The Long March-1

[Guest guest]

Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya

nama:

 

 

 

The Long March

 

 

All of us are used to driving vehicles. The rich go by cars, the not so rich by

automotive two-wheelers and others by cycle. In this day and age, no one walks

to his or her destination, irrespective of how near or far it is. While this

applies to commuting to and from one's workplace, when travel involves long

distances, we use trains, buses and aeroplanes, as suits the pocket and

occasion. Here too, none thinks of walking the distance. We adopt walking only

as a form of exercise, what the doctor prescribed, and adhere to the ritual with

greater faith and consistence than even to Sandhyavandanam. So accustomed have

we become to modern conveniences, that no one consciously chooses walking as a

mode of covering distances, long or short, except a few politicians, who resort

to the gimmick of a " pada yAtrA " .

 

 

 

Such being the case, can you imagine anyone choosing to traverse the length and

breadth of our BhArata VarshA on foot? In the case of this person, there was

absolutely no compulsion to walk-having been born in an exalted and extremely

rich family, it would have been perfectly natural for this person to have

traversed the long distance He had to cover, through a much more comfortable

mode of travel, behoving His status and position. Yet, notwithstanding all this,

He chose to walk. And the walk carried Him not over smooth roads and paved

paths, but over little-traversed jungle trails, strewn with thorns and pebbles.

In fact, at many a place, He had to have the bushes and overgrowth cleared and a

new trail created. And unlike in the case of our politicians undertaking " pada

yAtrA " , there was no accompanying crowd of admirers in His case, making every

step easy for Him. And this gentleman undertook such long marches not once, but

twice, once when He was hardly into His teens and another when He was a young

man.

 

 

 

Sri Rama's life and times have been a shining model for human emulation, for

countless millennia past and would continue to be a guiding beacon for

posterity. Every word, every minor gesture, every action of this paragon of

virtues inspires and enchants us beyond measure. His conduct during extremely

adverse circumstances sets the standard for human behaviour, an exemplar in

every way.

 

 

 

In the current piece, we shall look closely at the two long journeys He

undertook on foot.

 

 

 

The first of these long marches is occasioned when Sage Visvamitra seeks the

assistance of Rama, who is a mere infant then, not even out of His teens, for

the protection of yagyas against terrifying rAkshasAs. When Dasaratha agrees

with reluctance to part with Sri Rama, how does the Rishi take the boy to his

abode at SiddhAshramam? One would have expected that the precious Prince of

Ayodhya would have travelled by a glorious chariot, drawn by the finest of

horses, covering the distance in a jiffy.

 

 

 

This, however, was not to be. Visvamitra, the hard-hearted Maharshi, took the

Prince by foot! Akin to the agony experienced by Sri Nammazhwar over Sri

Krishna, the Parabrahmam, being beaten up by Gopis for stealing butter ( " Ayar

kozhundAi avarAl pudai uNNum en MAya PirAn " ), similar to the fury felt by Sri

Tirumangai Mannan over the abuse hurled by unlettered GOpis at the ParamAtma Sri

Krishna ( " veNNai uNdAn ivan endru Esa nindra emperumAn " ), we too are quite angry

at Visvamitra, for having made the Prince walk the entire distance between

Ayodhya and Mithila. And it was not as if there were no good roads between the

cities Ayodhya and Mithila, preventing travel by chariot, for we hear of

Dasaratha reaching Mithila by chariot for the divine wedding ( " EtE dvijA:

prayAntu agrE syandanam yOjayasva mE " ). The minimum the Maharshi could have done

was to ask Sri Raghava to ride horseback, as all the three (Visvamitra, Rama and

Lakshmana) were expert riders.

 

 

 

Our heart goes out to the delicate Prince, who, though hitherto unaccustomed to

walk except on a path strewn with flowers, had to traverse great distances on

foot, crossing hard jungle paths, making His already delicate red feet redder

with strain. It is these delicate tiruvadis, massaged gently by Sridevi and

Bhoodevi, which traversed hill and dale. Howe many times would hidden roots and

wayside boulders have made Him trip and stumble? What an amount of heat the

rocky terrain must have radiated, making the delicate Prince sweaty and

fatigued? And how severely the overhead Sun must have blazed, making the black

tirumEni blacker still? The more we think of the episode, the angrier we feel

with the Maharshi for having made Chakkravartthi Tirumagan cover the long

distance by foot.

