ராதே கிருஷ்ணா 23-07-2014
Sri Ramanin Padhayil - Episode 24 - Oct 20 2013
ஸ்ரீராமஜெயம்
The above slogams are in the starting of Valmiki Ramayanam. Valmiki Bhagawan keeps uttering Ram Ram Ram.. Valmiki is like a cuckoo bird who sings beautifully. Cuckoo birds sings while sitting on the bird. Similarly Valmiki Sat on a tree called Vedam and sang us the inisai called Ramayanam and introduced all of us towards Bhakthi Margam.
We can experience Ram through the Ramayana story, uttering Rama namam and doing bajanai is one more way, visiting Ramar temples and praying leads us closer to HIM. So like this there are many kinds in Rama Bhakthi. One such small effort is SriRamanin Padhayil to visit all the places where Raman travelled. Ram started from Chitrakoot and he met 3 munivar's/Rishi's - Sarabhangar, Sutheekshanar and then Agasthiyar, then we went to Ramtek which is north of Nagpur.
After visiting the temple at Ramtek we have now reached Nasik on the banks of river Godavari. Nashik - Though a populated town it is a punya kshetram and also there is this Shanthi(peace) filled place called Tapovan on the either banks of the river Godavari. With Godavari in the middle Nashik town on one side and Tapovanam on the other side.
Lakshman cut Soorpanaka's ear and nose. The place where lakshman was standing while cutting the ear and nose is called as Tapovan. Lakshman threw from the tapovan side of the river and it fell on the other side which is Nashik. Nasika means - Nose in sanksrit. Nasika has become Nasik as known today. Let us watch all the places in Nasik, Panchavati and Tapovan.
Nasik Parikrama
1) Rama Kundam - place where Ram and Sita had taken bath. This sannidhi is on the banks of the free flowing Godavari. After a bath at this place one can visit series of temples one by one.
2) KALE Ram Mandir - between 1782 - 1792 this temple was built. Ram in this temple is black in color
3) GORE Ram Mandir - Ram in this temple is in white color
4) Sita Gufa/Gumpha - There is a Ram,Lakshman,Sita mandir on the top and then one needs to crawl to go further down the cave to see another set of idols and temple inside the cave. Let us learn the story of all these places later and let us first go around these places first.
5) Panchavati - After Sita Gufa is Panchavati. There are 5 Banyan trees here. Many dolls and representation of Ramayanam story can be seen here. There is also a temple/sannidhanam on the other side. All these above places need to be worshipped in and around Ram Ghat on the Godavari bank. If we travel few KM's from there and if we cross the bridge across Godavari on the other side is Tapovan.
6) Tapovan - This place is truly a Tapovan. To control our minds concentrate and meditate on Sita/Ram this is the best place. When we wanted to give a image for our program SRI RAMANIN PADHAYIL you have been seeing this image from the first day. In English they called it silhouette. This is there at Taapovan. Since we saw this scene at Tapovan, we wanted to use this as a leading thread and show Ram to everyone. Hence this scene is used as a logo or emblem for this program.
7) Kapila Theertham - At tapovan is Kapila theertham on one side and Godavari on the other side. The sangamam of Godavari and Kapila Theertham Sangamam is here. Very scared land - punya bhoomi. Even today many yogi's siddhar's do penance from here. Kapilar has done the penance here and hence this place is called as Kapila Theertham.
8) Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva Kundam
9) Agni Kundam
10) Sita Kundam
11) Moksha Kundam - This is between the other two kundam's.
So at tapovan - we have Sangamam of rivers, Kundam's and story of sita. Let us visit all these places one by one and listen to the stories. Before that 35 KM from this place, if we go towards TRIYAMBHAKESHWAR is the place of Godavari Utpathi/Starting. Let us first go there and visit the place and then come back to Nasik.
starting point of the rivers. Ganga, Yamuna, Narmadha, Krishna, Tamirabharani, Vagai, cauvery so many such holy rivers.
From Nasik, if we travel 35 KM is the place where river Godavari starts to flow. This place is called as BRAHMA GIRI or TRIYAMBAKSTHAN.
The shiva who is residing here is called as TRIYAMBHAKESHWAR/ Trimbakeshwar . Because of this Shiva's grace, river Godavari started to flow from here. The Ganga river who was flowing in the sky/agayam was brought down to earth as Godavari. We wanted to see this place. But we didn't visit this during Rama Anu yatra and later a team of 4 went recently to visit these places and capture the videos for you all. Need to climb a mountain. Though we thought that we shall climb faster but it took 4 hours. It is difficult for old people.
Though the passage is broad in the beginning, later it turns Steep and narrow. Let us see the story of this place along with the story of how Godavari started to flow from here. The path is little difficult it is Sriramanin Padhayil ayitre. We had our tough times last two weeks too in this program, while i was thinking later understood it is Sriramanin Padhayil and hence it is going to be diffcult as like the path travelled by Ram himself. (Keep trying difficulties will be there and stay focussed)
Key Takeaway
1. Following Ram's footpath is challenging and one need to keep trying and need to stay focussed to reach the end goal.
There are three mountains here. Brahma Giri, Anjana Giri and Ganga Dwara Giri. Godavari appears and disappears in each of these mountain. Usually a river when it starts from a place it will keep free flowing from that place. But Godavari's speciality is that she first appeared at Brahma Giri and then she disappeared. Then she appeared at GOMUKHAM, She appeared and disappered in various such places and finally at KUSHAVARTHAM she started to settle and started to flow from there. Why is it so ? Let us listen more on this.
GO DA - Sugathai Kodupaval. The river gives joy to all who baths in this river. She helps in getting rid of the papam and in acquiring punyam. VARI - VARISTA. There are many such rivers which help in getting us punyam and she is significant among them. She starts from the west and flows towards the east through Brahma Giri, Nasik, Panchavati, Nanded Parbhani, Badrachalam, Rajamundry - east godavari, west godavari in Andhra pradesh and then she joins the sea. So Godavari gives happiness for all of us. Why did she start from this place ? Let us see about that now.
