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                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

 

 

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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