The Long March-1

[Guest guest]

Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri

Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

 

The Long March

 

All of us are used to driving vehicles. The rich go by cars, the not

so rich by automotive two-wheelers and others by cycle. In this day

and age, no one walks to his or her destination, irrespective of how

near or far it is. While this applies to commuting to and from

one’s workplace, when travel involves long distances, we use

trains, buses and aeroplanes, as suits the pocket and occasion. Here

too, none thinks of walking the distance. We adopt walking only as a

form of exercise, what the doctor prescribed, and adhere to the ritual

with greater faith and consistence than even to Sandhyavandanam. So

accustomed have we become to modern conveniences, that no one

consciously chooses walking as a mode of covering distances, long or

short, except a few politicians, who resort to the gimmick of a

“pada yAtrA”.

 

Such being the case, can you imagine anyone choosing to traverse the

length and breadth of our BhArata VarshA on foot? In the case of this

person, there was absolutely no compulsion to walk—having been

born in an exalted and extremely rich family, it would have been

perfectly natural for this person to have traversed the long distance

He had to cover, through a much more comfortable mode of travel,

behoving His status and position. Yet, notwithstanding all this, He

chose to walk. And the walk carried Him not over smooth roads and

paved paths, but over little-traversed jungle trails, strewn with

thorns and pebbles. In fact, at many a place, He had to have the

bushes and overgrowth cleared and a new trail created. And unlike in

the case of our politicians undertaking “pada yAtrA”,

there was no accompanying crowd of admirers in His case, making every

step easy for Him. And this gentleman undertook such long marches not

once, but twice, once when He was hardly into His teens and another

when He was a young man.

 

Sri Rama’s life and times have been a shining model for human

emulation, for countless millennia past and would continue to be a

guiding beacon for posterity. Every word, every minor gesture, every

action of this paragon of virtues inspires and enchants us beyond

measure. His conduct during extremely adverse circumstances sets the

standard for human behaviour, an exemplar in every way.

 

In the current piece, we shall look closely at the two long journeys He undertook on foot.

 

The first of these long marches is occasioned when Sage Visvamitra

seeks the assistance of Rama, who is a mere infant then, not even out

of His teens, for the protection of yagyas against terrifying

rAkshasAs. When Dasaratha agrees with reluctance to part with Sri

Rama, how does the Rishi take the boy to his abode at SiddhAshramam?

One would have expected that the precious Prince of Ayodhya would

have travelled by a glorious chariot, drawn by the finest of horses,

covering the distance in a jiffy.

 

This, however, was not to be. Visvamitra, the hard-hearted Maharshi,

took the Prince by foot! Akin to the agony experienced by Sri

Nammazhwar over Sri Krishna, the Parabrahmam, being beaten up by

Gopis for stealing butter (“Ayar kozhundAi avarAl pudai uNNum

en MAya PirAn”), similar to the fury felt by Sri Tirumangai

Mannan over the abuse hurled by unlettered GOpis at the ParamAtma Sri

Krishna (“veNNai uNdAn ivan endru Esa nindra emperumAn”),

we too are quite angry at Visvamitra, for having made the Prince walk

the entire distance between Ayodhya and Mithila. And it was not as if

there were no good roads between the cities Ayodhya and Mithila,

preventing travel by chariot, for we hear of Dasaratha reaching

Mithila by chariot for the divine wedding (“EtE dvijA: prayAntu

agrE syandanam yOjayasva mE”). The minimum the Maharshi could

have done was to ask Sri Raghava to ride horseback, as all the three

(Visvamitra, Rama and Lakshmana) were expert riders.

 

Our heart goes out to the delicate Prince, who, though hitherto

unaccustomed to walk except on a path strewn with flowers, had to

traverse great distances on foot, crossing hard jungle paths, making

His already delicate red feet redder with strain. It is these

delicate tiruvadis, massaged gently by Sridevi and Bhoodevi, which

traversed hill and dale. Howe many times would hidden roots and

wayside boulders have made Him trip and stumble? What an amount of

heat the rocky terrain must have radiated, making the delicate Prince

sweaty and fatigued? And how severely the overhead Sun must have

blazed, making the black tirumEni blacker still? The more we think

of the episode, the angrier we feel with the Maharshi for having made

Chakkravartthi Tirumagan cover the long distance by foot.