Gautam and ahalya used to live here. Entire nation was facing severe drought everywhere, except the place where Gautam muni was staying due to his penance and its power. Gautam had fertile land and it used to rain everyday. Varuna Bhagawan came to do his service to this Gautam Muni. Morning Gautam used sow the seeds and he used to harvest on the same day in the afternoon once the crops are grown and used to feed all the muni's in his ashrams. This was happening for a long time. Once a cow came and ate the cultivated land. Gautama muni sent a darbai to destroy the cow and the cow was too weak that it died immediately. Gautam got into Go-hathi dosam because of killing the cow. Inorder to get rid of this Go-hathi dosam, he did penance towards lord shiva by staying in this BrahmaGiri mountain for 12 years. Hene once in 12 years kumbha mela happens here at brahma giri. Note that we have seen about the Kumbha mela which happens at Allahabad. We have told about the Nasik-Godavari Kumbha mela during that time. It is here in Nashik that kumbha mela happens.
One more story is that Ganga matha got stuck in Shiva's head inbetween the hair and could not come out. Ganga wanted to live with Shiva forever. Parvathi Devi didn't like that and she was angry since Ganga wasn't going down from her husband's head and she somehow wanted to send Ganga from Shiva's head. So Parvati and her friend Jaya came down and stayed in this mountain. They had stayed in Gautam muni's ashram too. Jaya took the form of the cow and went to eat the crops which was cultivated by Gautam muni. Shiva told Gautam muni that Ganga need to come to earth so that Gautam muni can get rid of the the Go-hathi dosam.So to help Gautam muni, Shiva wanted Ganga to flow from his head and he unlocked his hai. But Ganga did not come out of
Shiva's head since she wanted to live there forever. Shivan did rudhra thandavam dance and Shiva's sada mudi hit on this brahma giri. Ganga could not manage the force of hitting and she got scared and Ganga in the form of Godavari started to come out in this place which is the Utpathi(starting) place of river godavari.
hamsakAraNDavAkIRNAm vande godAvarIm nadIm |
kshipram rAmAya Samsa tvam sItAm harati rAvaNah ||
In rAmAyaNam AraNya kANDam 49-32, sIta prays to godAvari river to please tell rAma that rAvaNa is taking her. When
Ravana was taking Sita, Sita didn't know how to leave the message to Ram and hence she folds her hand to the godavari who is running below and tells the information to Godavari. But Godavari was scared to Ravanan and didn't speak anything to Ram. Godavari didn't do this service to Ram/Sita, so can we all pray to Godavari ? Vedanta Desikan explains this with a different opinion. He says that "Yes Godavari was wrong. Inspite of being a scared river, she missed to do the kainkaryam for Sita Ramar. How can we worship her ? Yes we can worship her. Godavari has the name Goda which is the original name of Andal who was born at Srivilliputhur. Goda is the name of Andal. Godavari has the name of Andal. So the mistake she did can be excused and forgetten and we can worship Godavari". Such is the explanation by Vedanta Desikan. This is the place where Godavari starts which we have reached today. Such wonderful explanation has been given to us by Sri Vedanta Desikan.
Gautam muni - story continuation..
We saw how Gautam muni got into GO-HATHI dosa and his penance towards Shiva to get Godavari here to brahma giri. This is the place where rudra thandavam was born since Ganga didn't agree to come down easily. Hence in this place we have Triyambakeshwar which is one of the 12 Jyothirlingam. This kshetram was called Triyambakeshwar because of this. Then later Ganga came down when Shiva hit his hair locks in this brahma giri. It looks like a small well and from here Godavari starts to flow. One can see Gautam muni and ahalya's vigraham here. Everyone visiting this place does pooja for Godavari, dhanam and Dakshinai are given here. Though not a big temple there is Udgam sthanam here.
1. When Gautam muni was trying to take a bath when Godavari appeared in the brahma giri first, she disapperated again since she was not willing to come out of Shiva's head.
2. Then she appeared again in a place called "Go mukam" and gautam muni tried to take a bath and he could not since she hid herself again.
3. Then she appeared again at "Triyambakeshwar" in the TRIYAMBAK THEERTHAM and hid herself again and Gautam muni could not take bath.
4. Then at "Rama kundam", "Lakshamana kundam","Sita Kundam" and also at "Ganga Dwaram" and like this she was hiding herself after appearing in each of the above places and Gautam muni could not take bath. One can see all these place if you travel 3 KM in the Brahma giri mountain. It has been told that Ram had come to all these places.
5. Then she went into the next mountain and she came down and gautam muni still could not have his bath in Godavari.
6. Gautam got angry and he instead of waiting for the river to appear, he ordered the river to stop flowing and to stay inside a circle. He took his (Kusam)darbai grass and drew a circle and asked her to stay inside the circle - Darbhathal suzhika patta idam so called as KUSHAVARTHAM. Then gautam muni took bath in the water from that circle. We saw the story of Sakaran's 60,000 son getting rid of the curse due to having bath in Ganga and similarly Gautam muni got rid of his dhosam by having bath in Godavari. Very wonderful place.
Such is the story and greatness of this place called "Godavari Udgam" - the starting place of river Godavari. One just need to wish to come here and no need to spend huge amount of money. This place is full of lush green scene and also lot of punyam. Praying all of us to go and visit this place. Now let us go inside Nasik Panchavati to see other interesting places.
Lakshman cut soorpanaka's nose and eyes in this place when she came here wishing for Ram and Lakshman. Actually Ram was planning to spend rest of his exile duration here before returning to Ayodhya.
Valmiki says in this Slogam - "tham desam Raksachi kachithu ..."
तदा आसीनस्य रामस्य कथा संसक्त चेतसः |
तम् देशम् राक्षसी काचिद् आजगाम यदृच्छ्हया || ३-१७-५
Meaning : At one time when Rama is sitting in hermitage and heartily absorbed in telling narratives some demoness arrived at that place, fortuitously. [3-17-5]
This seems to be Bhagawan's sankalpam. Hence Soorpanaka had come to this place. Ramayanam has Nava rasam - bayam, kovam, viyappu, veruppu, thunbham, hasyam. Valmiki gives all these rasam in his Ramayanam.
