Vālmīki, a poet who in course of time has passed from the realm of history into that of myth, like many other Hindus. The poem, as it has come down to us, contains seven books, which relate the following tale. Daśa-ratha, King of Ayōdhyā (now Ajodhya, near Faizabad), of the dynasty which claimed descent from the Sun-god, had no son, and therefore held the great Aśva-mēdha, or horse-sacrifice, as a result of which he obtained four sons, Rāma by his queen Kauśalyā, Bharata by Kaikēyī, and Lakshmaṇa and Śatrughna by Sumitrā. Rāma, the eldest, was also pre-eminent for strength, bravery, and noble qualities of soul.
Visiting in his early youth the court of Janaka, king of Vidēha, Rāma was able to shoot an arrow from Janaka's bow, which no other man could bend, and as a reward he received as wife the princess Sītā, whom Janaka had found in a furrow of his fields and brought up as his own daughter. So far the first book, or Bāla-kāṇḍa. The second book, or Ayōdhyā-kāṇḍa, relates how Queen Kaikēyī induced Daśa-ratha, sorely against his will, to banish Rāma to the forests in order that her son Bharata might succeed to the throne; and the Araṇya-kāṇḍa then describes how Rāma, accompanied by his wife Sītā and his faithful brother Lakshmaṇa, dwelt in the forest for a time, until the demon King Rāvaṇa of Laṅkā, by means of a trick, carried off Sītā to his city.
The Kishkindhā-kāṇḍa tells of Rāma's pursuit of Rāvaṇa and his coming to Kishkindhā, the city of Sugrīva, the king of the apes, who joined him as an ally in his expedition; and the Sundara-kāṇḍa describes the march of their armies to Laṅkā, which is identified with Ceylon, and their crossing over the straits. Then comes the Yuddha-kāṇḍa, which narrates the war with Rāvaṇa, his death in battle, the restoration of Sītā, the return of Rāma and Sītā to Ayōdhyā, and the crowning of Rāma in place of Daśa-ratha, who had died of grief during his exile. Finally comes the Uttara-kāṇḍa, which relates that Rāma, hearing some of the people of Ayōdhyā spitefully casting aspersions on the virtue of Sītā during her imprisonment in the palace of Rāvaṇa, gave way to foolish jealousy and banished her to the hermitage of Vālmīki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Kuśa and Lava; when these boys had grown up, Vālmīki taught them the Rāmāyaṇa and sent them to sing it at the court of Rāma, who on hearing it sent for Sītā, who came to him accompanied by Vālmīki, who assured him of her purity; and then Sītā swore to it on oath, calling upon her mother the Earth-goddess to bear witness; and the Earth-goddess received her back into her bosom, leaving Rāma bereaved, until after many days he was translated to heaven.
Such is the tale of Rāma as told in the Vālmīki-rāmāyaṇa—a clean, wholesome story of chivalry, love, and adventure. But clearly the Vālmīki-rāmāyaṇa is not the work of a single hand. We can trace in it at least two strata. Books II.-VI. contain the older stratum; the rest is the addition of a later poet or series of poets, who have also inserted some padding into the earlier books. This older stratum, the nucleus of the epic, gives us a picture of heroic society in India at a very early date, probably not very long after the age of the Upanishads; perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say it was composed some time before the fourth century b.c. In it Rāma is simply a hero, miraculous in strength and goodness, but nevertheless wholly human; but in the later stratum—Books I. and VII. and the occasional insertions in the other books—conditions are changed, and Rāma appears as a god on earth, a partial incarnation of Vishṇu, exactly as in the Bhagavad-gītā and other later parts of the Mahābhārata the hero Kṛishṇa has become an incarnation of Vishṇu also. The parallel may even be traced further. Kṛishṇa stands to Arjuna in very much the same relation as Rāma to his brother Lakshmaṇa—a greater and a lesser hero, growing into an incarnate god and his chief follower. This is thoroughly in harmony with Hindu ideas, which regularly conceive the teacher as accompanied by his disciple and abhor the notion of a voice crying in the wilderness; indeed we may almost venture to suspect that this symmetry in the epics is not altogether uninfluenced by this ideal.
This, however, is a detail: the main point to observe is that Rāma was originally a local hero of the Solar dynasty, a legendary king of Ayōdhyā, and as the Purāṇas give him a full pedigree, there is no good reason to doubt that he really existed "once upon a time." But the story with which he is associated in the Rāmāyaṇa is puzzling. Is it a pure romance? Or is it a glorified version of some real adventures? Or can it be an old tale, perhaps dating from the early dawn of human history, readapted and fitted on to the person of an historical Rāma? The first of these hypotheses seems unlikely, though by no means impossible.
The second suggestion has found much favour. Many have believed that the story of the expedition of Rāma and his army of apes to Laṅkā represents a movement of the Aryan invaders from the North towards the South; and this is supported to some extent by Indian tradition, which has located most of the places mentioned in the Rāmāyaṇa, and in particular has identified Laṅkā with Ceylon. In support of this one may point to the Iliad of Homer, which has a somewhat similar theme, the rape and recovery of Helen by the armies of the Achæans, the basis of which is the historical fact of an expedition against Troy and the destruction of that city. But there are serious difficulties in the way of accepting this analogy, the most serious of all being the indubitable fact that there is not a tittle of evidence to show that such an expedition was ever made by the Aryans.
True, there were waves of emigration from Aryan centres southward in early times; but those that travelled as far as Ceylon went by sea, either from the coasts of Bengal or Orissa or Bombay. Besides, the expedition of Rāma is obviously fabulous, for his army was composed not of Aryans but of apes. All things considered, there seems to be most plausibility in the third hypothesis .[ I regret that I cannot accept the ingenious hypothesis lately put forward by Rai Saheb Dineshchandra Sen in his Bengali Ramayanas.
