Happy Rama Navami to everyone celebrating! So first of all,
what is Rama Navami? Well, in the Hindu religion, one of the incarnations of
Lord Vishnu (the 7th incarnation to be exact) is Shri Rama of Ayodhya. Rama
Navami celebrates his birth. Shri Rama is the central character in one of
Hinduism's greatest epics; The Ramayana. The Ramayana is broken into 7 Kandam
or parts. They are as follows:
Bala Kandam: the birth and the childhood life of Shri Rama until up to Seetha's wedding to him.
Ayodhya Kandam: the coronation of Shri Rama, his exile and the kingship of Bharata
Aranya Kandam: the forest life of Rama, Lakshmana and Seetha until up to Seetha's kidnapping
Kishkinda Kandam: the introduction of Hanuman and the destruction of Vali
Sundara Kandam: this is the part that is originally read first, and it details the life of Hanuman until his meeting with Seetha
Yuddha Kandam: this is the part describing the battle, Seetha's purity test, and the return to Ayodhya
Uttara Kandam: Seetha is exiled due to society's rumors about her purity, Lava & Kusha are born, Rama and Seetha reconcile and the coronations of their sons occur after which Rama depart from this world.
Hinduism has so many stories and incarnations of gods, that it is
sometimes difficult to keep track of their relationships to one another. The
other day, my friend and I were talking about these stories when she asked a question that made me say the ever famous comeback line: "நன்னா கேட்டுட போ ! ராமாயணத்தை பூர கேட்டுட்டு சீதைக்கு ராமர் சித்தப்பவனு கேக்றியே?!" (Nanna kettuta po! Ramayana-tha poora kettutu
Seethai-ku Ramar chitthappa-va kekuriye!")
That night, she emailed me some information and told me to go
read. I went ahead and read it...and well let’s just say she got the last
laugh!
She had done some research and stumbled upon A.K.
Ramanujan's translations of the puranams. AKR was a scholar of Indian
literature and published many works. One of his popular publications
is the currently banned manuscript titled ""Three Hundred
Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translations". There
are however variations on the topics AKR addressed in his essay
and many are published online.
I continued to follow up on her research and did
some of my own before I thought to post this up. This is not to say that
the information might be faulty, after all they are just stories and
beliefs, however, in the case that it is true it seemed note-worthy enough
to post!
There are three stories that lead up to this varied version
of Seetha and Rama's relationship. The first story has to do with Lord Shiva.
As usual, our beloved lord was doing his tapas. However this time, he was so
deeply engrossed in his meditation he did not come out of it for months. The
effects of such high concentration of the lord had detrimental effects to the
world of mankind (think thriuviladal sivaji's Paatum Naane scene where the
world just stops moving; I figured it would be something of that nature).
Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma were concerned and asked Lord Shiva's
favorite devotee Ravana to do something. Ravana meditated on the lord, and the
lord could not ignore summons from his favorite pupil so he disrupted his
meditation. When he realized that he was interrupted for no apparent reason,
however, he got angry and the world felt his wrath. Lord Vishnu and Lord Brahma
quickly dissuaded Lord Shiva and told him the detrimental effects his mediation
was having on the world and how Ravana was summoned by them to help. When Shiva
realized the service Ravana did to save the world (ironic isn't it? ), he
wanted to grant a boon.
At this time, Ravana was unmarried and was in search of a wife. He
told Shiva that he wanted a wife who was always young. No mortal would ever be
able to stay forever young, and Ravana was adamant to have an ever young wife.
Shiva tried to tell him to think of something else, knowing that granting this
wish would only be bad for Ravana, but he did not listen and only wanted
that one wish. The only woman who could forever be portrayed as young was
Bhooma Devi (Mother Earth). If we look into other religions, we can find that
the same concept plays. Gaea (Greek), Joro (Norse), and other mother earth
goddesses are described as old in history but forever young in physique. That
being said, Ravana was
then married to Bhooma Devi.
As we all know, Seetha is not the biological daughter of
Janaka Maha raja. She is portrayed to have been the daughter of the earth; literally meaning the daughter of
Bhooma Devi.
When Rama was going to attack Sri Lanka, Vibheeshana, the brother
of Ravana, switched sides and asked Rama to save him from the sins he committed
by supporting his brother. Rama accepted him and pledged him as his elder
brother stating that Dasaratha has five sons now. The implications of this then
lead to believe that Rama had
indirectly become the brother of Ravana.
Therefore, if we look into this, we can see that, Bhooma Devi got married to Ravana making him some sort of
father to Seetha. Vibheeshana is Rama's brother as well as Ravana's brother which makes Rama and Ravana
brothers. Now, the only logical conclusion is that Rama is Seetha's chitthappa!!
Other accounts of Ravana claim to have similar relationships. For
example, Ravana's wife in the Ramayana is Mandodari. Ravana used to kill sages
and store their blood for power and sacrifice purposes (i know, what a charmer
right?!). Mandodari, the poor girl, was tormented by his deeds and how wrong
they were. There was a sage who was doing intense rituals to
obtain Maha Lakshmi as his daughter. He had a pot filled with essence
and herbs and other sagely things when our dear fellow Ravana killed and
dumped the sages blood into it. This then angered Mandodari and she drank
the blood and herb mixture (not the best substitute for your morning
coffee..) which was supposed to be more deadlier than the worst poison in
the world. However since the sage had hoped to get Maha Lakshmi as a daughter
and all the necessary items were in that concoction, Mandodari conceived Seetha.
Maya had come down to earth to warn Ravana that this child would be the reason
for him to lose his throne. Ravana took heed and buried her in the earth,
thinking that would be the end of the child. But, as we know that was
no where close to the end of the goddess! Ravana, in this story, is
considered to be the father of Seetha. Combine that with Rama being his
brother, and boom. Rama
is once again proven to be Seetha's chitthappa!!
Like I said, there are many translations and accounts of the
Ramayana that an open minded believer, like myself, would be foolish to ignore.
I am sure that there are other translations that prove this as there are
translations that disprove it as well. That being said, one thing I am
absolutely sure of is, that saying, the one about 'Ramar being Seetha's
chittappa and that corralating to the lack of concentration of the
listener'...yep that one needs to definitely change...perhaps even
eliminated... because who knows what other crazy relationships the Gods might
have ;)
***This is not meant to offend anyone; it is just an account for
reading pleasure only***