 

 

 

And when Sri Rama closes His eyes at night for getting some much- needed sleep

at last, fatigued by the long walks during day, within what seemed to be mere

seconds, Visvamitra wakes Him up promptly at sunrise- " utthishtta nara

sArdoola! " . What a heartless person this Visvamitra must have been! And we would

perhaps never pardon him for this unforgivable offence, but for his role in

bringing the divine couple together. The magnitude of Visvamitra's insensitivity

becomes clear, when we consider the fact that the distance between Ayodhya and

Mithila was 225 miles or 360 kilometres. Imagine a couple of infants, barely

into their teens and totally unused to the inhospitable jungle environs,

traversing this distance on foot! One irreverent thought is that the Lord would

not perhaps have undergone all this trouble, but for the priceless prize of

Piratti, which lay at the end of the arduous journey.

 

 

 

During the first pada yAtra, the trio appear to have left Ayodhya, travelled

along the right bank of the SarayU river, wended their way southeast and reached

KAmAshramam, located to the west of the confluence of the SarayU and the Ganga

(in the present Ballia District of Uttar Pradesh State). Visvamitra tells the

curious Rama that the SarayU had its origins in Mount Kailash and, reaching the

plains, formed a garland around Ayodhya. The place where the ogress TAtakA was

felled by Rama is thought to be located in the ShAhAbAd district of U.P. From

here, the trio appear to have travelled to the SiddhAshramam (located in the

present day Buxar Dist.), where Visvamitra performs his yAga and which is

protected and brought to unhindered completion by the Princes of Ayodhya. After

completion of the yAga, Visvamitra leads the unprotesting Princes to Mithila,

crossing the Sone and Ganga rivers near the present-day Patna.

 

(A detailed account of the locations and landmarks lying along Sri Rama's path

is to be found in Sri V.D. Ramaswamy Iyengar's informative work " RAma pAda

yAtrA " ).

 

 

 

In case some readers are upset over my remarks critical of Visvamitra for having

made Chakravartthi Tirumagan walk the long distance, I can draw comfort from the

comments of Raja Sumati, whose capital the trio visit en route to Mithila.

Finding the Princes beautiful beyond description and resembling celestials, the

King wonders how these exalted and enchanting youth were travelling on foot.

While finding the gait of Sri Rama and Lakshmana majestic and regal, the King,

in an implied criticism of the Maharshi's action, wonders why such scions of

royalty were travelling on foot. The following slokas of Sri Valmiki portray his

own anguish in describing the phenomenon-

 

 

 

" imou kumArou bhadram tE! DEva tulya parAkramou

 

Gaja simha gatee veerou sArdoola vrishabhOpamou

 

Padma patra visAlAkshou khadga tooNee dhanur dharou

 

Asvinou iva roopENa samupastthita youvanou

 

Yadricchayaiva gAm prAptou dEvalOkAt iva amarou

 

Katham padbhyam iha prAptou kimarttham kasya vA MunE! "

 

 

 

The long march appears to have conferred a bonus benefit on everyone in the path

of the trio-all were treated to the beautiful and stately gait of the Princes,

resembling that of the Lion, Elephant, Tiger and the virile Bull, by turns.

Blessed indeed were those eyes, which had the incredible good fortune of

witnessing the Lord's majestic progress. Sri Valmiki says that Sri Dasaratha

used to ask Sri Rama to come to him and the moment the boy had reached his

(DasarathA's) side, to ask Him to go back. The only motive behind this parading

was to have an enthralling eyeful of the way the Prince walked. That these were

not the biased impressions of a doting father, but were shared by the world at

large, is borne out by King Sumathi's tribute. Another person to benefit from

the Lord's long walk was Ahalya, who would have remained an inert stone, but for

Sri Rama's entry into the Gouthama Ashramam, en route to Mithila. It was the

sanctifying dust from Sri Rama's tiruvadi that restored to the Rishi patnI her

original form and beauty.

 

 

 

--To be continued-

 

 

 

Srimate Sri LakshmInrisimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana

Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

 

 

 

dasan, sadagopan