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

Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00144 Aug 2008

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


ï
 


THE RISE AND FALL OF TEN HEADS â IT WAS NOT RAMAâS ARROW ALONE THAT SHATTERED RAAVANA.  

 

Respected Devotees of almighty lord

 

Recently I came across a power point presentation on âI asked and Krishna replied asâ â it contained 8 questions and their beautiful answers. Since it came as an email being circulated âyou send to 10 people - to all those you love and likeâ â I received it from one of my friendsâ senior in age, experience, and expertise. So I do not know who the author is to this PPS [slide show] file. But I take one question out of the 8 and its answer to quote here  

â quote

âI asked lord Krishna to do away with my vicesâ

Lord Krishna answered âthey are not there for me to take them away. They are there for you to resist themâ.  -- unquote 

This triggered my thoughts into sreemadh raamaayaNam and raavaNaâs character in particular, because he is embodiment of vices, which he could have easily resisted.  

The very word "RaavaNa" means "one who causes crying for others." The epic, sreemadh raamaayaNam, says that Raama killed RaavaNa, the ten headed raakshasa, in a prolonged battle mainly to rescue his consort, Seethaa, since this seethaa was held by raavaNa, the demon, in captivity, and thus made her to weep.  Earlier he caused vEdhavathee also to weep and this vEdhavathee vowed that she will be born again and thus be the cause for him to be killed. In his long life he made many others also to weep and thus curse him. Is making others weep not a vice? 

RaavaNa, even though did a long âthapasâ to get many things in life, he did not ask the lord like the author of the PPS file â ask the lord to do away with vices â but asked so many other things. A close look at the events in RaavaNaâs life will show that RaavaNaâs fall was more due to his own vices or atrocities against âgood and nobleâ people and the curses they inflicted on him, which targeted his 10 heads, one after the other. So by virtue of those boons [as a result of his thapas], he, instead, accumulated these vices and thereby got many curses from many, which eventually killed him. Then you all should not mistake me that I am trying to belittle raama, the supreme lord who came as a human to kill raavaNa.  

This small series of posts is to highlight who are all the persons who gave curses and what raavaNa did to earn these curses.  

RAAVANAâs LINEAGE:

First of all, let us look at RaavaNaâs lineage to start with. He had a profound lineage.  He was a descendant of VishNu, the supreme lord himself. The lineage ran like this:  

VishNu the supreme lord naaraayaNa â

His son or creation  - the chathur mukha Brahma â 4 faced brahma 

Brahmaâs son is sage Pulasthya â

pura krutha yugE raama prajaapathi suthah prabhuh|

pulasthyah naama brahma rishih saakshaadhiva pithaamahah 7-2-4 

[7 is uththara kaaNdam 2 is second sargam 4 is slokam no] 

his son sage Visravas â

pithaa iva thapasaa yukthah hi abhavadh visravaa munih â 7-2-34 

his son RaavaNa.   

Strangely, VishNu himself had to take an avathaaram as Raama to annihilate raavaNa, a member of his own clan just because of his vices.  

RAAVANAâs BIRTH:

Sage Visravas married kaikasi, who gave birth to three sons and a daughter in four yaamams (six hours) with an interval of one yaama between each of them.  The sons were RaavaNa, KumbhakarNa and VibheeshaNa and the daughter was SoorpaNakhaa. [In 9th sargam of uththara kaaNdam the birth of raavaNa, his brother kumbakarNa, sister soorpanakhaa, vibheeshaNa are described. It is stated here when raavaNa was born there was a bad omen and when vibheeshaNa was born there was a sudden change to a good omen].  

KubEra, the lord of wealth, and the guardian deity of northern direction, was also a son of sage visravas through his second wife, Devavani.  Kubera was destined to be rich.  He got the pushpaka vimanam of the dhEvalOkam and started ruling Lanka.  

Kaikasi, RaavaNaâs mother, became envious of the pomp and power of her stepson Kubera.  She induced RaavaNa and his brothers to do penance towards Brahma and get power to conquer the universe, be victorious over KubEra and possess all his wealth.  

PENANCE FOR WEALTH, POWER  

The sons did thapas for many thousands of years.  When Brahma appeared before them, RaavaNa sought boons of health, wealth and power.  He also got a boon not to be killed by anyone [except a man, since he thought that man was very much inferior to him and would not try to harm him]. See how omitted manushaya â humans 

suparNa naaga yakshaaNaam dhaithya dhaanava rakshasaam

avadhyah aham prajaadhyaksha dhEvathaanaam cha saasvatha || 7-10-19 

nahi chinthaa mama anyEshu praaNishu amara poojitha

thruNa bhoothaa hi thE manyE praaNinah maanushaadhayah || 7-10-20 

Kumbhakarna, by a slip of the tongue, sought nidhrathvam (prolonged sleep) while he actually wanted to ask for nithyathvam (longevity).   

VibhishaNa sought the boon of standing to dharmam always, surrender and devotion to VishNu.  

Brahma gave him âamarathvamâ to vibheeshaNaâs asking â re slokam --

na adharmE jaayathE bhudhdhhi amarathvam dhadhaami thE || 7-10-35 

In order to fulfill the wish of his mother, RaavaNa conquered all the seven lOkams and became the unquestioned monarch of the universe.  He possessed all the wealth of Kubera and crowned himself as the king of Lanka.  

RaavaNa had ten heads, four of them representing positive qualities and six representing evil qualities.  He was a great Vedic scholar and a valorous warrior, but had no control over his senses.  So, he was committing error of judgment throughout his life.  

As a result of ruling all the worlds, terrorizing everyone, RaavaNa invited on himself curse after curse, and thus was hastening his downfall, till he was ultimately killed by raama the supreme lord in the battlefield.  Let us see the list of curses one by one in subsequent posts. 

 

with due respects to all devotees of almighty



v.anjaneyulu
400kv s/s powergrid
betul road
pathrota,
itarsi - 461 111
mob 09893683689



Share files, take polls, and make new friends - all under one roof. Click here. __._,_.___

Oppiliappan Koil Varadachari Sadagopan
http://www.sadagopan.org




Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___

[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