Did Ramayana reaaalllyyyyy Happen? Really really?
వేదవేద్యే పారే పుంసి జాతే దసరతత్మజే వెధప్రచెద సదాసి సాక్షాత్ రామాయనత్మనః
--- The Ramayana contains the very essense of the entire vedas
Lately I have been seeing a lot of people talking about the Ramayana and how much truth there is to it and also interesting interpretations on certain aspects of it (especially after having NEVER read the Ramayana and knowing only a few pieces here and there or at most having watched the TV serial, if that's how lucky they got in life).
I cannot prove it (yet), neither can you disprove it. If anything the details and knowledge of the world as explained in the Ramayana as given in the Valmiki Ramayana, are mind bending for the time it was composed in, details of which I will get in to, to a certain extent in this blog over time. Obviously its a treatise of 24000 verses in the 6 Cantos (Kandas) and talking every detail here would be a difficult task.
I guess after having heard the Ramayana from Guru's par none over hundreds of hours, it now perplexes me as to, how does it even matter to ask the quesion? How do you care if it happened or not? The purpose of the Ramayana has never been to "prove" history to anyone. What does ANYONE gain by trying so hard to disprove the historical accuracy of the Ramayana?
The fact that you ask the question is proof you never read the Ramayana and learnt its "paramartha" through a learned Guru. (why a learned Guru? coz there are many aspects of the Ramayana, if read without context of other purana's completely feels out of place and results is absurd interpretations, and it takes brilliance to put 24000 verses together and understand the entire picture and the entire point being conveyed).
I have seen people question me or some others about funny questions, like was Sita older than Rama, why was Rama so chauvinistic in making Sita devi give her "Agni Pariksha" etc etc etc.
I have also had people actually quote some mistakes some characters make in the Ramayana and justify their actions in the current world. (Really? did you forget the main character of the story?)
First of all lets understand this, when the Ramayana was written, civilization did not enforce any kind of trade marks , patents, copyrights etc FOR any original work. Ours was was the true democracy, true open source for just about everything imaginable. No wonder we "invented" and discovered pretty much the foundation for EVERYTHING of our modern world that the west stole from us and called it their own. Hence since the first composition by Sage Valmiki every micro culture in and around the Indian Sub-Continent has written its own version. Although, I have nothing specifically against all these versions, if someone really needs to debated the Ramayana, the elders of our civilization from as far back as man can track have agreed to the Valmiki version to be the original one. And I am going to talk about only the Valmiki Ramayana and none other.
I will assume that the Ramayana DID happen. I have my reasons, which I am not going to force on the user to agree with. But for the sake of this post, let me jump the fence and consider this only a phenomenal literary treatise. It is still undeniably phenomenal for all the knowledge the writter possess, in geography, politics, administration, treasury, advise on how to run a kingdom, astronomy, dharma Sastras, shakuna sastras, human psychology, anthropology, easy explanation of dharma, the difference between Dharma and truth, the contrast between two different kind of people that both essentially seem to be following the vedas when you see it from a distance etc etc etc.
Now to exactly list out the knowledge presented in the 24000 slokas (couplets) would be beyond the scope of this blog post. Yet, the most important aspect of what the Ramayana has been to provide a guideline to humanity on what Dharma is all about. The subtleties of dharma and how it needs to be applied by every human being in life.
Updated: Aug 6th
Ramayana is a guide book to humanity. It is a guide book written by Valmiki Maharishi to convey the essence of the Dharma as given in the Vedas through the life story of Sri Rama and Sita Devi on what the dharma of a human being is. How one is supposed to behave/act, how one is NOT supposed to behave/act in circumstances that all of us at points can relate to. The Ramayana lays a foundation to a framework of essential human behavior. The subtleties of each dharma through these story become real easy for one to understand.
A lot of people ignore the Ramayana, disrespect the content in the Ramayana without ever having read it with a claim, " oh, what will a old mythological book team me for today's world? All those out dated ideas do not work for today, do not work in my situation". Well, have you read it? Have you understood it? Have you heard it through a guru?