Hasya(humour) rasam is here in this Gatam. Valmiki explains this in a very comic manner. Soorpanaka likes Ram and she gets attracted towards Ram and she comes to Ram by changing from her scary demon form to a beautiful women. Then she comes requesting Ram to marry her. Soorpam means "muram" in Tamizh. Soorpanaka means muram pola Nagam(Nails). If her nails are so huge , then imagine how huge her entire body might have been.
Valmiki explains the beauty of Ram and how huge is Soorpankai was before Soorpankai turned to a beautiful lady.
In a comic sense Valmiki compares soorpanaka with such a huge gigantic ugly form and Ram who is bundle of beauty.
Slogam :
सुमुखम् दुर्मुखी रामम् वृत्त मध्यम् महोदरी || ३-१७-९
विशालाक्षम् विरूपाक्षी सुकेशम् ताम्र मूर्धजा |
प्रियरूपम् विरूपा सा सुस्वरम् भैरव स्वना || ३-१७-१०
तरुणम् दारुणा वृद्धा दक्षिणम् वाम भाषिणी |
न्याय वृत्तम् सुदुर्वृत्ता प्रियम् अप्रिय दर्शना || ३-१७-११
शरीरज समाविष्टा राक्षसी रामम् अब्रवीत् |
Meaning :
She that demoness who is facially unpleasant one with that pleasant faced one, pot bellied one with the slim-waisted one, wry-eyed one with the broad-eyed one, coppery-haired one with the neatly tressed one, ugly featured one with the charming featured one, brassy voiced one with the gentle voiced one, deplorably oldish one with the youngish one, crooked talker with the pleasant talker, ill-mannered one with the well-mannered one, uncouth one with couth, abominable one with amiable Rama spoke, besieged by Love-god. [3-17-9b, 11, 12a]
Ram's waist is so small that one cannot even notice it. While soorpanaka's waist is visibile all over the body. Ram's eyes are pleasant like lotus flower. Soorpanka's eyes were scary. When Ram speaks it is like music lingering from Veena. When Soorpanaka's speak's her sound is like hitting a nail on a metal surface(thagaram). Such contrast were the features of Ram and Soorpanaka. Inspite of this, soorpanaka wished to marry Ram. Valmiki explain this with Humour in Ramayanam.
Soorpanaka came and expressed her wish to Ram about marrying him. Raman replied to her saying that he is married and hence she cannot marry him. Then Ram points lakshmana to Soorpanaka dn says "Here is Lakshmana who is unmarried."
Slogam: कृत दारो अस्मि भवति भार्या इयम् दयिता मम |
त्वत् विधानाम् तु नारीणाम् सुदुःखा ससपत्नता || ३-१८-२
Meaning: "Oh, honourable one, I am married and this is my dear wife, thus it will be distressing for your sort of females to live with a co-wife. [3-18-2]
Slogam : अनुजः तु एष मे भ्राता शीलवान् प्रिय दर्शनः |
श्रीमान् अकृत दारः च लक्ष्मणो नाम वीर्यवान् || ३-१८-३
Meaning: "He is my younger brother named Lakshmana, he is with a good conduct, good looking, a promising and valiant one, and he is without a wife. [3-18-3]Rama is known to be a jovial talker, na vitathaa parihaasa kathhasvapi Here for the word a kR^ita daaraH apparently means 'not, made, wife= wife not available.' But Lakshmana is married and Rama says here he is unmarried. Then Rama must have bluffed! Not so, that compound is in its subtext means: 'one who did not make his wife to come along, hence there is no wife.' Govindaraja.
Ram has wife with him while he was in the exile. Ram says "Manaivi kooda illai" and he sents her to Lakshman. Meaning of that is not that Lakshman is unmarried, meaning is that Lakshman is now staying without his wife which Ram is referring being unmarried. Then Soorpanaka went to Lakshma and requested him to marry her. But Lakshman is not ready to marry her and he says "I am myself Dasan(servant) so i don't need one more servant for me and hence cannot marry you. So go and ask the master who is Ram to marry you".
Slogam :कथम् दासस्य मे दासी भार्या भवितुम् इच्छ्हसि |
सो अहम् आर्येण परवान् भ्रात्रा कमल वर्णिनी || ३-१८-९
Meaning: "How you wish to become a female servant, oh, [black] lotus-coloured one, by becoming the wife of a servant like me? I am just a vassal of my adorable brother. [3-18-9]
This discussion continues and then Soorpanaka is upset that none of that brother is ready to marry her. She thinks that Ram is not agreeing because Sita is there. This is all because of Sita being here with Ram and she decides to kill Sita and Soorpanka approaches Sita. As per Ram's wish(kan jadai) Lakshman took the knife and cut soorpanaka's ear and nose. Soorpanaka started to scream and she went to go and complain it to her brothers karan,dushanan, trisira.
Slogam : इति उक्त्वा मृगशावाक्षीम् अलात सदृश ईक्षणा |
अभ्यधावत् सुसंक्रुद्धा महा उल्का रोहिणीम् इव || ३-१८-१७
Meaning : Speaking that way she that torch-eyed Shuurpanakha dashed towards the deer-eyed Seetha in high exasperation as a great meteor would dash towards Rohini, the brightest star in the sky. [3-18-17]
Slogam : इमाम् विरूपाम् असतीम् अतिमत्ताम् महोदरीम् |
राक्षसीम् पुरुषव्याघ्र विरूपयितुम् अर्हसि || ३-१८-२०
Meaning : "She is freakish, knavish and overtly ruttish, oh, tigerly man, it will be apt of you to deface this paunchy demoness " Thus Rama said to Lakshmana. [3-18-20]
Slogam: इति उक्तो लक्ष्मणः तस्याः क्रुद्धो रामस्य पश्यतः |
उद्धृत्य खड्गम् चिच्छ्हेद कर्ण नासम् महाबलः || ३-१८-२१
Meaning : Thus said to that mighty Lakshmana he infuriately drew sword and chopped off her ears and nose before the very eyes of Rama. [3-18-21]
Slogam : ततः सभार्यम् भय मोह मूर्चिता
सलक्ष्मणम् राघवम् आगतम् वनम् |
विरूपणम् च आत्मनि शोणित उक्षिता
शशंस सर्वम् भगिनी खरस्य सा || ३-१८-२६
meaning : Then that sister of Khara who is convulsed in the fluster of fear and her body wetted with blood reported to her brother Khara, all about Rama's arrival in forest with his wife and Lakshmana, and even about his misshaping her. [3-18-26]
Andal says "Kollai arakkiyai mukku arupatta kumaranar sollum poiyanal yanum piranthamai poi anne". As per Raman's wish Lakshman did this act of cutting her ear and nose. The cut piece went and fell at Nasik. The place we
are at currently is called Tapovan. There is a depiction of Lakshman cutting soorpanaka's ear and nose.
