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