Rama - The Purushottam

Rama – An Ideal Man?

Before going to answer other questions of comment on post dated:5^th march 2015, let me clarify that this is not a question related to Tretayuga. It’s a question related , applicable and sought answer in every yuga.  And this question of Rama not being right in doubting Sita etc has been asked and will be asked till the end of creation. And I for one see it as a very good sign. Because when a person asks, it means he or she is not blindly following rituals and traditions and is questioning the validity of morals of even the highest Ideal of Vedantic Philosophy – i.e.,Rama. Rama is “Purushottam” – the ultimate Ideal for a man, who has been the ideal son, brother, husband and king too! He is the only character who did justice to all the roles that he had to play in his life (explanation will come later. These questions come from a confused mind and this confusion is good – haan, kabhi kabhi daagh achche hote hai. Because, this confusion says you are trying to find the order. This type of chaos sets the ball rolling towards order – order of understanding higher Ideals and desire to raise to higher realms. Good! 

And there is nothing as Hinduism actually – it’s actually Sanatana Dharma – the eternal Dharma and that it is never dying inspite of influx of so many eternal power and bloodshed only because of one of its great principle. Only Sanatana Dharma gives both its believer and non-believer right to question about the morality of even Gods and Incarnations. Because, blind belief is no belief. 

In a village because of severe famine, it was decided that they should do a ‘yagna’ (fire sacrifice) en masse that would please rain god and as a result there would be heavy rains after performing the Yagna. Everyone contributed inspite of acute poverty and on the appointed day were going enthusiastically towards the ‘yagnasala’ – place where the sacrifice was to be performed. A six year old came carrying an umbrella. When asked he said “to protect myself from the rain that’s to come after the sacrifice”. Everyone laughed and said “how innocent are you to think it would rain after this yagna”. “Is it not why we are performing this yagna?” he asked surprised.

We like those villagers are always sincerely following various rituals prescribed by the religion that we follow, but we miss the soul of all these acts – faith. Because, we blindly believe. Inshort, we doubt our belief too! We trust our doubt and doubt our trust! To correct this wrong way of thinking it’s right to question and seek answers.

Before going into answering the question we need to look into the era of Rama. In those days along with political science, warfare techniques and social etiquettes that were required to be taught to Prince and Princesses, they were also inevitably taught ‘Dharma’ – the right way and right conduct in life. Duties of a king were also part of this ‘Dharma Philosophy’. And we all know that Rama was and is called “Dharma Incarnate”. I’ll only highlight few of the points or Laws of Dharma. 1. Its the duty of children to obey their parents and Gurus under all circumstances. Remember neither Sita nor Rama questioned their parent’s or Guru’s (respectively) decision to get both of them married to each other.

Imagine the scene in today’s context. In a certain case, father didn’t want his son to marry a girl because as per her horoscope, it was not good for her f-i-l. The boy asked his father “would you not die if I marry some other girl?”

I am not justifying horoscope or father’s fear. I am just stating a contrast situation.

…..contd….