The Hindu : Miscellaneous / Religion : Glory of the epic

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Wednesday, Jan 26, 2005

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - Religion

Glory of the epic

CHENNAI, JAN.26 . Many saints have on the basis of the Ramayana written by Sage Valmiki highlighted the glory of this epic and been inspired to compose it in other languages. The popularity of this work in the religious tradition is due to the fact that besides its spiritual merit other benefits can also be derived by its perusal. One of them is its life-giving nature. The Sundara Kanda in which Hanuman is the central figure has this sterling devotee relating the life of Lord Rama to the Divine Mother, Sita when She was on the verge of losing all hopes of Her rescue and was contemplating taking Her life.

In their discourse, Damal Sri Ramakrishnan and Srimathi Perundevi said Hanuman located Sita finally in the Ashoka grove just when She had sunk into depths of despair as Ravana had given Her an ultimatum of two months to yield to his wishes and threatened to kill Her otherwise. After he left the ogresses guarding Sita started intimidating Her to submit to him but She boldly kept voicing Her refusal to do so. Hanuman watched all of them harassing Her and Sita weeping in distress. Totally dejected, just when She tried to strangle Herself propitious omens appeared on Her person and She experienced joy. One of the ogresses, Trijata by name had also dreamt of Rama emerging triumphant and the discomfiture of Ravana, and shared this with her friends. Hanuman who had been observing all this came to the conclusion that the lady in distress must be Sita.

The situation demanded utmost caution because Hanuman had to convince Sita of his identity as Rama's envoy without arousing the suspicion of others and he could no longer afford to remain mum lest the objective of the whole exercise be lost just when he had found Her. Wondering how he could ensure that his effort did not go in vain he told himself, "Singing the praises of Sri Rama I shall take care not to frighten Her... Delivering the message of Sri Rama, I shall make everything so intelligible that Sita will give credence to it." Remaining seated in the midst of the boughs of the tree under which Sita was sitting Hanuman narrated the story of Rama up to the point he had found Her and identified Her with the description given to him by the Lord. Sita was overjoyed and thus did this sagacious devotee literally give Her a second lease of life when She was on the brink of despair. Then he also narrated other incidents in their lives and handed over Rama's signet- ring to convince Her.

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