desire 14

[Guest guest]

Dear sri vaishNava perunthagaiyeer,

 

We saw in the previous post, how sugreeva neglected his duty and

indulged in kaamam with his 'got back' wife and 'newly obtained' wife

thaaraa [formerly his brother's wife]. On thaara being remarried by

sugreeva, an explanatory note in valmikiramayan.net website is

interesting and I am sharing that with you all.

 

Quote--

Can a Hindu woman remarry? Yes she can, and should.

 

nashTE mruthEe pravrajE kleebE cha pathithE thathhaa |

panchasthu~aapasthsu pathih anyE vidheeyathE||

'a husband, if lost, dead, took sanyaas, deserted, becomes eunuch, in

these five situations another husband is ordained...'

 

There are some more rulings besides this. A woman is at liberty to

remarry under 'certain' circumstances.

 

It appears that Thaaraa is given equally to Vaali and Sugreeva by

gods, like Dhraupadhi to PaaNdavaas. But in such wife-sharing system,

some strict rules are to be observed like time, months, years, turns

etc., as has been done by PaaNdavaas. That is lacking with Vaali.

Vaali's thinking is that Sugreeva wants Thaaraa more than Kishkindha,

so Vaali did not kill Sugreeva but chased him away from Kishkindha,

presuming the grudging of Sugreeva is too trivial.

 

The actual cause of rivalry between these two is Thaaraa. But this

cannot be over stated. Sugreeva informs Raama while narrating episode

of Dhundhubhi, 'due to some woman there is a rivalry'. Sugreeva too

does not overstate this. This is as per Govindaraja commentary.

Unquote —

 

Presently I am trying to locate the exact slokams for which

govindaraja has commentary like this – though I have searched in

portions like

 

• baala kaandam sargam wherein dhEvaas were creating vaanaras as their amsams,

 

• in amrutha mathanam portion wherein it is stated lot of apsaras were

created from ocean,

 

[for thaara is also said to be obtained while churning the milk ocean.

And as soon as she came out, both sushENa and vaali caught hold of her

because of her beauty – sushEna took her left hand, and vaali took her

right hand. According to saasthram who takes a lady by right hand is

treated as her husband and who takes her left hand is treated as

father. Also note this sushENa is not the doctor appearing in war

scene]

 

• the dhundhubhi portion as stated above. [i am able to refer this

slokam, not the commentary given above in this portion]

 

May be it is elsewhere. Once I locate that reference, I will come back

to you all.

 

Continuing, our main topic, hanuman when he meets his king sugreeva,

says [or warns]

 

santhyajya sarva karmaaNi mithraartham yO na varthathE |

sambhramaath hi krutha uthsaahah sah anarthEna avarudhyathE || 4-29-13

 

meaning: Adversity thwarts him who comports himself with

overenthusiasm only in self-indulgences, and who does not

expeditiously strive for the sake of his friend leaving off all other

activities of self-indulgence.

 

Point: Thus here Hanumaan, the minister, is indirectly reprimanding

Sugreeva for his lascivious way of living forgetting Rama's work.

 

thath idham mithra kaaryam nah kaala atheetham arindhama |

kriyathaam raaghavasya Ethath vaidhEhyaah parimaargaNam || 4-29-15

 

meaning: Hanumaan continues, " Hence, the task of our friend is

delayed, oh, enemy-destroyer, searching for VaidhEhi is Raaghava's

mission and let it be done " .

 

But see what sugreeva did – he deputed his army commander neelan to

assemble the monkeys in large numbers and he continued his kaamam

related activities. So it lead to a communication gap for the delay

irritated raama and he sent lakshmaNa to give a note of reminder as

well warning that 'that asthram of raama' which killed vaali is still

available with raama.

 

hareen cha vridhdhaan upayaathu sa angadhO

bhavaan mama aajnaam adhikrithya nischitham |

ithi vyavasthaam hari pungava eesvarO

vidhaaya vEshma pravivEsa veeryavaan || 4-29-33

 

meaning: Sugreeva ordered hanumaan, " associated with Angadha you shall

approach elderly monkeys like Jambavaan and others, according to my

decision and authorised by my order " . Thus, Sugreeva, the king of best

monkeys on assigning the set-up, and ordering Neelan, the Commander of

Vaanara forces, that glorious Sugreeva re-entered his palace-chambers.

[4-29-33]

the note in website reads: Here it is said that Sugreeva re-entered

his palace-chambers. This is due to the impulsive nature towards his

sensual gratifications. He should have realised that he shall approach

Raama to report the arrangements made, or at least he should have

asked Hanumaan to inform Raama about these orders to Neelan. Without

doing either of them, he re-entered the palace-chambers by which

Hanumaan has landed into a dilemma. Hanumaan cannot go to Raama on his

own for he is a minister of Sugreeva and inform about the orders of

Sugreeva to Neelan without the permission of the king, namely

Sugreeva, nor as a minister, he can persuade Sugreeva to go to Raama

to report the actions taken by monkey forces to search Seethaa. In

reality, monkey forces are being gathered, but that information is not

passed on to Raama. This communication gap creates a furious emotion

in Raama and he bids Lakshmana to go to Kishkindha and take Sugreeva

to task, and even Lakshmana jumps on Sugreeva like a firebrand.

[which was dealt by MGV in roles of lakshmana series].

So it is the kaamam which was to the fore in mind of sugreeva, and

that led to the unsavoury scene of lakshmaNa coming quite hot

tempered. It is not only forgetting the duty, creation of a

communication gap, all led to the bad situation.

 

Is it not a great lesson for us to learn – though some action is

already taken, may be not on our own but on some good counselling, we,

must, have the action taken, communicated to concerned [or interested

parties].

 

We will continue in next post

 

Dhasan

 

 

--

Vasudevan MG