There is a sannidhi for Hanuman. Even in the places where Hanuman has not traveled one can see Hanuman sannidhi.
We have already seen Agasthiyar Ashram earlier in two places.
1. First we saw Agasthiyar ashram near Sathna at patna tamouli which we went in a tractor.
2. Second we saw one Agasthiyar Ashram at Ramtek.
3. There is one more agasthiyar ashram in Manmad.
4. There is also agasthiyar ashram in Podigai malai in Tamil Nadu where he had stayed for a long time.
We can also have the darshan of Lakshman cutting ear and nose of soorpanaka is this place. Who cut her eyes and nose ? is it Ram or Lakshman ? Andal says "Kollai arakkiyai mukku arupatta kumaranar sollum poiyanal yanum piranthamai poi anne".
It was not Ram who cut but Ram's right hand Lakshman did cut the ears and nose of Soorpanaka. Lakshman did penance here. Lots of rishi and muni have done penance here and attained mukthi. Even today when we go to Tapovan, one can see the wonderful difference and positive impact in us when we travel to this place.
Next we need to visit the other places like - Brahma,Vishnu, Shiva kundam, Moksha kundam, Sita Kundam, Agni Kundam and the place where Godavari and kapila theertham sangamam happens. Lets wait and see all those places in detail.
तरुणौ रूप संपन्नौ सुकूमारौ महाबलौ |
पुण्डरीक विशालाक्षौ चीर कृष्ण अजिन अंबरौ || ३-१९-१४
फल मूल अशिनौ दान्तौ तापसौ ब्रह्मचारिणौ |
पुत्रौ दशरथस्य आस्ताम् भ्रातरौ राम लक्ष्मनौ || ३-१९-१५
Meaning: "Those two are in adulthood, good-looking, gentle yet greatly mighty, eyes broad like lotuses, dressed in jute-cloths and deerskin, subsistent on fruits and tubers, composed, sagacious and celibate, and they are the sons of Dasharatha, namely Rama and Lakshmana. [3-19-14,15]
Here, when asked by Khara 'who mutilated you?' Shuurpanakha should have normally reported that, 'sons of some king Dasharatha namely Rama and Lakshmana did this' But not telling so she starts her narration with an odd appreciation of Rama's aspects.
Wonderful slogam and this slogam was not by people close to Ram like vashistar or dasaratha or sita instead Soorpanaka. Soorpanka went to his brothers with blood oozing since lakshman had cut her ears and nose. Instead of scolding Ram she praises Ram in this gattam/stage. She says the above slogam meaning - "Two youngsters, very beautiful, with soft skin, but
with great strength, with eyes like lotus , wearing deer skin - people with those attributes had cut my knife." Ram's beauty is the ultimate truth, there is no need to praise, by nature Ram is beautiful so even if someone does not like Ram and even when some one is trying to describe Ram in angry state and when the angry person tries to tell about Ram the beauty had to be explained even when the person is trying to scold or is in anger.
Ravanan wished for Sita. His end was also a tragedy. Soorpana wished for Ram. Her end was also tragedy. Sita moolam Ramanai pattrinal perinbhamana vaikunta kainkaryam yendra pathavi kittum i.e Moksham. So one should not just worship/like Ram alone or Sita alone. Even when we go to temple we should first go to Thayar sannidhi and then to Perumal Sannidhi. Through Thayar if we try to seek perumal, she will forgive us and help us in seeking Perumal. This is a very important truth which is reaveled in Ramayanam.
Key takeaway
2. Seek Ram through Sita and getting the ultimate goal of vaikunta kainkaryam is sure.
Next when we go to Panchavati side to see KALE Ram, GORE Ram, Sita Gufa, Panchavati. Let us all go and see those places. Lets take leave for now in SriRamanin Padhayil and meet at Sita Gufa next week.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Slogam :
Koojantham Rama Ramethi maduram madsuraksharam,
Aaroohya kavitha shakhaam vande Valmiki kokilam.
Salutations to The nightingale Valmiki,
Who sits on the poem like branch,
And who goes on singing sweetly,
“Rama”, “Rama” and “Rama”.
Slogam:
Valmike muni simhasya kavitha vana charina,
Srunvan Rama kadha naadam ko na yathi paraam gathim.
Who in this world will not attain salvation,
Who happen to hear the story of Rama,
Composed by the lion among poets Valmiki,
Who always lived in the forest.
The above slogams are in the starting of Valmiki Ramayanam. Valmiki Bhagawan keeps uttering Ram Ram Ram.. Valmiki is like a cuckoo bird who sings beautifully. Cuckoo birds sings while sitting on the bird. Similarly Valmiki Sat on a tree called Vedam and sang us the inisai called Ramayanam and introduced all of us towards Bhakthi Margam.
We can experience Ram through the Ramayana story, uttering Rama namam and doing bajanai is one more way, visiting Ramar temples and praying leads us closer to HIM. So like this there are many kinds in Rama Bhakthi. One such small effort is SriRamanin Padhayil to visit all the places where Raman travelled. Ram started from Chitrakoot and he met 3 munivar's/Rishi's - Sarabhangar, Sutheekshanar and then Agasthiyar, then we went to Ramtek which is north of Nagpur.