The story of the Dasaratha-jātaka seems to me to be a garbled and bowdlerised snippet cut off from a possibly pre-Vālmīkian version of the old Rāma-saga; the rest of the theory appears to be quite mistaken.] Certainly Rāma was a local hero of Ayōdhyā, and probably he was once a real king; so it is likely enough that an old saga (or sagas) attached itself early to his memory. And as his fame spread abroad, principally on the wings of Vālmīki's poem, the honours of semi-divinity began to be paid to him in many places beyond his native land, and about the beginning of our era he was recognised as an incarnation of Vishṇu sent to establish a reign of righteousness in the world. In Southern India this cult of Rāma, like that of Kṛishṇa, has for the most part remained subordinate to the worship of Vishṇu, though the Vaishṇava church there has from early times recognised the divinity of both of them as embodiments of the Almighty. But its great home is the North, where millions worship Rāma with passionate and all-absorbing love.
What Sri Ram symbolises
Sri Ram’s Paratva
Sri Sankararama Dikshitar | Rama’s paratva |OCTOBER 16, 2017 | The Hindu
Valmiki portrays Rama as a human being and except during very rare occasions is His Paratva revealed and the Jatayu episode is one such, pointed out Sri Sankararama Dikshitar in a discourse.
Jatayu’s role in the Ramayana is remarkable in many respects. He exemplifies the nature of selfless service and devotion, where the devotee offers his entire being unconditionally to the Lord and is happiest when serving Him. Among the various forms of bhakti, this is deemed the highest and is extolled as ‘atma samarpana.’ The wounded Jatayu, whose life is ebbing away, is eager to convey the details of how Sita had been abducted by the wicked Ravana to the grief stricken Rama and Lakshmana who come in search of her. When they learn that the noble bird had put up a valiant battle single-handedly and unarmed against Ravana’s might, they are moved to tears. In the fight, the bird had destroyed Ravana’s charioteer, his chariot and bow but eventually, Ravana had overpowered the bird and clipped its wings. Jatayu emerges as a picture of selfless sacrifice in the service of the divine couple.
Jatayu consoles the distraught Rama and reassures Him that no harm will come to Sita and that very soon she will be restored to them. Rama is as much overwhelmed by grief as by a surging sense of affection and gratitude and embraces Jatayu. He asks Jatayu to be comfortable and blesses the bird. Rama says that the grief of seeing Jatayu pass away is greater than the loss of Sita. He considers Jatayu as equal to His father and proceeds to do the final rites for the bird. All along Rama had shown Himself as a human being in this avatar, but in this context He forgets Himself and by His Sankalpa and supremacy, He grants Jatayu the highest state, liberation or moksha that is attainable by noble souls who have lived virtuous lives on earth.
Sri Ram symbolises compassion
From the archives of The Times of India: 2008
Sudhamahi Reghunathan
Rama stood facing the ocean. His army had arrived. Even Vibhishana had come across from Lanka and taken refuge in him. Thoughts of Vaidehi were tormenting Rama. And everyone now pointed to the ocean saying that was the first challenge they had to meet. As he stood watching the vast, deep ocean, Rama wondered how they would cross it.
For three days and nights Rama prayed to Lord Sagara, who had been created by his ancestors by excavating the land and seeking the grace of Varuna, the water god. Yet Sagara did not respond to Rama’s prayers. Since time was running out, Rama began to string his bow declaring his intention to shoot an arrow that would be so powerful as to dry up the ocean.
Hearing Rama’s plans, cries rang through the air, birds flew home and animals ran hither and thither. The waters rose in agony. Seeing that his brother was determined to carry out his threat, Lakshmana pleaded with Rama to show restraint. “Great people like you do not fall into the trap of anger, that blinds reason and thinking. All that is born of anger does not last. That which is born of consultation and conciliation alone lives long after man. Your purpose should be achieved without resorting to such an extreme step. Devise some more durable way of crossing the seas,” implored Lakshmana.
With his bow still in hand, Rama sees reason in his brother’s argument. Sagara appeared before Rama with this appeal: “We, the earth, air, ether, water and fire are bound by the eternal laws governing nature. It is in my nature, therefore, to be fathomless and incapable of being swum across. We cannot break those laws. Not for greed, desire or out of fear will I solidify so that you and the army can walk over me for that would endanger the lives of beings that live in me. I will not part or move my course by transgressing limits. However, I will help you and your army cross the ocean by bearing everything that I can without overstepping my limits. Build on my chest a bridge and the wellendowed son of Vishwakarma, the monkey Nala, is capable of doing that. I will sustain the bridge.”
The ocean lord advises Rama to shoot his arrow at a region that has polluted waters, so that it is cleansed of that impurity. Once the bow is strung, the arrow has to be released and so Rama decides to follow Sagara’s advice. Nala comes forth to build the bridge. Says Nala, “The ocean responded only to punishment and not to request, this is true. But it is not just because it is ungrateful. It is also because it wants to provoke you to build a bridge on it, so that it sees a lasting solution to the problem it presents to many travellers.”
The bridge was built and the war won, and good triumphed over evil. The bridge was more than a physical entity. It was a symbol of the need to find ways to preserve sanctity of life. Every form of life is subject to eternal laws. That which is sustainable is that which takes into consideration the aspirations and commitment of all beings, be they dangerous animals or fathomless waters.
Equally, Rama’s mission was important. To find solutions within the given constraints was the true challenge. When he faced this truth, nature became his supporter and instead of fighting it he became empowered with its support. Because he was able to work in consonance with nature to achieve his desired goal, Rama’s bridge symbolised the importance of understanding, compassion and harmony.
