{"id":101304,"date":"2017-11-06T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=101304"},"modified":"2017-11-03T19:35:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T19:35:14","slug":"nobility-and-relevance-of-lord-ram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/11\/nobility-and-relevance-of-lord-ram\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobility and Relevance of Lord Ram"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Nov 2017 – <\/em>We look forward to persons who are good, noble and trustworthy and who inspire us to follow in their footsteps.\u00a0 There have been some noble and enlightened souls in the world \u2013 Krishna, Buddha, Madonna, Jesus<\/em>, Mahavira,<\/em> Ram, Muhammad, Guru Nanak<\/em> and recently Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and others whom we respect and try to follow their path of love, compassion, vision, and truth. Some of these personalities have shown us the power of godliness, kindness, religious truth and bhakti, <\/em>others have been active politically but all of them display values of goodness, truth, love, compassion including teachings on the goals of human life<\/a> that are inspiring and cherishable and which we try to emulate.<\/p>\n

Many books, writings, sculptures and paintings are available all over the world in different languages, different styles and in different historical epochs about the qualities and virtues of these great personalities. Churches, temples, cities have been built in their honor to remind ordinary mortals about their vision and teachings. It is no wonder that millions of ordinary people have joined these institutions to be associated with and imbibe some of the teachings of these noble people. In this essay I shall confine myself to talk a little bit about Lord Ram<\/em> who is revered in India and in many other regions of the world \u2013 as a God without in any way ignoring the greatness of the other luminaries.<\/p>\n

But Ram was also a fine human being and showed exemplary qualities as a son, husband, brother, prince, wanderer etc. who continues to inspire millions of ordinary mortals. The Ramayana <\/em>written by Valmiki<\/em> in Sanskrit language more than 2500 years ago and Ram Charita Manas<\/em> by\u00a0 Goswami Tulsidas<\/em><\/a> (AD 1532\u20131623)\u00a0\u00a0 in Awadhi<\/em> language (old Hindi ) depict the qualities of goodness, compassion and obedience of Lord Ram both as a prince and as a human being. Ramayana is often called as adi kavya<\/em> (ancient poem) that consists of seven kand<\/em>s (books) and comprises 24,000 verses. These kand<\/em>s start with bal kand<\/em> (childhood of Ram) and end with Uttra kand<\/em> after the victory of Ram with the help of Hanuman over Ravana <\/em>and his return to his kingdom. Ram Charita Manas<\/em> is considered a literary classic.<\/p>\n

In the Hindu philosophical text Vedas, there is the concept of purushartha<\/em> or important aspects of life. There are four elements of these \u2013 dharma, arth, kaam, moksha<\/em>. Many treatises have been written on the meanings and significance of purushartha. In simple terms we can explain dharma <\/em>as one\u2019s duty both religious and in society (righteousness, moral values); arth<\/em> literally means money or wealth which signifies prosperity and economic well being, that are required for living properly; kaam<\/em> has different meanings including (pleasure, love, passion and sex) that are necessary to marry and to raise a family; kaam<\/em> is necessary in one\u2019s life both for a man and a woman. The fourth aspect of purushartha — moksha<\/em> signifies the last phase of mortal life and it is ordained that a person gives up the tendencies to have arth or kaam and to think of one\u2019s afterlife \u2013 to think of God, goodness, truth, spiritual liberation and other similar values that are free of self-interest and normal constraints of life to which people are bound.<\/p>\n

Analyzing the contents of Ramayana and the qualities of Ram, one sees all the four aspects of purushartha in this epic. Ram the son of Dashratha\u2019s first wife Kausalya, is an upright man of dharma <\/em>right from the time he attains youth and understands the meaning and goals of life. Being the eldest son he is the heir apparent but he is obedient to his father even though the latter wrongly asks him to go on exile for 14 years; he is truthful and kind to all \u2013 his mother and step mothers, brothers and everyone else that he comes into contact. Ramayana <\/em>of course not only talks of wealth but displays it in the court of Dashratha <\/em>in Ayodhya<\/em>. Ram\u2019s marriage to Sita<\/em> the daughter of Janak <\/em>has been vividly described \u2013 how although there are several eminent princes who display their skills to get married to Sita, it is Ram who lifts and strings the divine bow of Shiva and win\u2019s Sita\u2019s hand in marriage.<\/p>\n

The newly married couple of Ram and Sita are warmly welcomed by the people of Ayodhya and their marriage is acclaimed by one and all. The happiness is short lived however because of two commitments made by Dashratha<\/em> to his second wife Kaikeyi<\/em> who wants her son Bharat <\/em>to become king after Dashratha. This results in the banishment of Ram for 14 years. Sita and Ram\u2019s younger brother Lakshmana decide to accompany Ram in exile.<\/p>\n

The exile of the three persons \u2013 Ram, Sita and Lakshmana is presented interestingly and display the characteristics of nobility and dharma of Ram as well as the other two persons. They live a simple life in the forests and show kindness to all living beings \u2013 animals, birds and plants etc. They become one with the nature around them. In fact, their relationship with nature which provide them with the basic necessities of life is a lesson for all of us as how to live in harmony with our environment without degrading it. It is well known how our environment has been polluted by the overexploitation of nature\u2019s resources leading to global warming and climate change.<\/p>\n

Occasionally, the trio meets some people such as Shabri <\/em>a lower caste woman who offers Ram some berries to eat, and Kewat<\/em> a boatman who takes the three in his boat without charging any money from them.\u00a0 This shows Ram\u2019s kindness and behavior to ordinary persons without considerations of any type of superiority. But the forest and the trees also impose certain constraints so that they are not harmed by wild animals or otherwise. The exile is a sort of temporary moksha for the three.<\/p>\n

Ramayana informs us of many challenges they face and adventures which the trio have to undergo. One of these is the fancy taken by Shurpanakha<\/em> (sister of the Lankan king Ravana<\/em>) to Ram but she was spurned by him telling her that he loved Sita and could not have another wife. Since she persisted, her nose was chopped off by Lakshmana. Again we see Ram\u2019s quality of love for his wife. This leads after some interesting events to the abduction of Sita by Ravana <\/em>to his kingdom in Lanka.<\/p>\n

Hanuman, the Vanar<\/em> (monkey chieftain) is an interesting character of Ramayana \u2013 in fact he is adored by ordinary people for his heroics and his success in freeing Sita from Ravana\u2019s hold. Ram meets Hanuman in Kishkinda<\/em> and the part where the adventures of Hanuman are described are provided in the Kishkinda <\/em>kand and Sunder<\/em> kand. After many twists and turns Ram, Lakshmana and Hanuman attack Lanka and kill Ravana and free Sita. Their return is met with great joy and celebration which we see today also in the festival of Diwali. However, people suspect Sita of impropriety and this leads Ram to reject Sita. This is a flaw in Ram\u2019s character but this displays the humanness<\/em> of Ram. For all his wonderful qualities his behavior towards Sita is unjust and tragic for her and she exhorts the mother earth to accept her since she was blameless.<\/p>\n

Ramayana is a powerful and absorbing story that reinforces the nobility and relevance of Lord Ram both as divinity and as a human being that is cherished not only by millions of Indians but by people all over the contemporary world.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr Ravi P Bhatia <\/em>is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University.\u00a0 ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We look forward to persons who are good, noble and trustworthy and who inspire us to follow in their footsteps. Ramayana is a powerful and absorbing story that reinforces the nobility and relevance of Lord Ram both as divinity and as a human being that is cherished not only by millions of Indians but by people all over the contemporary world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}