After visiting the temple at Ramtek we have now reached Nasik on the banks of river Godavari. Nashik - Though a populated town it is a punya kshetram and also there is this Shanthi(peace) filled place called Tapovan on the either banks of the river Godavari. With Godavari in the middle Nashik town on one side and Tapovanam on the other side.
Nashik, Godavari and Tapovan Parikrama
Let us first do the parikrama(pradakshinam) of the town like how we have done starting from ayodhya. Then lets go inside the town to visit the temples one by one.Lakshman cut Soorpanaka's ear and nose. The place where lakshman was standing while cutting the ear and nose is called as Tapovan. Lakshman threw from the tapovan side of the river and it fell on the other side which is Nashik. Nasika means - Nose in sanksrit. Nasika has become Nasik as known today. Let us watch all the places in Nasik, Panchavati and Tapovan.
Nasik Parikrama
1) Rama Kundam - place where Ram and Sita had taken bath. This sannidhi is on the banks of the free flowing Godavari. After a bath at this place one can visit series of temples one by one.
2) KALE Ram Mandir - between 1782 - 1792 this temple was built. Ram in this temple is black in color
3) GORE Ram Mandir - Ram in this temple is in white color
4) Sita Gufa/Gumpha - There is a Ram,Lakshman,Sita mandir on the top and then one needs to crawl to go further down the cave to see another set of idols and temple inside the cave. Let us learn the story of all these places later and let us first go around these places first.
5) Panchavati - After Sita Gufa is Panchavati. There are 5 Banyan trees here. Many dolls and representation of Ramayanam story can be seen here. There is also a temple/sannidhanam on the other side. All these above places need to be worshipped in and around Ram Ghat on the Godavari bank. If we travel few KM's from there and if we cross the bridge across Godavari on the other side is Tapovan.
6) Tapovan - This place is truly a Tapovan. To control our minds concentrate and meditate on Sita/Ram this is the best place. When we wanted to give a image for our program SRI RAMANIN PADHAYIL you have been seeing this image from the first day. In English they called it silhouette. This is there at Taapovan. Since we saw this scene at Tapovan, we wanted to use this as a leading thread and show Ram to everyone. Hence this scene is used as a logo or emblem for this program.
7) Kapila Theertham - At tapovan is Kapila theertham on one side and Godavari on the other side. The sangamam of Godavari and Kapila Theertham Sangamam is here. Very scared land - punya bhoomi. Even today many yogi's siddhar's do penance from here. Kapilar has done the penance here and hence this place is called as Kapila Theertham.
8) Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva Kundam
9) Agni Kundam
10) Sita Kundam
11) Moksha Kundam - This is between the other two kundam's.
So at tapovan - we have Sangamam of rivers, Kundam's and story of sita. Let us visit all these places one by one and listen to the stories. Before that 35 KM from this place, if we go towards TRIYAMBHAKESHWAR is the place of Godavari Utpathi/Starting. Let us first go there and visit the place and then come back to Nasik.
BHARATHA BHOOMI, KARMA BHOOMI and RIVER BANKS
Our Bharatha Desam is a punya Bhoomi, karma bhoomi. IF we do the Karma's in this desam and that too at particular places, because of the Mahatmiyam of the place the benefits are multi folded. Among such significant places are thestarting point of the rivers. Ganga, Yamuna, Narmadha, Krishna, Tamirabharani, Vagai, cauvery so many such holy rivers.
RIVER GODAVARI
One among those rivers which starts to flow in Maharastra is Godavari.From Nasik, if we travel 35 KM is the place where river Godavari starts to flow. This place is called as BRAHMA GIRI or TRIYAMBAKSTHAN.
The shiva who is residing here is called as TRIYAMBHAKESHWAR/ Trimbakeshwar . Because of this Shiva's grace, river Godavari started to flow from here. The Ganga river who was flowing in the sky/agayam was brought down to earth as Godavari. We wanted to see this place. But we didn't visit this during Rama Anu yatra and later a team of 4 went recently to visit these places and capture the videos for you all. Need to climb a mountain. Though we thought that we shall climb faster but it took 4 hours. It is difficult for old people.
Though the passage is broad in the beginning, later it turns Steep and narrow. Let us see the story of this place along with the story of how Godavari started to flow from here. The path is little difficult it is Sriramanin Padhayil ayitre. We had our tough times last two weeks too in this program, while i was thinking later understood it is Sriramanin Padhayil and hence it is going to be diffcult as like the path travelled by Ram himself. (Keep trying difficulties will be there and stay focussed)
Key Takeaway
1. Following Ram's footpath is challenging and one need to keep trying and need to stay focussed to reach the end goal.
There are three mountains here. Brahma Giri, Anjana Giri and Ganga Dwara Giri. Godavari appears and disappears in each of these mountain. Usually a river when it starts from a place it will keep free flowing from that place. But Godavari's speciality is that she first appeared at Brahma Giri and then she disappeared. Then she appeared at GOMUKHAM, She appeared and disappered in various such places and finally at KUSHAVARTHAM she started to settle and started to flow from there. Why is it so ? Let us listen more on this.
Godavari's name and its reason :
Slogam : GAM SUKHAM DADATHI ITHE GO DAGO DA - Sugathai Kodupaval. The river gives joy to all who baths in this river. She helps in getting rid of the papam and in acquiring punyam. VARI - VARISTA. There are many such rivers which help in getting us punyam and she is significant among them. She starts from the west and flows towards the east through Brahma Giri, Nasik, Panchavati, Nanded Parbhani, Badrachalam, Rajamundry - east godavari, west godavari in Andhra pradesh and then she joins the sea. So Godavari gives happiness for all of us. Why did she start from this place ? Let us see about that now.
