Values for Life :
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Queen Kaikeyi was a simple and straightforward soul. She always wanted to preserve unity in the house. She loved Rama. She loved Dasaratha, Kausalya and Sumitra too. It was Manthara’s occult words that changed the mind of the queen. This episode in the Ramayana points out that close association and interlocution with tamasa (evil) characters will pollute the thoughts and minds even of pure savants.
Ati sneham ati swartham
Ubhau unmoola nasakau:
Over love and over selfishness, both will destroy one root and branch.
Dasaratha’s over-love for Rama and haste in appointing him as heir apparent caused all the mess. All our experience shows one thing crystal clear. Whenever we had tried to scuttle the natural flow of events we had failed. That is the power of destiny or providence.
All the subjects unanimously appreciated Rama. He was capable and fit enough to shoulder the responsibility of ruling a country. Was his coronation a petty affair that should have been be celebrated without sufficient ‘breathing time’?
Why the king didn’t waited till Bharata was called back? It would have required only a few days or so for some messengers to reach Kekaya and bring Bharata. Was Yudhajith, Bharata’s uncle and Dasaratha’s brother-in-law to be kept away from this most rejoicing event? It was said that because of special muhurtha every thing was done in haste.But muhurthas would have come again and the king and the royal staff would have got sufficient time to arrange this mega event more meticulously.
Nobody would be willing to take his young wife to a horrible war front. Dasaratha took Kaikeyi under compulsion. The war was so fierce that the axis of the chariot broke. Kaikeyi applied her wit and heroism and she saved her husband or saved both of them. Had she not acted wisely, suppose Dasaratha had died and she had survived, she would have been a widow. So by her timely action, she was only protecting her against untimely death and/or saving herself from widowhood. Yet, Dasaratha granted her two boons. And she preserved it for later.
To uphold his steadfast principle of truth, Raja Dasaratha sent Rama to the forest (he never ordered Rama so). By denying Rama his birth right, as the eldest son, of the kingdom and by anointing Bharata as Yuvaraja and conferring the undeserving kingdom to him, Dasaratha violated all principles and stood for injustice.
Bharata was an able administrator and a king of high sense of jurisprudence which he later proved. Had Bharata been in Ayodhya at the time of this arrangement, the time of negotiation for Rama’s coronation, such unholy incidents would not have taken place.
Don’t do anything in haste even if it is done with a noble intention is the lesson we are taught from the story of Dasaratha.
Dasaratha had a penurious death. None of his sons was with him at the death bed. He remembered with minutest details and was haunted every second by the curse of the old saints.
He unwittingly and unintentionally killed the ascetic boy. Here also his overindulgence in mundane pleasures defeated him.
The elders say not to overindulge in four evils:
Mrigaya = hunting
Dyuta = betting
Surapana = drinking (in group)
Vagvada = argument.
K K Shanmukhan ( To be concluded )
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