Fwd: rama's food habits 1

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Respected moderator swamin

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MGV---------- Forwarded message ----------MG Vasudevan <vasudevanmgSep 25, 2007 11:28 AM

rama's food habits 1oppiliappan <oppiliappan >, tiruvenkatam <tiruvenkatam

>,

Dear sri vaishNava perunthagaiyeer,

 

Recently I read a mail in ramanuja groups from Sri Dheepak that he was shocked to read about the food habits of raama. I thought, I would write a series on this and our respected sriman anbil swamy also blessed me saying 'please go ahead'.

 

The topic will be only on raama's food habits. And where all sage vaalmeeki touches raama eating or he offers food to somebody is the focal point in this series. So, if I miss something in between, learned bhaagavathaas can add or supplement the points and /or point out the missing links.

 

I will divide the contents into 4 parts thus --

 

raama the child and his growing up. proceed with his 12 years enjoyment of life at ayOdhyaa, prior to proposal for coronation

then 14 years of forest life,

return to ayOdhyaa, coronation and later part of life.

Another thing, let me make it clear, at the beginning itself, that this series is not to bring in any new controversy. Somebody should not raise a point - why you want to project Lord raama in bad taste - as a meat eater etc. This is in particular from friends who have read lot about " NO MEAT EATING " as a dictat.

 

For " Sri raama is a non-vegetarian " is already a concluded matter.

May be 2 or 3 years back, HH chinna jeeyar swamy in JET replied in affirmative when some body asked whether raama is a non-vegetarian.

 

Yet another point is, there is nothing to get 'offended' or shocked or become 'thaamasic', 'raajasic' etc on this meat eating by raama, for in each yugam, the 'yuga dharmam' varies.

 

As stated in srimadh bhaagavatham, the dharmam stands

 

on 4 legs in sathya yugam or kritha yugam on 3 legs in next thrEthaa,

on 2 in dhvaapara

on 1 in kali yugam, the present one.

 

So rules of 'dharmam' in one yugam CANNOT be applied in another yugam in toto.

 

Somebody may really get 'shocked' when I say this - in that sage agasthya episode, goat meat [vaathaapi turned as a goat] is offered in sraardham by vaathaapi's brother, and the 'bhOkthaa braahmaNaas' were killed once they have finished their food. Because the goat is vaathaapi, the raakshasa, and his brother knew the sanjeevani manthram to call him back alive, from that goat meat eaten by these braahmaNaas. [Details later]

 

So eating meat in earlier yugams, or serving meat in sraardhams, that too by braahmaNaas and / or kshathriyaas, is not considered as an 'adharmic' thing. May be in kali yugam meat eating is considered not advisable.

 

Now let us get on with the subject.

 

While starting the kaavyam, the aadhi kavi vaalmeeki asked 16 points to sage naaradha and in reply that 'naaradha guru swamy' describes raama in many epithets - [sri 'thyaagaraaja' places naaradha with respect, - as above - in his krithi in raagam dhurbaar] – out of those, 5 points are worth considering here on this topic.

 

Those 5 are

 

dhruDa vratha: = self determined neethimaan = moralist vas ee: = controller of vices, senses or viles [or can be said as va

sya: = self controlled] dharmasya pari rakshithaa = guards in entirety the probity sarva saasthra arthha thathvagna: =knower of meaning and essence of all scriptures

Of course some more are also there but we will restrict with these.

 

Food habits and these five – how they are connected is the next question.

That we will start to analyse in next post

 

Dhasan

Vasudevan m.g.-- Vasudevan MG -- Vasudevan MG