Story of Godavari Utpathi:
One more story is that Ganga matha got stuck in Shiva's head inbetween the hair and could not come out. Ganga wanted to live with Shiva forever. Parvathi Devi didn't like that and she was angry since Ganga wasn't going down from her husband's head and she somehow wanted to send Ganga from Shiva's head. So Parvati and her friend Jaya came down and stayed in this mountain. They had stayed in Gautam muni's ashram too. Jaya took the form of the cow and went to eat the crops which was cultivated by Gautam muni. Shiva told Gautam muni that Ganga need to come to earth so that Gautam muni can get rid of the the Go-hathi dosam.So to help Gautam muni, Shiva wanted Ganga to flow from his head and he unlocked his hai. But Ganga did not come out of
Shiva's head since she wanted to live there forever. Shivan did rudhra thandavam dance and Shiva's sada mudi hit on this brahma giri. Ganga could not manage the force of hitting and she got scared and Ganga in the form of Godavari started to come out in this place which is the Utpathi(starting) place of river godavari.
Sita Praying to River Godavari
Slogam from Valmiki Ramayanam.hamsakAraNDavAkIRNAm vande godAvarIm nadIm |
kshipram rAmAya Samsa tvam sItAm harati rAvaNah ||
In rAmAyaNam AraNya kANDam 49-32, sIta prays to godAvari river to please tell rAma that rAvaNa is taking her. When
Ravana was taking Sita, Sita didn't know how to leave the message to Ram and hence she folds her hand to the godavari who is running below and tells the information to Godavari. But Godavari was scared to Ravanan and didn't speak anything to Ram. Godavari didn't do this service to Ram/Sita, so can we all pray to Godavari ? Vedanta Desikan explains this with a different opinion. He says that "Yes Godavari was wrong. Inspite of being a scared river, she missed to do the kainkaryam for Sita Ramar. How can we worship her ? Yes we can worship her. Godavari has the name Goda which is the original name of Andal who was born at Srivilliputhur. Goda is the name of Andal. Godavari has the name of Andal. So the mistake she did can be excused and forgetten and we can worship Godavari". Such is the explanation by Vedanta Desikan. This is the place where Godavari starts which we have reached today. Such wonderful explanation has been given to us by Sri Vedanta Desikan.
GODAVARI UDGAM
This is the place where starts to flow and is known as GODAVARI UDGAM. Everyone does puja to Godavari in this place.Gautam muni - story continuation..
We saw how Gautam muni got into GO-HATHI dosa and his penance towards Shiva to get Godavari here to brahma giri. This is the place where rudra thandavam was born since Ganga didn't agree to come down easily. Hence in this place we have Triyambakeshwar which is one of the 12 Jyothirlingam. This kshetram was called Triyambakeshwar because of this. Then later Ganga came down when Shiva hit his hair locks in this brahma giri. It looks like a small well and from here Godavari starts to flow. One can see Gautam muni and ahalya's vigraham here. Everyone visiting this place does pooja for Godavari, dhanam and Dakshinai are given here. Though not a big temple there is Udgam sthanam here.
HIDE & SEEK BY GODAVARI
2. Then she appeared again in a place called "Go mukam" and gautam muni tried to take a bath and he could not since she hid herself again.
3. Then she appeared again at "Triyambakeshwar" in the TRIYAMBAK THEERTHAM and hid herself again and Gautam muni could not take bath.
4. Then at "Rama kundam", "Lakshamana kundam","Sita Kundam" and also at "Ganga Dwaram" and like this she was hiding herself after appearing in each of the above places and Gautam muni could not take bath. One can see all these place if you travel 3 KM in the Brahma giri mountain. It has been told that Ram had come to all these places.
5. Then she went into the next mountain and she came down and gautam muni still could not have his bath in Godavari.
6. Gautam got angry and he instead of waiting for the river to appear, he ordered the river to stop flowing and to stay inside a circle. He took his (Kusam)darbai grass and drew a circle and asked her to stay inside the circle - Darbhathal suzhika patta idam so called as KUSHAVARTHAM. Then gautam muni took bath in the water from that circle. We saw the story of Sakaran's 60,000 son getting rid of the curse due to having bath in Ganga and similarly Gautam muni got rid of his dhosam by having bath in Godavari. Very wonderful place.
Such is the story and greatness of this place called "Godavari Udgam" - the starting place of river Godavari. One just need to wish to come here and no need to spend huge amount of money. This place is full of lush green scene and also lot of punyam. Praying all of us to go and visit this place. Now let us go inside Nasik Panchavati to see other interesting places.
NASIK - PANCHAVATI/TAPOVAN
On the two banks of river Godavari's we can see Panchavati/Tapovan on one side and Nasik on the other side. Lakshman did penance here and hence this place is called Tapovanam. Ram, Lakshman and Sita were in the forest. Here is the beautiful nizhal padam which we have been seeing in the beginning of every episode of SriRamaninPadhayil. Ram, Lakshman, Sita walking in the Tapovan. Lakshman did penance to protect Ram.
Story of Lakshman punishing Soorpanaka
LAKSHMAN TEMPLE AT TAPOVAN - Lakshman can be seen here below adi seshan.
Lakshman cut soorpanaka's nose and eyes in this place when she came here wishing for Ram and Lakshman. Actually Ram was planning to spend rest of his exile duration here before returning to Ayodhya.
Valmiki says in this Slogam - "tham desam Raksachi kachithu ..."
तदा आसीनस्य रामस्य कथा संसक्त चेतसः |
तम् देशम् राक्षसी काचिद् आजगाम यदृच्छ्हया || ३-१७-५
Meaning : At one time when Rama is sitting in hermitage and heartily absorbed in telling narratives some demoness arrived at that place, fortuitously. [3-17-5]
This seems to be Bhagawan's sankalpam. Hence Soorpanaka had come to this place. Ramayanam has Nava rasam - bayam, kovam, viyappu, veruppu, thunbham, hasyam. Valmiki gives all these rasam in his Ramayanam.
Hasya(humour) rasam is here in this Gatam. Valmiki explains this in a very comic manner. Soorpanaka likes Ram and she gets attracted towards Ram and she comes to Ram by changing from her scary demon form to a beautiful women. Then she comes requesting Ram to marry her. Soorpam means "muram" in Tamizh. Soorpanaka means muram pola Nagam(Nails). If her nails are so huge , then imagine how huge her entire body might have been.
Valmiki explains the beauty of Ram and how huge is Soorpankai was before Soorpankai turned to a beautiful lady.
