Man or God

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Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

 

Man or God?

The world today is full of Godmen. While many are genuine and truly guide their

followers through the minefield of Samsara without any expectation of quid pro

quo, there are many others, who are but pseudo-gurus, adopting Spirituality as

an occupation, like any other commercial activity. They profess to teach you

anything from mere deep breathing exercises to how to realise God. While the

Upanishads prescribe a mere 32 paths for God-realisation, it would appear from

the statements of these Godmen, that the paths to Liberation can be tailored to

suit individual tastes, predilections and fancies. While rigorous discipline is

prescribed by the Scripture for climbing even the very first step on the lofty

mountain of MOksha, these mystics tell us that it is just a lap ahead,

reassuring us that we need give up none of our creature comforts for achieving

this exalted goal. Funnily, many of them have quite a rigid fee structure for

their " Professional Services " , indicating how altruistic their efforts are. If

it is a ten-day course of PrANAyAma (which is a part of our daily

Sandhyavandanam, if only we care to do it properly), the compensation expected

is around Rs.1000 per head. For the comprehensive course on the

" Art of Living " , much more is charged. How wonderful! To think that at a cost of

a mere thousand or two, we are able to acquire wisdom which would stand us well

in this world and also provide us a passport to Paradise! It would appear that

the essential qualifications for becoming a modern Guru are-sufficient anonymity

of background, a flowing beard (preferably white), saffron robes (silky and

shiny), a smattering of Sanskrit but facility in English, with ability to quote

long and unintelligible scriptural (?) passages at the drop of a hat, in and out

of context and an endless repertoire of funny stories with a " message " . And, in

all humility, these " Guru " s don't call themselves divine, but simply do not

protest when their followers ascribe divinity to them.

 

This is not intended to be a tirade against Godmen, but to emphasise that while

mere Men with feet of clay are trying to act as Gods, there was a God, in fact

the God of all Gods, who insisted that He was a mere mortal and refused all

attempts to glorify His divinity. He protested vehemently that He was a man, the

son of another man, with absolutely nothing special about Him. And He prayed to

Gods much inferior to Him, for attaining something, which He Himself could have

achieved in a trice effortlessly, to establish His humanity.

 

After Sri Janaki enters the fire to prove Her chastity, all the exalted deities

including BrahmA, RudrA, Indra et al assemble at the site, to request Sri Rama

to accept the unblemished Sita. On the occasion, the Devatas sing the praise of

Sri Rama in unison, extolling Him as the Supreme Power, the Ultimate. " You are

indeed the Creator of all the worlds, the most exalted among all deities. You

are indeed the repository of all wisdom and virtue and it is You who are seen

constant and unchanging, at the beginning and end of all creation. " Here are the

sweet words of praise from the Devas-

 

" KartA sarvasya lOkasya shrEshttO gnAnavatAm vara: "

" trayANAm hi lOkAnAm Adi karta svayam Prabhu: "

" antE cha Adou cha lOkAnAm drisyasE tvam Parantapa! "

 

Unmoved by all this adulation by one exalted deity after another, Sri Rama

stands on the ground, His palms folded in supplication, and tells the celestials

that He considers Himself to be a mere man, the son of Dasaratha-

" AtmAnam mAnusham manyE, RAmam DasarathAtmajam "

 

It is this attitude of Sri Raghava that endears Him to us all the more. Being

the Parabrahmam, He could very well have accomplished the avowed mission of

eliminating Rakshasas, through His mere Will, without having to be born to

Kousalya after a twelve-month imprisonment in the human womb, trekking all the

jungle trails behind the heartless VisvAmitra who made the Paramapurusha walk

mile after mile in dense and inhospitable forests, accepting uncomplainingly a

fourteen-year exile in the terrifying jungle in lieu of a princely life at

Ayodhya, cohorting with all manner of people including monkeys and bears,

stoically bearing the unbearable pain of separation from the Lokamata whom He

had pledged never to be parted from, having to wage a virulent war against the

most terrible of Rakshasas for reclaiming His innocent and suffering Consort.

