Musings on "Category B"

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srimathe lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNe namaha

sri vedanta desika guravE namaha

 

Dear bhAgavatOttamAs,

 

We have seen that the issues related to "Category B" revolve around the

Jatayu incident in Ramayana as described in the "Raghuveera gadyam" on which

Sriman Sadagopan is presently and concurrently posting a series on this list

and which soon will lead us all to the great climax in the "yUddha KAndam".

 

I am sorry to be still lagging behind in the "aranyA-kAndam" but Swami

Desikan has simply held me captive in the deep and lush "forests" of his

poetic empire! After all he is a "simham"(lion) of sorts and what else can

one expect!!!

 

Mulling on the Jatayu incident now, however, takes me momentarily away from

Swami Desikan and to a more contemporary person who too,as some of you may

be aware, was a great, though rather quirky, "rasika" of the Srimad

Ramayana. He was the "silver-tongued" (only silence is golden!) Right

Honourable Sir V.S.Srinivasa Sastry, the great educationist and colleague of

giants like C.Rajagopalachari and Sir.C.P.Ramaswamy Iyer.

 

Sometime in the '40s or 50's, I think, Sri.Sastry gave a series of

"lectures" on the Ramayana at the Sanskrit College, Madras. The lectures in

scintillating English were then collected and put together in a book

entitled,"Lectures on the Ramayana by Sir.V.S.Srinivasa Sastry". Some of you

'bhAgavatOttamAs' may have already read the book. When I was a university

student myself the book was one of my earliest and serious introductions to

the 'Ramayana'.

 

Sastry's lectures on the 'Ramayana' were a little different from

conventional approaches to the holy epic. He stated in his lectures that he

was departing from convention not out of any intellectual or spiritual

arrogance but because, for a change, he wanted to approach the Ramayana as a

simple document of the finest "human qualities" ever known to man and which

were so fully and gloriously personified by Lord Rama. Sastry did not

attempt to treat the Ramayana of Valmiki as a religious text of the Hindu faith.

 

In the climate of the '40's and 50's this "maverick" stance of Sastry seems

to have ruffled,and even inflamed, the sentiments of many in the strict

brahminical orthodoxy and cognoscenti of those times.

 

Be that all as it may, I personally find Sastry's lectures eminently lucid

and enlightening. The Rt.Hon'ble has a way of etching and chisseling out, in

sharp, glinting and magnificent portraits of euphonic English prose, the

supreme "human qualities" resident in the character of Lord Rama. And that

is what makes Sastry's lectures worthy of attention and of our gratitude to

a great scholar like him.

 

Now Sastry devoted quite some attention to the Jatayu episode in his

lectures. My own musings, dear bhAgavatOttamAs", in the postings to follow

this one, are an echo of the "Sastry Approach" which I personally think is

very appropriate to adopt while examining the "Category B" questions we have

raised :

 

A. Did the Lord grant "mOksha" to Jatayu in return for the bird having

valiantly resisted Ravana's abduction of "pirAtti" OR,

 

B. Did Jatayu get "mOksha" on the strength of its status as a heroic martyr

for "dharma".

 

Having clearly defined the approach I am going to take, I can now assume

having your leave, dear members, to proceed in my future postings to

scrutinize the above motions of debate.

 

srimathe srivan satagopa sri narayana yathindra mahadesikaya namaha

 

sudarshan

srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNE namaha

sri vedanta desika guravE namaha