In a comic sense Valmiki compares soorpanaka with such a huge gigantic ugly form and Ram who is bundle of beauty.
Slogam :
सुमुखम् दुर्मुखी रामम् वृत्त मध्यम् महोदरी || ३-१७-९
विशालाक्षम् विरूपाक्षी सुकेशम् ताम्र मूर्धजा |
प्रियरूपम् विरूपा सा सुस्वरम् भैरव स्वना || ३-१७-१०
तरुणम् दारुणा वृद्धा दक्षिणम् वाम भाषिणी |
न्याय वृत्तम् सुदुर्वृत्ता प्रियम् अप्रिय दर्शना || ३-१७-११
शरीरज समाविष्टा राक्षसी रामम् अब्रवीत् |
Meaning :
She that demoness who is facially unpleasant one with that pleasant faced one, pot bellied one with the slim-waisted one, wry-eyed one with the broad-eyed one, coppery-haired one with the neatly tressed one, ugly featured one with the charming featured one, brassy voiced one with the gentle voiced one, deplorably oldish one with the youngish one, crooked talker with the pleasant talker, ill-mannered one with the well-mannered one, uncouth one with couth, abominable one with amiable Rama spoke, besieged by Love-god. [3-17-9b, 11, 12a]
Ram's waist is so small that one cannot even notice it. While soorpanaka's waist is visibile all over the body. Ram's eyes are pleasant like lotus flower. Soorpanka's eyes were scary. When Ram speaks it is like music lingering from Veena. When Soorpanaka's speak's her sound is like hitting a nail on a metal surface(thagaram). Such contrast were the features of Ram and Soorpanaka. Inspite of this, soorpanaka wished to marry Ram. Valmiki explain this with Humour in Ramayanam.
Soorpanaka came and expressed her wish to Ram about marrying him. Raman replied to her saying that he is married and hence she cannot marry him. Then Ram points lakshmana to Soorpanaka dn says "Here is Lakshmana who is unmarried."
Slogam: कृत दारो अस्मि भवति भार्या इयम् दयिता मम |
त्वत् विधानाम् तु नारीणाम् सुदुःखा ससपत्नता || ३-१८-२
Meaning: "Oh, honourable one, I am married and this is my dear wife, thus it will be distressing for your sort of females to live with a co-wife. [3-18-2]
Slogam : अनुजः तु एष मे भ्राता शीलवान् प्रिय दर्शनः |
श्रीमान् अकृत दारः च लक्ष्मणो नाम वीर्यवान् || ३-१८-३
Meaning: "He is my younger brother named Lakshmana, he is with a good conduct, good looking, a promising and valiant one, and he is without a wife. [3-18-3]Rama is known to be a jovial talker, na vitathaa parihaasa kathhasvapi Here for the word a kR^ita daaraH apparently means 'not, made, wife= wife not available.' But Lakshmana is married and Rama says here he is unmarried. Then Rama must have bluffed! Not so, that compound is in its subtext means: 'one who did not make his wife to come along, hence there is no wife.' Govindaraja.
Ram has wife with him while he was in the exile. Ram says "Manaivi kooda illai" and he sents her to Lakshman. Meaning of that is not that Lakshman is unmarried, meaning is that Lakshman is now staying without his wife which Ram is referring being unmarried. Then Soorpanaka went to Lakshma and requested him to marry her. But Lakshman is not ready to marry her and he says "I am myself Dasan(servant) so i don't need one more servant for me and hence cannot marry you. So go and ask the master who is Ram to marry you".
Slogam :कथम् दासस्य मे दासी भार्या भवितुम् इच्छ्हसि |
सो अहम् आर्येण परवान् भ्रात्रा कमल वर्णिनी || ३-१८-९
Meaning: "How you wish to become a female servant, oh, [black] lotus-coloured one, by becoming the wife of a servant like me? I am just a vassal of my adorable brother. [3-18-9]
This discussion continues and then Soorpanaka is upset that none of that brother is ready to marry her. She thinks that Ram is not agreeing because Sita is there. This is all because of Sita being here with Ram and she decides to kill Sita and Soorpanka approaches Sita. As per Ram's wish(kan jadai) Lakshman took the knife and cut soorpanaka's ear and nose. Soorpanaka started to scream and she went to go and complain it to her brothers karan,dushanan, trisira.
Slogam : इति उक्त्वा मृगशावाक्षीम् अलात सदृश ईक्षणा |
अभ्यधावत् सुसंक्रुद्धा महा उल्का रोहिणीम् इव || ३-१८-१७
Meaning : Speaking that way she that torch-eyed Shuurpanakha dashed towards the deer-eyed Seetha in high exasperation as a great meteor would dash towards Rohini, the brightest star in the sky. [3-18-17]
Slogam : इमाम् विरूपाम् असतीम् अतिमत्ताम् महोदरीम् |
राक्षसीम् पुरुषव्याघ्र विरूपयितुम् अर्हसि || ३-१८-२०
Meaning : "She is freakish, knavish and overtly ruttish, oh, tigerly man, it will be apt of you to deface this paunchy demoness " Thus Rama said to Lakshmana. [3-18-20]
Slogam: इति उक्तो लक्ष्मणः तस्याः क्रुद्धो रामस्य पश्यतः |
उद्धृत्य खड्गम् चिच्छ्हेद कर्ण नासम् महाबलः || ३-१८-२१
Meaning : Thus said to that mighty Lakshmana he infuriately drew sword and chopped off her ears and nose before the very eyes of Rama. [3-18-21]
Slogam : ततः सभार्यम् भय मोह मूर्चिता
सलक्ष्मणम् राघवम् आगतम् वनम् |
विरूपणम् च आत्मनि शोणित उक्षिता
शशंस सर्वम् भगिनी खरस्य सा || ३-१८-२६
meaning : Then that sister of Khara who is convulsed in the fluster of fear and her body wetted with blood reported to her brother Khara, all about Rama's arrival in forest with his wife and Lakshmana, and even about his misshaping her. [3-18-26]
Andal says "Kollai arakkiyai mukku arupatta kumaranar sollum poiyanal yanum piranthamai poi anne". As per Raman's wish Lakshman did this act of cutting her ear and nose. The cut piece went and fell at Nasik. The place we
are at currently is called Tapovan. There is a depiction of Lakshman cutting soorpanaka's ear and nose.
