Neringa Ramayana Part 4!

[for links to previous parts, scroll down to previous post..]

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Ramayana: Chapter 4- Alliances

As always, I will begin with a quick recap...

Dasrath - king of ayodhya - has no kids - then 4 kids - eldest is Ram [the hero] - one of the queens wreaks havoc - ram, sita and laxman go in exile - are kinda happy - sita gets kidnapped - a dying vulture tells ram who took her.

So,
 Grief stricken, ram and laxman are trying to re-concile themselves to the situation.

meanwhile, i will tell you a side story...

Pawan Putra Hanuman ki Jay! [Hanuman, son of the wind, is Awesome!]

This is the story of two brothers, Vali and Sugriva. These are the vanars or monkey people [another class of people like humans and rakshas and gods etc]. attaching a photo of hanuman, a major player in this story later, who is a vanar or monkey person. this photo depicts a later scene from our story, i will come to that later.

So, vali and sugriva. Now Vali is the elder brother and the king of the vanars. these vanars are brawny creatures, known for their strength and valour. So, once, when a terrible demon [like the bigfoot or kingkong  or something] comes and troubles theri kingdom, both brothers set out to kill him.

terrible fight ensues and all that... the demon flees into a cave. Vali tells sugriva that he is going in, and sugriva should put a stone at the entrance and block it so that it cant escape. once he has slayed it, he will call from inside, that would be the signal for sugriva to open up.

sugriva agrees, and stands guard. After a while, he sees blood seeping out from under the stone. Afraid that the demon has killed his brother, he flees from there, in the hope that atleast the demon would die cooped up in the cave [as he has blocked the entrance]. he is kind of an asshole of a brother.

sugriva returns to his palace, triumphant at having defeated the demon and promptly installs himself as the king. he takes over vali's possessions, wife and kids and all.

Now, it turns out, the blood was vali's but he aint dead. in fact, he had killed the demon, in a very awesome fight [which, sadly, no one could see, inside of a cave being dark and all ;) ] . so,  after a few days, vali manages to dislodge the rock at the mouth of the cave and comes back to his kingdom to find his brother has usurped all. he immediately assumes his brother has plotted against him and betrayed him. he banishes sugriva from the kingdom and takes his family under his protection.

so, end of side story.

now, ram and laxman are roaming the forests to find out where ravan has taken sita, and in the same forest, they meet sugriva.
he tells them his sad story, tells them it was all a misunderstanding and being an asshole and a non-brave person is not a crime after all. But the clincher is, that he promises ram, that if ram helps him defeat vali, he would help him find sita.

so, the moral of this is, in politics, you have to make ugly allainces with ugly people to achieve good things. So ram allies with sugriva. Sugriva goes to the capital and challenges vali to a duel to death. They fight and just as sugriva is losing, ram fires an arrow from behind a tree into vali, and sugriva wins.

Vali accuses ram of breaking the rules and cheating, basically doing a thing outside of his dharma or principles. here, as a lesson to all readers, ram expounds on how this wasnt breaking his dharma but was acting exactly according to it. he had promised to help sugriva. It basically says that you cant do stuff that is good for someone, even according to dharma, isnt good for everyone. You have to make a choice and live with it, that whatever you do, everyone cant be taken into account. if you help someone, someone else is going to be affected, maybe for the worse and you cant help him too. etc etc

So, sugriva gets back his kingdom and family. in a rage, he plans to kill off vali's widow and son. ram stays his hand and reminds him that these are his family. mortified, sugriva installs Angad, vali's son, as prince in waiting and gives vali's widow an honoured place etc.

now, all done, sugriva starts enjoying his kingly lifestyle once more. In this, he forgets about his promise to ram about helping him and lending the manpower of the vanar army to look for sita [which is what ram needs, more eyes to look for his wife.]

Ram asks laxaman to go to sugriva and his wife, tara, to make them see the light and not renege on his promise. Sugriva laughs off an angry laxman [who is held back by tara]. The wise wife, tara, realises the urgency of the situation and convinces sugriva to make good his promise. he does and how that helps our heroes, we will see in the next chapter, titled "hanuman" .



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Neringa Ramayan: 3

No intro needed... [for background refer to part 1 and part 2]

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Ramayana, Chapter Three: The premise

so, to recap: dasarath, has no sons, then has four sons, then by machinations of his wife, sends his awesome son ram to the jungle, in exile, and bharat is the ruler in his stead.

last time we saw Ram, he was wandering in the jungle sans shoes, [ :D :D ] with wifey Sita and bro Laxman. So, he roamed and roamed, saw a suitable place, and asked laxman to build a camp in this place. This place was a jungle named dandakaranya. In this jungle, they build camp at Panchwati. literally, this means:

panch : five
wati: banyan tree

so, this is a place with 5 banyans... this place is still there, in the old parts of the city of Nashik, where my parents live, there is still a place called panchawati and it has 5 banyan trees.

so, they build camp here, and start living. after a while, they strike up a routine, and are living quite happily.


meanwhile, in the kingdom of lanka, [this is the island in the south of india, the country of Sri Lanka or Ceylon] there is a brave and valliant king of the rakshas.. Ravana.

He was a very good king to his subjects, Lanka was enjoying its most prosperous period in this time. It was so rich, it was known [still called by some] as "sone ki lanka" that is , "the lanka of gold" or "the land of gold, called lanka" . he had defeated Kubera [who was the earlier ruler of Lanka, and Ravana's half brother], the God of wealth, in battle and had amassed his wealth and all that...

now, i will describe Ravana's family in some detail:

His wife: Mandodari, a dutiful and pious wife, who was as good and brave and a follower of dharma as her husband

His Son, Indrajeet: An extremely capable and skilled warrior who had learnt everything about warcraft there was to learn, he was also skilled in the magical techiniques...