All these could have been accomplished merely by the Lord deciding that it be

so- " TatthAstu " -but, instead, He chose to be born among us mortals, to share our

pain and pleasure, enthralling us with His soulabhyam, souseelyam, and

innumerable other auspicious attributes.

 

And after doing all this, He meekly tells BrahmA and Rudra, " I consider myself a

mere man, the son of Dasaratha " . In this world of people who are forever

projecting themselves in a larger-than-life mode, here is an entity who was the

Supreme Lord, the incomparable and immaculate being beyond contemplation, who

refuses to put on airs and chooses to adhere absolutely to the character He has

adopted as a mortal.

 

BrahmA is so moved by the sight of the Parabhrahmam standing on the ground with

palms folded in supplication, that he bursts into a lengthy adulation, a

compilation sweet to the ear and the tongue, which is to be found in the 120th

Sarga of the Yuddha Kandam.

 

However clear Sri Rama might have been about His role as a man, there appear to

be contradictions in how He perceived Himself and how others viewed Him.

Further, some of His acts during the Ramavatara too cast a doubt as to His real

nature and His insistence on being a human being.

 

In the introductory chapter of Srimad Ramayana, Sri Valmiki's question to Sri

Narada, which forms the genesis for the great Epic, is worth analysis. Sri

Valmiki lists sixteen glorious guNAs and seeks to know from Narada as to which

human being is endowed with all of them. And Sri Valmiki is very specific about

a Man- " tvam samartthOsi gyAtum Evam vidham naram " -not a God or even a demigod.

And in reply, Sri Narada too, after deep consideration, indeed finds such a

human being and tells Valmiki to listen carefully- " MunE! VakshyAmi aham buddhvA

tai: yuktam shrayatAm narai: " It is thus very clear from the prologue itself

that Sri Rama was considered a Man and not a deity, both by the author and his

interlocutor.

 

We move next to the arrival of VisvAmitra to demand the services of Sri Rama for

protection of his yagyam. When Sri Dasarata, concerned at the capability of the

boy (still in His teens) to confront deadly Rakshasas, is reluctant to send the

darling of his eye along with the Maharshi, Visvamitra tells the Emperor that

Sri Rama is no mere human infant and that His true prowess and glory are known

only to those immersed in penance and austerity like VisvAmitra himself and

VasishttA-

 

" aham vEdmi mahAtmAnam RAmam satya parAkramam

VasishttOpi mahA tEjA: yE chEmE tapasi shritA: "

 

It is clear here that VisvAmitra has full realisation of Sri Rama's true nature

as the Supreme Being, capable of annihilating the entire clan of Rakshasas

singly.

 

Puzzlingly, however, the very same Visvamitra calls Sri Rama a man-a tiger among

men-when waking him up one morning in the jungle, for the performance of

adulatory rituals addressed to deities-

 

" KousalyA suprajA Rama! poorvA sandhyA pravartatE

uttishtta nara sArdoola! Kartavyam daivam Ahnikam "

 

Was He only a Model Man, a Model Monarch and a Magnificent specimen of humanity,

or was He the Parabrahmam personified, we keep asking ourselves while perusing

the various key events of the Epic. And we find that we are not alone in trying

to resolve this incongruity, as a senior Acharya, Sri Koorattazhwan, devotes

quite a few verses to this puzzle, in his " atimAnushtvam " .