To understand the Ramayana, the first thing that is important for anyone to remember as told my guru, is to stop regarding Sri Rama as a God in the context of the Ramayana and regard him as another human being, especially a Kshatriya king. And as you learn more about this human being, one can easily start seeing, what true morality, true valor, true dharma is all about without argument, without a scope of any discussion if you thoughtfully analyze the life of Sri Rama.
Please, have the patience on the back bone of India. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata have formed India's opinions that have enabled it to be the most advanced nation in the world for the better part of history, owing to the wisdom presented in these epics. Ignoring these epics has what gotten us to a state where we are considered a third world country. Where people of every country look down up on us as an inferior race. Are we not ashamed? I know it, because I know what the west REALLY thinks of us. I know it, because in spite of all the greatness we proclaim in the world of intelligence, we hardly feature among the world's best. Most of IT industry survives on copy paste from the internet on items posted by someone else and that someone else usually is from another country. How ashamed do we have to be to be copying everything from the west while ignoring out great heritage, our way of life that as taught by our rishis. India, will only gain its greatness back the day, we as a nation go back to our roots. We as a nation start teaching our kids the wisdom found in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the right light. Imagine this, the most technologically advanced nations of the world, Japan, Germany, France, America, Russia and Britain, teach their children in their mother tongues right through university education. English is a nice to have feature (except of course in countries where English is the mother tongue) (and no one is asking to shun English, don't twist the idea i am trying to present, but my observation is undeniably accurate). Is it any wonder that they beat the crap out of us in most modern aspects of life? And we are left copying what they come up with. And just a few centuries ago, these guys were not even able to stand eye to eye with India and its glory or be mentioned in the same sentence.... but I digress....
Back to the Ramayana:
Like every ancient scripture, although self reading is better than nothing, I recommend listening to the scripture through a learned guru, who knows the ins and outs of not just this scripture but the entire "bhavarth", the entire context /meaning of the scripture and can explain it in the context of the current world.
For people who do not know Telugu: ReadRamayana.org is a good start to read on your own.
For people who do know Telugu, I highly (to death) recommend, listening to Sri Chaganti Koteswara Rao Garu's rendition of Srimad Ramayana.
www. SriChaganti.net has a 2009 version. I have a 2005 version in my personal archives and would gladly provide the URL to it upon request. Remember, the best things in life are free. This is one of those.
Think.
--- The Ramayana contains the very essense of the entire vedas
Lately I have been seeing a lot of people talking about the Ramayana and how much truth there is to it and also interesting interpretations on certain aspects of it (especially after having NEVER read the Ramayana and knowing only a few pieces here and there or at most having watched the TV serial, if that's how lucky they got in life).
I cannot prove it (yet), neither can you disprove it. If anything the details and knowledge of the world as explained in the Ramayana as given in the Valmiki Ramayana, are mind bending for the time it was composed in, details of which I will get in to, to a certain extent in this blog over time. Obviously its a treatise of 24000 verses in the 6 Cantos (Kandas) and talking every detail here would be a difficult task.
I guess after having heard the Ramayana from Guru's par none over hundreds of hours, it now perplexes me as to, how does it even matter to ask the quesion? How do you care if it happened or not? The purpose of the Ramayana has never been to "prove" history to anyone. What does ANYONE gain by trying so hard to disprove the historical accuracy of the Ramayana?
The fact that you ask the question is proof you never read the Ramayana and learnt its "paramartha" through a learned Guru. (why a learned Guru? coz there are many aspects of the Ramayana, if read without context of other purana's completely feels out of place and results is absurd interpretations, and it takes brilliance to put 24000 verses together and understand the entire picture and the entire point being conveyed).
I have seen people question me or some others about funny questions, like was Sita older than Rama, why was Rama so chauvinistic in making Sita devi give her "Agni Pariksha" etc etc etc.
I have also had people actually quote some mistakes some characters make in the Ramayana and justify their actions in the current world. (Really? did you forget the main character of the story?)
First of all lets understand this, when the Ramayana was written, civilization did not enforce any kind of trade marks , patents, copyrights etc FOR any original work. Ours was was the true democracy, true open source for just about everything imaginable. No wonder we "invented" and discovered pretty much the foundation for EVERYTHING of our modern world that the west stole from us and called it their own. Hence since the first composition by Sage Valmiki every micro culture in and around the Indian Sub-Continent has written its own version. Although, I have nothing specifically against all these versions, if someone really needs to debated the Ramayana, the elders of our civilization from as far back as man can track have agreed to the Valmiki version to be the original one. And I am going to talk about only the Valmiki Ramayana and none other.