His Brother, Kumbhakarana and Vibhishana

Now these Three brothers share a peculiar story... They had, during thier  youth, all prayed to the gods, for boons...

Kumbhakarna got the ability to sleep for long periods of time [quirky fellow]

Vibhishana was a devoted kinda guy, he asked for eternal servitude to the gods...

Ravana was very passionate and dedicated. In order to impress brahma, who he was praying to, he cut his head off, [curiously, a new one would appear everytime] and give the head up as offering to the god. This is he did 9 times, giving brahma 9 of his heads as offering.

Brahma was happy, came to offer him his boon.. Ravana asked for eternal life, which brahma said no to. But in lieu of this, he gave him the next best thing. He gave him a pouch of nectar, which he could keep in his navel and as long as it was there, he couldnt die. Also, brahma gave him back his 9 heads. So, Ravana has 10 heads, which is kinda symbolic of many things. That he was a learned fellow, very intelligent etc etc...

so, ram and ravana are quite similar to each other. both are strict adherents of Dharma, highly skilled and learned fellows. Only thing is, ram has control over his senses, being an incarnation of the gods. Ravana, being a rakshas, doesnt have that.


Now, back to ram/laxaman/sita.

There, In dandakaranya, there lived a rakshas lady named surpanakha. She saw these three people there and immediately fell in love with the handsome and comely Ram... Rakshas have the ability to shape-shift, and she made herself into a beautiful lady and tried to snare Ram with her charms.

Ram was amused at first and humoured her for a bit. Then he told her that he was already married to and loved Sita. She said she was a rakshas and would eat sita, after which she and ram could live happily ever after. by this point Ram was pretty much pissed off at her and told her to go to laxaman and he would take care of her.

Laxman also toyed with her a bit [seems a bit cruel, but her intentions werent pure either.. :P ] but when she talked about killing his beloved sis-in-law, he got angry, picked up a sword and chopped off her nose..

THe city i was talking about, where my parent live, is named Nashik. nose in sanskrit is 'Nasika' . so you see the connection there too...


it turns out, this buxom lass, this rakshas surpanakha, was actually ravana's sister. She ran to another brother of hers, Khara, who sent 7 of his rakshas friends to kill these humans...

ram and laxaman dispatched them easily. Then , seeing that 7 weren't enough, he got together 700,000 soldiers, leading them himself and went to fight ram . [talk about an over reaction! :) ]
But, as can be expected, they were all killed by our heroes as well...

this time, surpanakha went to ravana's court in lanka, and asked him to revenge the death of her brother and her nose. Ravana had an airplane, "pushpak vimana" whiich he used to immediately go to dandakaranya and see for himself who it was who did this to his sister.  One look at sita, and he was filled with lust for her. he immediately hatched a plan to make her his. He found an old rakshas, his maternal uncle, who he forced to imitate a beautiful golden deer and cavort near sita and run away..

as soon as she saw the deer, she fell in love with its coat, and she asked ram to get it. Ram, exasperated, asked laxaman to protect sita, and ran after the deer.

the deer [maareech] ran quick and fast, but after much running, ram killed it with an arrow. Maareech imitated ram's voice, shouting out "laxaman, help me please!"

sita, upon hearing this, quickly ran to laxaman, asking him to go and help his brother. laxaman was torn between his brother's orders and his sis-in-laws pleading. Although he had complete faith in his brother's ability to take care of himself, he had t relent to his sis-in-law's crying. He took up an arrow, marked out a circle around the hutment. This was a Laxaman rekha or "laxaman's line" . anyone who crosses the laxaman rekha, without laxaman's permisssion, is burnt by flames which come from the line.

so, thus protected, he goes in search of his brother. Ravana, hiding in the forest nearby, is happy that everything is going according to plan , and, in the guise of a mendicant, approaches sita's hut.
He asks for alms, and she says, i will keep the stuff outside, you come and pick it up.

in india, mendicants are highly respected people and people dare'nt disrespect them .

Ravana [as a mendicant] flew into a mock rage and said how dare you disrespect me and say such a thing.

afraid of committing a sin, she rushed out of her hut, ventured to the edge of the line and offered him alms and food.

seizing the opportunity to seize her, ravana pounced on her and kidnapped her. He put her onto his airplane and flew away to lanka...

meanwhile, laxaman reached Ram and both, seeing maareech was the deer [rakshas turn to the original form on their death] realized it was a trap and rushed back to their hut. seeing the signs of an obvious kidnalpping, they were stricken with sorrow....

they immediately rushed out in all directions, looking for Sita.

after some time, they saw a hideous vulture lying on the ground. In his grief stricken state, ram assumed this was the vile creature who had taken his sita. he drew his arrow to the vulture and told him to tell all, at the pain of death.

The Vulture, it turned out, was the brother of the lord of vultures. He was Jatayu, an old friend of Dasarath, Ram's father. He saw ravana making away with sita and tried valiantly to fight him and rescue the damsel in distress. Ravana cut away his wings in the battle and Jatayu fell to the ground. Ram, sorry for assuming this noble creature had done him wrong, gave him some water to drink and made sure his last minutes would be in a safe and comfortable position.

so now, i we are at a position where ram knows ravana has kidnapped his wife, and in the next chapter he will mount a rescue mission...

ciao!

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