is she powerful 1

[Guest guest]

Dear srivaishNava perunthagaiyeer,

 

Ms. Jyothsna asked this beautiful question in raama bhakthi list.

Quote

RaamaBhakthi on behalf of jyothsna lakshmi

[jyothsna_music]

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 8:07 PM

raamabhakthi

[RaamaBhakthi] question

Jai shri Ram Dear learned members....

while i was going through sundarakanda i had a doubt' why did not Seetha kill

Ravana for the deed he did ? Is she not as powerful as Satyabhama? or is she

also afraid to face Ravana?

what are the reasons why she could not save herself and reach her Lord feet

Shri Ramachandra*? Regards Jyothsna

- unquote.

 

I was awaiting more knowledgeable in the list to give an answer. Since not much

came out as answer to this question, I took upon myself to speculate what comes

to my mind as answer.

 

Now first part of the question - Seethaa - is she not powerful as sathya bhaama?

 

I will give my points regarding seetha first. I will add points about sathya

bhaamaa later. To answer whether seethaa - is she not powerful?

 

Yes. She is powerful enough. As an young girl, seethaa was powerful enough to

lift, hold, or push the siva dhanus - siva's bow just like that.

 

This bow is so easily handled by seethaa, which was

a. supposed to be handled by 300 people as stated herein,

b. brought by 5000 strongly built men as described in slokam of vaalmeeki,

c. 60000 people as said by poet kamban.

[we will see quotes on these in next post]

 

That amply proves her "power".

 

To get that portion of story - which is already covered by me in post 3 of my

article titled "bow story".

 

- quote

Devarata got Shiva's bow and he kept it in the palace as a worshippable object.

In this way it was coming down in the family, and this Janaka we are dealing

with was also worshipping the bow. He did not have any children, so they

suggested to him to do a hala-yajna. You take a plough and draw a line around

the palace. When you move the plough, it will get stuck in the mud, and every

time it gets stuck you have to donate gold to the priests. And every movement

you make it will get stuck, so you have to give gold. When all the Brahmins are

satisfied, you move it again and when it gets stuck you have to give more gold.

In this way you are giving a lot of charity and you are getting a lot of

blessings so you will get children.

 

So Janaka was doing this, moving the plough and giving gold. In one place it got

stuck, and after giving all the gold, still the plough would not move on. "There

must be some big rock there," everybody said, so they dug and found a box. And

inside the box was a baby, a female baby, and she looked just like Laksmi. She

was known as Janaki, the daughter of Janaka, and she grew up in the palace.

 

She was six years old. Janaka had a brother, and he had three daughters. So

these four daughters were running around and playing at the palace. Once they

made a stick with a hook on it to take some flowers from the trees. So Janaki

was trying to get it, but somehow or other there was a mystic tree there, and

whenever she reached up, it grew more. Somebody was in that tree. So Janaki

could not get it and she was the only daughter of the emperor, so she was very

frustrated. "I want to get it, and I know what I will use to get it." She ran

into the puja room, and in there was this big bow inside a box. She opened the

box and took the bow in her hands, and then she walked outside with the bow.

When the soldiers saw her they all swooned. 300 people were supposed to push the

cart, and this little girl was holding the bow. Whoever was able to stay

conscious ran to Janaka and said, "Do you know what's happening? Your little

girl is holding Lord Shiva's bow!"

 

"Send this man to the doctor," Janaka said. "There's something wrong with his

head."

 

Then another lady came and said, "Yes, yes, it's true! And if you want to see it

come quickly.""What's wrong with these people?" Janaka said. Then he called his

doctor. "Supply 1000 lemons to the palace. And put at least 500 lemons on these

people's heads, to cool them down." And then Janaka's minister came running and

said, "No, it is no joke. I just saw it myself."

 

This time Janaka said, "It must be true," so he came running, and the last thing

he saw was Janaki lifting the bow into the box. Then she came towards Janaka as

if she had done nothing. When questioned by Janaka, she innocently said that she

had performed no great task. But Janaka had seen it happen, and he went to his

ministers and said, "My daughter must be haunted by some big brahma-rakshasa

ghost, more powerful than Lord Shiva. Otherwise how is it possible that she is

able to lift it?" So then the ministers thought over it and said, "Janaka, we

think that your daughter is Maha-laksmi. From all the symptoms of her bodily

features, we can understand that she is none other than Laksmi. And if she is

Laksmi, then naturally her Lord is Narayana. Now your problem is, how are you

going to get Narayana to marry her? There is no Narayana here."

 

Then Janaka came up with an idea. He said, "Anyone who can take this bow and

string it will marry my daughter." All the ministers laughed. They said, "In

this way your daughter is going to remain unmarried. Because who on this earth

has the strength to do this?"

 

Janaka said, "Narayana obviously knows that Lakshmi is here. He is not going to

leave her unmarried. She is not going to take some woman sannyasa or anything.

No. Narayana must come here." So everyone was shocked. They were saying, "What

is this man doing? This is as good as saying, `No one can marry my daughter." -

unquote.

 

So physical prowess - seetha is powerful enough even as a child. In front of

raavana while she is having a conversation in sundhara khaaNdam - seethaa is of

37 or 38 years of age - a women fully grown as an adult [see raama's age

articles by me and smt. jayasree saranathan].

 

We will continue more on this topic is seethaa powerful capable or not.

 

Dhasan

Vasudevan MG