lakshmana's sleep

[Guest guest]

Dear SrivaishNava perunthagaiyeer,

Few days back I raised the question on lakshmaNa – did he not sleep during the 14 years of raama's vanavaasam. Can somebody provide reference to that. But here is vaalmeeki's slokam to the contrary - where lakshmaNa is woken up by raama.

atha raathryaam vyatheethaayaam avasuptham anantharam |

prabOdhayaam aasa sanai: lakshmaNam raghu nandhana: || 2-56-1

 

meaning: Then, Raama gently woke up LakshmaNa when the night was passing away, who was sleeping uninterruptedly during the night.

 

On this the comment given by 'thilakam' author is -

"athha avasuptham svaprabODha anantharam api eeshath suptham -- EthEna chathurdhasa varsha paryantham lakshmaNa: svaapaheenah anaahaarah cha ithi lOka pravaadhah apaastha: "

 

rough translation of this is --

 

"after he woke up [raama] in the morning, he made the sleep of lakshmaNa to go away [– means woke up] – by this the theory of - for 14 years lakshmaNa did not sleep or did not eat -- is discarded [or set aside or is thrown off ]

 

- or we can take as NOT CORRECT.

 

sa suptha: samayE bhraathraa lakshmaNa: prathibOdhitha: |

jahou nidhraam cha thandhreem cha prasaktham cha pathhi sramam || 2-56-3

 

meaning: That Lakshmana who was sleeping, being woken up by his brother at the right moment, had relinquished sleep, sloth and strain which resulted on the way.

 

I also know such versions do float, but above are the vaalmeeki slokams which are positive on that lakshmaNa slept and raama did wake him up.

 

Also in the mahiravaNa story - raama and lakshmaNa were sleeping in the night of that day when raavaNa was asked to go and come back fresh for fighting next day. At that sleeping time only mahiravaNa lifted both and taken the two to paathaaLa lokam and hanumaan with his 5 faces – as panchamukha anchanEya - fought and killed mahi raavaNa and brought back raama and lakshmaNa to the battle field from paathaaLa lokam.

 

So there again this '14 years lakshmaNa did not sleep' theory is pooh poohed. – why because 14 years gets completed only when raama meets bharatha.

 

Dhasan Vasudevan MG