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
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