In the Bharatiya knowledge system, the highest form of Jñāna is often considered anirvacanīya (which cannot be expressed) and can only be realised. Hence, various Bharatiya knowledge traditions provided the sādhaka with yogic tools, philosophical hints, and behavioural practices to attain jñāna. However, this learning method came with a strict and disciplined lifestyle, which was impossible for the masses to follow.
Ādikavi Vālmīki was the first Maharṣi who seamlessly weaved the intricate patterns of Vedic knowledge tradition for the common masses in a divine mahākāvya renowned as Rāmāyaṇa (Rāmāyaṇa Mahātmya, Chapter V.61-62). Kavi, commonly translated as ‘poet,’ is also a synonym for Ṛṣi (mantra-dṛṣṭā) in Sanskrit. So, he was not the Ādikavi (first poet) in a strict poetic sense only; instead, he was the first sage to convey the param-jñāna, which can only be realised in the most subtle realm of existence in the form of a story and accessible to people from all the varṇa-s (Rāmāyaṇa Mahātmya, Chapter IV.3), jāti-s, kāla-s, and deśa-s. Thus, Bhagwān Śrī Rāma, the Vigraha of Dharma himself, became the guiding light of Dharma and jñāna for people from all walks of life in Bharat. Rāmāyaṇa represents the essence of all schools of thought, included in the Indian Knowledge System. Through Rāmāyaṇa, Vālmīki has attained the culminating point of literary excellence by amalgamating adhyātma-vidyā, darśana-śāstra, and ideal lokācāra-vyavahāra with the help of the illustrious Jīvana-Carita of Bhagwān Rāma.
Through the grace of Bhagwān and the power of his own tapa, Maharṣi Vālmīki skillfully does not fall into historicism’s political trappings. Noted scholar Vidyaniwas Mishra (‘Bhāratīya Ciṇtanadhārā’) elucidates, the people (characters) of these itihāsa narratives do not remain mere humanly figures of history. They do not occupy place in our collective memory as some heroes to be remembered. Instead, they become bhāva-puruṣa for eternity. We do not celebrate the birthdays of Kṛiṣṇa or Rāma. We rather experience their birth on every Rāma navamī and Kṛishṇa Janmāṣṭamī. Kṛishṇa or Rāma or Śiva-Pāravatī are infinite realities, beyond comprehension. By living amongst our bhāva-puruṣa-s, through festivals, rituals, pilgrimage, artforms, etc., we realise oneness with the infinite, the metaphysical and the eternal – as in not bounded by time. In this way, Rāmāyaṇa goes beyond history (linear vision of time) and its shackles; rather, it facilitates mukti for the sādhaka.
Maharṣi Vālmīki continues to inspire us via his eternal legacy, which is deeply embodied in almost every Indian thought system (śāstrika and laukika) and cultural practice. Such is the grandeur of Rāmakatha and nāma that the movement for the reclamation of Rāma-janmabhūmi became a hallmark for the mass cultural rejuvenation of Bhārata post-independence. Ramayana has been told and retold in infinite forms and styles worldwide since Tretāyuga, according to deśa-kāla variations. Still, Prabhu Rāma continues to shine as the brightest star in the vast sky of Dharma—as his Prāṇa-Pratiṣṭhā was done by Ādikavi himself. Since then, it has been rewritten and retold in hundreds of ways by hundreds of poets, writers and scholarly sages. Kamban’s Kambarāmāyaṇam in Tamil, Tulsi’s Rāmcaritamānasa in Hindi, Madhava Kandali’s Kotha Rāmāyaṇa in Assamese, Nagachandra’s Rāmacandra Carita Purāṇa in Kannada, Krishnadasa Shama’s Rāmāyaṇa in Konkani, Guru Gobind Singh’s Gobinda Rāmāyaṇa, Krittibas’s Krittibāsī Rāmāyaṇa in Bengali, Rāmavatāra Carita in Kashmiri etc. are few of the famous variants. ‘Hari ananta hari katha anantā,’ brilliantly proclaims Goswami Tulsidas.
Ananda K Coomaraswamy rightly points out: “For it would scarcely be going too far to say that no one unfamiliar with the story of Rāma and Sītā can be in any real sense a citizen of India, nor acquainted with morality as the greatest of Indian teachers conceived of it.” The glorious life of Śrī Rāma embodies the three words that can define and sustain our culture: Śāstra, Sādhanā, and Śastra. Not one among the three is indispensable for the establishment of Dharma.
Sri Aurobindo, in ‘A Defense of Indian Culture,’ notes: “The work of Valmiki has been an agent of almost incalculable power in the moulding of the cultural mind of India: it has presented to it to be loved and imitated in figures like Rama and Sita, made so divinely and with such a revelation of reality as to become objects of enduring cult and worship, or like Hanuman, Lakshmana, Bharata the living human image of its ethical ideals; it has fashioned much of what is best and sweetest in the national character, and it has evoked and fixed in it those finer and exquisite yet firm soul tones and that more delicate humanity of temperament which are a more valuable thing than the formal outsides of virtue and conduct.” In simpler words, Bhārata can never survive, let alone rise, without the continuous dissemination and divine inspiration of Rāma-Carita.
On the auspicious janma-jayanti of Maharṣi Vālmīki, I, a humble Rāmabhakta, wants to say that the Bharatiyakaran of the academic discourse or the establishment of Dharma (the ātmā of Bharat) in our lifeworld is impossible without
1. listening to, narrating, singing, dancing, enacting, and broadcasting, in any way possible, the legend of Śrī Rāma again and again,
2. Inculcating the teachings of Maharṣi Vālmīki and, consequently,
3. Worshipping Bhagwān Śrī Rāmacandra as maryādā-puruṣottama.
Bhagwān Rāma is worshipped and revered by over a billion people throughout the year, but more so on special occasions like Rāma Navamī and Daśaharā. But how to worship the first seer of Rāmakathā, if not by continuing the tradition of Rāmakathā in traditional idiom, metaphor and contexts. This is the only way we show our highest form of gratitude to the great Ārṣa tradition of Bhārata. However, from a Rāma bhakta’s point of view, spreading the glory of Bhagwān is a blessing in itself. And we are incredibly fortunate to be able to take birth in his janma-bhūmi Bhārata, to be born a Hindu, to have felt, seen, read or heard the presence Rājā Rāmacandra himself, for
यावत् स्थास्यन्ति गिरयः सरितश्च महीतले।
तावद् रामायणकथा लोकेषु प्रचरिष्यति।। (Valmiki Ramayana, I.2.36)
“As long as the mountains and rivers exist on this earth, the story of Ramayana will prevail among the people”
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