I will assume that the Ramayana DID happen. I have my reasons, which I am not going to force on the user to agree with. But for the sake of this post, let me jump the fence and consider this only a phenomenal literary treatise. It is still undeniably phenomenal for all the knowledge the writter possess, in geography, politics, administration, treasury, advise on how to run a kingdom, astronomy, dharma Sastras, shakuna sastras, human psychology, anthropology, easy explanation of dharma, the difference between Dharma and truth, the contrast between two different kind of people that both essentially seem to be following the vedas when you see it from a distance etc etc etc.
Now to exactly list out the knowledge presented in the 24000 slokas (couplets) would be beyond the scope of this blog post. Yet, the most important aspect of what the Ramayana has been to provide a guideline to humanity on what Dharma is all about. The subtleties of dharma and how it needs to be applied by every human being in life.
Updated: Aug 6th
Ramayana is a guide book to humanity. It is a guide book written by Valmiki Maharishi to convey the essence of the Dharma as given in the Vedas through the life story of Sri Rama and Sita Devi on what the dharma of a human being is. How one is supposed to behave/act, how one is NOT supposed to behave/act in circumstances that all of us at points can relate to. The Ramayana lays a foundation to a framework of essential human behavior. The subtleties of each dharma through these story become real easy for one to understand.
A lot of people ignore the Ramayana, disrespect the content in the Ramayana without ever having read it with a claim, " oh, what will a old mythological book team me for today's world? All those out dated ideas do not work for today, do not work in my situation". Well, have you read it? Have you understood it? Have you heard it through a guru?
To understand the Ramayana, the first thing that is important for anyone to remember as told my guru, is to stop regarding Sri Rama as a God in the context of the Ramayana and regard him as another human being, especially a Kshatriya king. And as you learn more about this human being, one can easily start seeing, what true morality, true valor, true dharma is all about without argument, without a scope of any discussion if you thoughtfully analyze the life of Sri Rama.
Please, have the patience on the back bone of India. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata have formed India's opinions that have enabled it to be the most advanced nation in the world for the better part of history, owing to the wisdom presented in these epics. Ignoring these epics has what gotten us to a state where we are considered a third world country. Where people of every country look down up on us as an inferior race. Are we not ashamed? I know it, because I know what the west REALLY thinks of us. I know it, because in spite of all the greatness we proclaim in the world of intelligence, we hardly feature among the world's best. Most of IT industry survives on copy paste from the internet on items posted by someone else and that someone else usually is from another country. How ashamed do we have to be to be copying everything from the west while ignoring out great heritage, our way of life that as taught by our rishis. India, will only gain its greatness back the day, we as a nation go back to our roots. We as a nation start teaching our kids the wisdom found in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the right light. Imagine this, the most technologically advanced nations of the world, Japan, Germany, France, America, Russia and Britain, teach their children in their mother tongues right through university education. English is a nice to have feature (except of course in countries where English is the mother tongue) (and no one is asking to shun English, don't twist the idea i am trying to present, but my observation is undeniably accurate). Is it any wonder that they beat the crap out of us in most modern aspects of life? And we are left copying what they come up with. And just a few centuries ago, these guys were not even able to stand eye to eye with India and its glory or be mentioned in the same sentence.... but I digress....
Back to the Ramayana:
Like every ancient scripture, although self reading is better than nothing, I recommend listening to the scripture through a learned guru, who knows the ins and outs of not just this scripture but the entire "bhavarth", the entire context /meaning of the scripture and can explain it in the context of the current world.
For people who do not know Telugu: ReadRamayana.org is a good start to read on your own.
For people who do know Telugu, I highly (to death) recommend, listening to Sri Chaganti Koteswara Rao Garu's rendition of Srimad Ramayana.
www. SriChaganti.net has a 2009 version. I have a 2005 version in my personal archives and would gladly provide the URL to it upon request. Remember, the best things in life are free. This is one of those.
Think.
Comments