You are here: SriPedia - Oppiliappan - Archives - Jun 2008

Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00176 Jun 2008

 
Jun 2008 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


Shriman Vasudevan's postings under the head Desire are thought-
provoking and contain in-depth analysis of the events as portrayed in 
Ramayanam. In this connection, I thought members would be interested 
in reading the following extract from an article in the web-site 
boloji.com dealing with Kaikeyi:
krishnaswamy m k

An extract from the article in http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/057.htm 
on Kaikeyi:
[?..]  two major factors explaining the conduct of Kaikeyi. The first 
is that Kaikeyi is the youngest queen, which is the secret of the 
fascination she exercises over Dasharatha. The second is that her 
father, King of the mountainous Kekaya kingdom, agreed to middle-aged 
Dasharatha's importunate requests putting the same condition that the 
fisher-king, Dasaraja, put to Shantanu in response to his request for 
the hand of Satyavati: that his daughter's son would inherit the 
kingdom of Ayodhya. It is to avoid this eventuality that from early 
childhood Dasharatha keeps sending Kaikeyi's children to their 
maternal uncle's kingdom far from Ayodhya. His intentions become 
quite transparent when he rushes through the formalities of declaring 
Kaushalya's son as the heir-apparent in the absence of Kaikeyi's 
sons, and takes care not to inform his favorite queen Kaikeyi. It is 
Manthara, the faithful family retainer accompanying Kaikeyi from her 
father's house, much as Shakuni comes with Gandhari, who reminded the 
oblivious Kaikeyi of her husband's broken promise. That is when 
Kaikeyi sees through Dasharatha's intrigue to go back on the 
undertaking forming the basis of their marriage, and utilizes his 
commitment to grant her two boons in order to win back for her son 
his birthright. [?].
Kaikeyi lets nothing stop her in safeguarding her son's inheritance - 
the threat of widowhood, which becomes a reality; the outrage of all 
Ayodhya, which turns into the implacable condemnation of all 
generations to follow. The tragedy of Kaikeyi lies in the rejection 
of her awesome sacrifice by the very person for whom she went through 
fire: her son Bharata.



------------------------------------

Oppiliappan Koil Varadachari Sadagopan
http://www.sadagopan.org Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oppiliappan/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oppiliappan/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:Oppiliappan-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    mailto:Oppiliappan-fullfeatured@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    Oppiliappan-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
oppiliappan-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list