 

" I ask You, my Lord and do give a straight answer. You said you were a man and

displayed all the limited wisdom of a Man, in going after the golden deer that

was MArIchA and later exhibited all the grief and sorrow of an average Man

separated from His beloved wife, not knowing the whereabouts of Sri Sita and

beside Yourself with grief at Her loss. I do agree that all these were indeed in

tune with your assumed role as a man. However, can You explain, being after all

a human being, how you were able to promise the paradise to JatAyu? You told the

devoted bird plainly, " gaccha lOkAn anuttamAn " (You will reach the coveted

worlds above)-how was this possible if You were a mere man? " enquires Azhwan of

the Lord-

 

" PricchAmi kinchana yathA kila RAhavatvE

MAyA mrigasya vasagO manujatva mougdyAt

SItA viyOga vivasO na cha tat gatigya:

PrAdA: tathA para gatim hi katham khagAya? "

 

" If you were capable of awarding JatAyu's selfless services with a berth in the

highest of worlds, why then did you roam about the DandakAraNyam, in tears and

torment, searching for the lost Sita who was hundreds of miles away? " enquires

Sri Azhwan, posing inconvenient questions to the Paramapurusha. In sum, the

query is, " If you have power enough to promise paradise to a bird, how come you

didn't know where your own wife was? "

 

Continues Sri Azhwan- " You showed your matchless prowess by riddling seven tall

trees, not even in a straight line, with a single potent arrow, let off almost

playfully from your magnificent bow. When you had such boundless strength,

courage and prowess, why at all did you seek the assistance of mere monkeys in

the search for Sita? "

 

" SAlAn hi sapta sagirIn sa rasAtalAnyAn

EkEshu manda javatO nirapatraya: tvam

TEshu Eka vivyathana kinna bibhraNunnam

ShAkA mrigam mrigayasEsma katham sahAyam? "

 

" Oh Lord! You set out in Sri Ramavatara to enact the role of an ideal Man and to

establish the standards of behaviour for human beings, by your own impeccable

conduct. This being so, why did You perform superhuman acts like building a

bridge across the ocean, with the aid of rocks and mountains playfully thrown on

the water by monkeys? "

 

" MAnushyakam charitam Acharitum pravritta:

dEvAdhikam charitam anga! Kim angyakArshI:

yat sAgarE batha babandhita nAtha! sEthum

shailai: plavangama samingita sampraNunnai: "

 

" When Vibhishana fell at your feet at your camp on the opposite shore of Lanka,

how did you declare him to be the King of Lanka and perform an impromptu

coronation, without even ascertaining the strength of enemy forces, with no

strategy on hand for crossing the waters to Lanka, without any intelligence on

the relative strengths of the armies? If you were indeed a man, how was it

possible for you to display such supreme confidence in crowning Vibhishana the

king of Lanka, with the war being a wide-open affair, with not a single arrow

fired yet and the battle yet to be won? " enquires Azhwan further-

 

" abdhim na tErita, na jigyatha rAkshsEndram

naivAsya jagyitha yathA cha balAbalam tvam

nissamsaya: sapadi tasya padE abhyashincha:

tasyAnujam katham idam hi VibhIshanamcha? "

 

Sri Rama might have considered Himself to be a man, but we do not agree, nor

does Azhwan, in view of the numerous " atimAnusha " (superhuman) acts, which He

adopts during this avatara. He might hide His Paratvam or supremacy behind a

human façade, but His wisdom, prowess, etc. give Him away every time, whether it

be the infructuous sharanagati to Samudra rAjA, the transformation of a wayside

stone into the RishipatnI ahalyA, the single-handed annihilation of fourteen

thousand rAkshasAs at JanasthAnam, the dispatch of JatAyu and Sabhari to exalted

worlds and so on.

 

However, to us devotees, it matters little whether Sri Raghava was a Man or God.

Each and every act, every little gesture of His, speaks volumes about how we

should live, speak, act and think. He has endeared Himself to each one of us

through His glorious conduct and the ideal relationships He forged with not only

those near and dear, but with absolute strangers too. God or Man, He has

pervaded every little nook and corner of our hearts, towering head and shoulders

above Men and Gods alike.

 

Srimate Sri LakshmINrisimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSAtakopa Sri Narayana

Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

dasan, sadagopan