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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00051 Feb 2007

 
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Dear friends,

Valmiki was a master psychologist endowed with
penetrating insight indeed into the feminine mind. 

When Hanuman described to Sita the depths of despair
to which Sri Rama had descended, and how he was simply
unable to bear the pain of separation from her,
Valmiki records Sita's first reaction as one of secret
but barely concealed inner delight! 

This is an extraordinary piece of psychological
revelation indeed. It leaves readers a little aghast.
It makes them sit up and wonder indeed how truly
complex and delicate is the nature and texture of the
bond of relationship known to us commonly as
"Man-Woman love".  And how strangely and differently
the male and feminine mind, the husband's and the
spouse's, react to different situations in matters of
intimate conjugality.

We must surely pause a bit here to enjoy and savor
this narrative interlude in the "sundara-kaandam".

               *****************

Hanuman's vivid description (Chapter 35 ShlOkas 38
through 48) of Rama's despair was not merely a piece
of faithful reportage. He had a far more important
intention. It was to convince Sita that Rama's love
for her was burning intensely; that her loss was cause
for an overwhelming sense of despair in his life; and
that he was not sparing a single moment or any effort
to attempt to locate her whereabouts and to rescue and
retrieve her.  

It was principally with this aim that Hanuman used all
his famed powers of eloquence to portray the pathetic
condition of Rama to Sita in terms exactly as he had
witnessed it back in Kishkinda.

"tathasvadrAtr-shObeeni rakshasA hriyamANAyA I
  yAnya-AbharaNa-jAlAni pAthitAni mahItalE  II
                                       (35.38)

" tAni raamaaya dattAni mayaivOpa-hrutAni cha I
   svanavanthyava-kIrNAthni tasmin vigathachEtasi II
                                       (35. 40)

"pashyathasthAni rudathastAm-yathascha pUnah pUnah:I
  prAdIpayandAsharathEstAni shOkha-hutAshanam" II 
                                       (35.42)

"shayitam cha chiram tEna dukhArtEna mahAtmanA I
mayApi vividhair-vaakyaih: kruchrA-duttApitah pUnah"II
                                        (35.43)

"tavA-darshana-shOkEna rAghavah: pravichAlyatE I
  mahatA bhUmikampEna mahAniva shilOchayah: II"
                                         (35. 47)

"kAna-nAni suramyANi nadIh: prasra-vaNANi cha I
  charanna ratimApnAti tvAma-pashyan-nrupAtmajE" II
                                         (35.48)

"O Sita," recounts Hanuman, "in Kishkinda when we all
first met Rama, and came to know of his plight, we
remembered the bundle of jewels that you had dropped
over our land while you were being carried away by
Ravana in the "pushpaka-vimAna". We had recovered it.
We remembered it, and when we first brought it and
displayed the jewels to Rama, one look at them, and
his body trembled and melted all over; he shuddered
and fell down unconscious like dead-log! 

"We slowly revived him to consciousness. Later, he
cradled those jewels of yours on his lap much as a
mother might cradle her child in her arms to wean it;
he wept and lamented and bemoaned aloud your fate and
his! 

So great was your husband's anguish, he collapsed to
the ground again and lay mute for several hours...
With many consoling words I comforted him, O lady, and
made him sit up and face the world again.... 

Just as an earthquake tears asunder a mountain, so has
separation from you, lady Sita, torn asunder Rama's
heart. Now, he wanders about the forests of Kishkinda.
They are all of great beauty, lined by lush
river-banks and deep river beds and steep
mountain-slopes --- alas, none of those
breath-takingly beautiful scenes of mother-nature have
any charm for Rama, for nowhere in them can he find
you, my lady..." 

                *************

Now, after listening to all this from Hanuman, Sita's
first reaction and first words were rather
extraordinary.

What does she say?

"amrutam vishasam-srushtam tvayA vAnara bhAshitam" !
                               (Ch.37.2)

The very first word that gushes to Sita's mind after
hearing Hanuman's long report of Sri Rama's pain and
despair is the word "amrutam"!

"Your words, O Hanuman, are nectar to me!" she says!

The lady has just listened to a graphic account of the
utter distress of her husband and the piteous state to
which he has been reduced following his separation
from her. And what is first and immediate reaction to
it: "amrutam", she says! 

Sita, it seems to us, wants to tell Hanuman: "Thank
you for describing to me my husband's plight. I am
delighted to hear that my lord pines for me. It is
nectarine news to know how he aches for me, agonizing
over our separation and that his heart bleeds for
me... It warms the cockles of my heart indeed!"

But then we see next Sita quickly making amends for
her first utterances lest they be misunderstood as
being heartless. She immediately makes sure to follow
up her "amrutam" remark with the next expression she
employs --  "vishasam-srushtam":

"Your words Hanuman are nectar and posion to me at the
same time! In one way I'm delighted to know my lord
pines for me. That's like nectar. But I am pained too
equally to know that he is so much sunk in dark
despair. That's like poison to me".

                 ****************

Now, on the part of the great poet Valmiki, this is
truly a brilliant reading of the innermost workings
deep within the recesses of a woman's mind. It reveals
his thorough understanding of the dynamics of Man-Wife
relationship, with its deep and complex undercurrents
of mutual affection at the core that however is very
often shadowed by passing clouds of distrust over each
other's true feelings of love. 

Sita's spontaneous remark is indeed a whole revelation
of how fragile the feminine mind is in its perception
of the ardour of masculine love. A woman's conviction
in the constancy and ardour of a man's love for his
spouse is always less than complete. No matter how
many years they spend together in happy marital life,
no matter how many episodes in their life may have
occured that affirm and re-affirm his love for her, a
wife will always suspect the true  intensity of  her
husband's feelings for her. This is innate nature of
the feminine mind and not even God Almighty in the
Ramayana could do a thing about it!

             ***************

Let us move on to the next part of the
"sundara-kaandam" in the next posting.

Regards,
daasan,
Sudarshan MK

 

 
                                              

 


                  *****************
                  (to be continued)

Regards,
daasan,
Sudarshan MK


            















Warm Regards,
Sudarshan

" A life is perhaps worth nothing; but nothing certainly is worth as much as 
life". 
(Andre Malraux)


                
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