 

And when Sri Rama closes His eyes at night for getting some much-

needed sleep at last, fatigued by the long walks during day, within

what seemed to be mere seconds, Visvamitra wakes Him up promptly at

sunrise—“utthishtta nara sArdoola!”. What a

heartless person this Visvamitra must have been! And we would perhaps

never pardon him for this unforgivable offence, but for his role in

bringing the divine couple together. The magnitude of

Visvamitra’s insensitivity becomes clear, when we consider the

fact that the distance between Ayodhya and Mithila was 225 miles or

360 kilometres. Imagine a couple of infants, barely into their teens

and totally unused to the inhospitable jungle environs, traversing

this distance on foot! One irreverent thought is that the Lord would

not perhaps have undergone all this trouble, but for the priceless

prize of Piratti, which lay at the end of the arduous journey.

 

During the first pada yAtra, the trio appear to have left Ayodhya,

travelled along the right bank of the SarayU river, wended their way

southeast and reached KAmAshramam, located to the west of the

confluence of the SarayU and the Ganga (in the present Ballia

District of Uttar Pradesh State). Visvamitra tells the curious Rama

that the SarayU had its origins in Mount Kailash and, reaching the

plains, formed a garland around Ayodhya. The place where the ogress

TAtakA was felled by Rama is thought to be located in the ShAhAbAd

district of U.P. From here, the trio appear to have travelled to the

SiddhAshramam (located in the present day Buxar Dist.), where

Visvamitra performs his yAga and which is protected and brought to

unhindered completion by the Princes of Ayodhya. After completion of

the yAga, Visvamitra leads the unprotesting Princes to Mithila,

crossing the Sone and Ganga rivers near the present-day Patna.

(A detailed account of the locations and landmarks lying along Sri

Rama’s path is to be found in Sri V.D. Ramaswamy

Iyengar’s informative work “RAma pAda yAtrA”).

 

In case some readers are upset over my remarks critical of Visvamitra

for having made Chakravartthi Tirumagan walk the long distance, I can

draw comfort from the comments of Raja Sumati, whose capital the trio

visit en route to Mithila. Finding the Princes beautiful beyond

description and resembling celestials, the King wonders how these

exalted and enchanting youth were travelling on foot. While finding

the gait of Sri Rama and Lakshmana majestic and regal, the King, in

an implied criticism of the Maharshi’s action, wonders why such

scions of royalty were travelling on foot. The following slokas of Sri

Valmiki portray his own anguish in describing the phenomenon-

 

“imou kumArou bhadram tE! DEva tulya parAkramou

Gaja simha gatee veerou sArdoola vrishabhOpamou

Padma patra visAlAkshou khadga tooNee dhanur dharou

Asvinou iva roopENa samupastthita youvanou

Yadricchayaiva gAm prAptou dEvalOkAt iva amarou

Katham padbhyam iha prAptou kimarttham kasya vA MunE!”

 

The long march appears to have conferred a bonus benefit on everyone

in the path of the trio—all were treated to the beautiful and

stately gait of the Princes, resembling that of the Lion, Elephant,

Tiger and the virile Bull, by turns. Blessed indeed were those eyes,

which had the incredible good fortune of witnessing the Lord’s

majestic progress. Sri Valmiki says that Sri Dasaratha used to ask

Sri Rama to come to him and the moment the boy had reached his

(DasarathA’s) side, to ask Him to go back. The only motive

behind this parading was to have an enthralling eyeful of the way the

Prince walked. That these were not the biased impressions of a doting

father, but were shared by the world at large, is borne out by King

Sumathi’s tribute. Another person to benefit from the

Lord’s long walk was Ahalya, who would have remained an inert

stone, but for Sri Rama’s entry into the Gouthama Ashramam, en

route to Mithila. It was the sanctifying dust from Sri Rama’s

tiruvadi that restored to the Rishi patnI her original form and

beauty.

 

--To be continued—

 

Srimate Sri LakshmInrisimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri

Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

 

dasan, sadagopan