You are here: SriPedia - Oppiliappan - Archives - Jul 2004

Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00102 Jul 2004

 
Jul 2004 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


Sri:

Poojya Sri Rama,

Please accept my pranams.

You know me very well as one among your countless
creations and I know very well that I am one of those
lowly creatures who is not even qualified to be known
as your devotee. You are Greatness unparalleled, but I
am a manda-buddhin who knows not what to think about,
how to talk and what to talk. It is my fervent wish
that this confession of mine would absolve me of any
apacharam that I will commit during the course of this
letter.

I am apprehensive of committing apacharam because in
this letter I am going to question the way you have
fashioned Rama avatharam. Don?t think that I am going
to raise the same old bogey of accusation on agni
pariksha. I for one am totally convinced that you
didn?t mean to demean or hurt your priya-bhAryaL in
having asked her to undergo agni-pariksha. I do
understand, just as you, that agni can do no harm to
Sita. This was well indicated twice in Sundhara
Khandam, when Sita invoked Agni deva not to harm
Hanuman when his tail was set on fire and when the
fire spread by Hanuman in Lanka did not touch her. You
know very well, as we too came to know after reading
this khandam that Sita is one who can burn Agni
Himself. Knowing this very well, you asked for and
allowed agni-pariksha for Sita.

So the cause of my vishanam is not this. It is
something else. It is about why Sita had to suffer at
all ? suffer the pangs of separation from you.
Remember she is one who we believe is inseparable from
you and lives forever in your heart which is her
permanent abode.
You too suffered, but we have been told of a previous
incident in which you as Vishnu incurred a curse from
a Rishi (I am unable to quote the name) when you
killed his wife with your Chakrayudha for having given
abhayam to the one who was the target of your
chakrayudha. As one untouched by curses and such other
things, you decided to use it as an alibi during Rama
avathara.

Tell me, in what way your dear better ?half was drawn
into this? You may say that as your patni, she is also
bound to share the good and bad or whatever of that
avathara. But did it stop with just separation from
you? Didn?t she suffer more than you? What previous
karma (though unbinding) of hers can you quote to
account for the humiliation and danger she suffered to
her integrity and modesty, for the fear, for the
helplessness and for all those terrible emotions she
underwent in Ashoka vana?

I am asking the same questions that Sita asked. What
was the pApam she did in her previous births? What was
the dhosham she had as to suffer like that? O, is it
right to leave her among the demons, threatened by
Ravana? Is it right to leave her untended, unclean and
without AbhushaN ? the one who is ever willing to
shower on us all the bounties? If you had willed you
could have immediately released her from her plight.
Is it because, as Sita herself had said, she committed
an apacharam to you? It is true that in order to take
a dig at you, when you refused to take her along
during vana vasa, she lamented that her father had her
married to you without knowing that you are a woman in
man?s garb(!) Hey Rama, did you take this accusation
seriously? Don?t you know that this is the last astra
that we, the womenfolk use whenever the husband
refuses to see our point of view. I have said like
this to my husband and he has not done any harm to me
in retribution. I am sure you too didn?t mind Sita?s
accusation at that time.

Then, why did you allow her to suffer? I know you
would come out with reasons such as making mankind
understand certain values of living, the lofty ideal
of sharanagathi, highlighting the Purushakara of
Piratti and the like. Let me remind you that you
succeeded in teaching these in other avatars too, but
without having to put your wife in such distress. In
fact you came to the world without your wife on 8 out
of 10 occasions (avatars). Even in Krishna avathara,
you didn?t make your wives suffer humiliation in the
hands of a demon like Ravana.

My question is why you made a script in the first
place that held your wife, our mAtha, in such a sorry
state of affairs. You have all the power to make a
story as you wish and a script as you like. You could
have made the story line for Sita differently.
Certainly if I were to be in your place and enjoyed
all the freedom to create a story line of my choice, I
would not have even in my dreams thought of the
terrible incidents to happen to my mother Sita. Hey
Rama, why couldn?t you think differently? 

You have disappointed us in another way also. Rama
avatar is the only avatar in which you came to earth
with your dear wife and were all set to live a human
life like us throughout the period you were here. Why
did you spoil it by your own design, Rama? Why did you
rob us of the joy of thinking about you and Sita as
wonderful couple who came to live like us and lived
happily ever through your stay here?

I always compare you with the Sun and Sita with the
Moon and am fascinated to watch these celestial
objects in the sky. When Shukra came too close to the
Moon about one and a half ago and the crescent moon
seemed to greet Shukra who was in his brightest
splendor then, I imagined how our mother Sita is
benevolent, calm, cool and has a broad mind to allow
shukra to steal the show even while she was sailing in
all dignity.

But a fortnight later I was witness to your fury when
you seemed not to let shukra posses any glory as he
traveled past you. The sparkling shukra looked like a
mere dot on your face, so small and unimportant. At
that time I was really awe-struck by your power to
vanquish the ego of the asura-guru. But now thinking
about the deplorable incidents you assigned for Sita
to undergo, hey Rama, I am sorry to say that the dot
(of asura-guru) indeed looked like a blot on your
face. You could have handled the asura in Ramayana
differently, not necessarily by making your beloved
wife, our Jagan-mAtha a scapegoat! I don?t find fault
with you for any of the popularly known debatable
issues such as Vali vadam and agni-pariksha. But I do
fault you for having made our mAtha suffer ignominy
and indescribable distress. If you can conceive of
such worst scenario for your wife herself, where will
we all go? What difficulties have you decided for us?
Are you right in having scripted a tough scenario for
Sita? Tell me Rama, tell me.

Truly yours,
Jayasree Saranathan



                
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/XUWolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oppiliappan/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    Oppiliappan-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
oppiliappan-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list