Srimad Ramayana Tatthva Deepika - Ba:la Ka:nda (8)

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Jai Srimannarayana!

Sri Jeeyar Thiruvadigale Saranam!

 

 

SriRama’s second friend is Sugreeva. SriRama goes

to him not as a friend but approaches him as a seeker

of protection. Lakshmana says:

 

" Sugreevam saranam gathaha

Sugreevam na:tha michchathi "

 

When Lakshmana says that SriRama sought Sugreeva’s

protection and accepted him as his prabhu, SriRama

agrees to it. Later SriRama takes the oath of

friendship with Sugreeva before the god of fire as

witness(agni-sakshi) and observes:

 

“Aekam duhkham sukham chanou”

 

oneness in joy and grief with his friend. Va:li was

Sugreeva’s brother and rival. As Vali troubled and

harassed Sugreeva, SriRama also regarded him as his

opponent and killed him from behind a tree unmindful

of all the blame he received from Vali and the

world. After Vali’s death when Sugreeva grieved for

the demise of his brother, SriRama too grieved and shed

tears.

" sanja:tha bha:shpaha paravi:rahantha: "

One who finishes valiant , powerful enemies in the

war had shed tears. When Sugreeva hated Va:li He

too hated him. When sugreeva mourned for vali's death

SriRama too was grief-stricken. His closeness with

Sugreeva is astonishing. On reaching Lanka, seeing

Ra:vana standing on the terrace of a palace from the

outer reaches of the city , Sugreeva who was standing

beside SriRama, felt unbearable and leapt onto him all

of a sudden, without even asking SriRamachandra. He

wrestled with Ravana for sometime, came back and

stood beside SriRama again. SriRama tells Sugreeva:

 

“sugri:va! thvaya kinchith sama:panne: kim ka:ryam

si:thaya: mama?”

“If anything had happened to you, of what use is

Seetha to me?” The love and affection of SriRama on

Sugreeva is obvious in these words. His love for

him made Him just say, “if anything had happened

!”instead of actually saying ‘had you been killed’.

He could not utter those inauspicious words. Such

was SriRama’s incessant love for His friend who

was in no way comparable to Him by birth or

knowledge or lineage. That is the ‘sausi:lyam’

of SriRamachandra.

 

Vibheeshana, a demon, who was the brother of Ravana

that abducted Seetha was accepted by SriRama for

his mere words, “ra:ghavam saranam gathaha”.

SriRama granted him sarana:gathi though nobody

agreed. SriRama loved him not like a friend but

regarded him as his own brother. Thus in SriRamayana

SriRama’s dear friends were a tribal boat man,

a monkey that in forest and a demon with a different

attitude. In having them as His friends, His guna of

sausi:lya shone very brightly. Our elders mention

that sausi:lya is only the guna. This is the most

important attribute for a human being:

 

“gunyathe: a:varthyathe: punaha punaha ithi gunaha”.

 

A quality is that which is praised by all again

and again. SriRama as the incarnation of the lord

shone as a perfect human being in this world just

because of this chief attribute.

 

Lord Srimannarayana has taken birth as SriRama but

did not exhibit His Godliness (parathva). He carried

on as an ordinary human and exemplified in that. But

Va:lmiki’s question is “Who is that MAN in this

world now, who actually possesses ‘parathvam’”?

So the question “who is the gunavan” pertains to

the God too. He is omnipresent. That is His quality.

To support everyone and everything (de:va, manushya,

thiryak, stha:vara) both from inside and outside

is parathva. By asking “who is the gunavan”

Va:lmiki is actually questioning about parathvam.

Though parama:thma has innumerable attributes

like strength, knowledge etc., people who approach

Him and surrender to Him think sausi:lyam as His

foremost attribute. Hence sausi:lyam can be

regarded as the gunam. Parathva can be determined

by this quality only. Thus this is the most

important quality of all human beings too!

 

 

 

To be continued...

 

Jai Srimannarayana!

Ramanujamma Mudumbai

 

 

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ramanuja dasi

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