Lakshman temple at Tapovan
First is Lakman's temple at tapovan with Lakshman under Adi Shesan.There is a sannidhi for Hanuman. Even in the places where Hanuman has not traveled one can see Hanuman sannidhi.
Agasthiyar Sannidhi at Panchavati
There is one sannidhi for agasthiyar too. There is a Agasthiyar ashram in Nasik too.
We have already seen Agasthiyar Ashram earlier in two places.
1. First we saw Agasthiyar ashram near Sathna at patna tamouli which we went in a tractor.
2. Second we saw one Agasthiyar Ashram at Ramtek.
3. There is one more agasthiyar ashram in Manmad.
4. There is also agasthiyar ashram in Podigai malai in Tamil Nadu where he had stayed for a long time.
We can also have the darshan of Lakshman cutting ear and nose of soorpanaka is this place. Who cut her eyes and nose ? is it Ram or Lakshman ? Andal says "Kollai arakkiyai mukku arupatta kumaranar sollum poiyanal yanum piranthamai poi anne".
It was not Ram who cut but Ram's right hand Lakshman did cut the ears and nose of Soorpanaka. Lakshman did penance here. Lots of rishi and muni have done penance here and attained mukthi. Even today when we go to Tapovan, one can see the wonderful difference and positive impact in us when we travel to this place.
Next we need to visit the other places like - Brahma,Vishnu, Shiva kundam, Moksha kundam, Sita Kundam, Agni Kundam and the place where Godavari and kapila theertham sangamam happens. Lets wait and see all those places in detail.
Shoorpanaka complaining to her brothers
Slogam : Tarunow..
तरुणौ रूप संपन्नौ सुकूमारौ महाबलौ |
पुण्डरीक विशालाक्षौ चीर कृष्ण अजिन अंबरौ || ३-१९-१४
फल मूल अशिनौ दान्तौ तापसौ ब्रह्मचारिणौ |
पुत्रौ दशरथस्य आस्ताम् भ्रातरौ राम लक्ष्मनौ || ३-१९-१५
Meaning: "Those two are in adulthood, good-looking, gentle yet greatly mighty, eyes broad like lotuses, dressed in jute-cloths and deerskin, subsistent on fruits and tubers, composed, sagacious and celibate, and they are the sons of Dasharatha, namely Rama and Lakshmana. [3-19-14,15]
Here, when asked by Khara 'who mutilated you?' Shuurpanakha should have normally reported that, 'sons of some king Dasharatha namely Rama and Lakshmana did this' But not telling so she starts her narration with an odd appreciation of Rama's aspects.
Wonderful slogam and this slogam was not by people close to Ram like vashistar or dasaratha or sita instead Soorpanaka. Soorpanka went to his brothers with blood oozing since lakshman had cut her ears and nose. Instead of scolding Ram she praises Ram in this gattam/stage. She says the above slogam meaning - "Two youngsters, very beautiful, with soft skin, but
with great strength, with eyes like lotus , wearing deer skin - people with those attributes had cut my knife." Ram's beauty is the ultimate truth, there is no need to praise, by nature Ram is beautiful so even if someone does not like Ram and even when some one is trying to describe Ram in angry state and when the angry person tries to tell about Ram the beauty had to be explained even when the person is trying to scold or is in anger.
GODAVARI - KAPILA THEERTHAM Sangamam
Next place in Tapovan is the Sangamam of Godavri and Kapila theertham. Kapilar vigraham is here near the Kapila Theertham. Kapilar is the person who spread Sankhya philosophy and good in Bhakthi Shastram. Kapilar has stayed here and did penance.
Lakshman cutting Soorpanaka's nose and ears
There is also an ancient shila of Lakshman and Soorpanaka depicting the cutting of nose and ears. Soorpanaka is a women. Is it an apt act to have cut her nose and ears ? It was Soorpanaka who came to kill first in her gigantic form and at that time Ram/Lakshman did this act. They didn't do this when she aproached asking them to marry her.
LET"S SEEK RAM'S FEET THROUGH SITA
We need to understand one thing from this story.Ravanan wished for Sita. His end was also a tragedy. Soorpana wished for Ram. Her end was also tragedy. Sita moolam Ramanai pattrinal perinbhamana vaikunta kainkaryam yendra pathavi kittum i.e Moksham. So one should not just worship/like Ram alone or Sita alone. Even when we go to temple we should first go to Thayar sannidhi and then to Perumal Sannidhi. Through Thayar if we try to seek perumal, she will forgive us and help us in seeking Perumal. This is a very important truth which is reaveled in Ramayanam.
Key takeaway
2. Seek Ram through Sita and getting the ultimate goal of vaikunta kainkaryam is sure.
Brahma Shiva Vishnu Kundam
There are 3 kundam - one for each of them - Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Very ancient kundams. There is also belief that Ram might have come here and used these kundams for tharpanam or bathing. Yatrika's can get into one of the kundam and can get out of the another kundam. Papam gets cured in having holy scared bath in the water below these kundam. One need to be careful ofcourse while having bath in these kundam.
SITA Kundam
Next there is Sita Kundam which was used by Sita. People believe that Sita had taken bath in this kundam.
AGNI Kundam
Then there is Agni Kundam, from which Sita had used water for cooking. One can see Sita Rasoi also here in Nasik and we shall see the same.MOKSHA Kundam
Mukthi allikum kundam. Inside this kundam one can see Sita padugai. (Key Takeaway). This also depicts that one need to seek Sita and then through her seek Ram which will give Mukthi/moksham. "Sita devi patri ramanai patra vendum". If one further goes inside this kundam, Sita vigraham is also here inside this kundam and some of the yogi's have seen it. One need to travel deep inside the moksha kundam's water to see this vigraham.Lav-Kush with Sita Vigraham
Next to it is Lav-kush Vigraham. Why lav-kush here at Nasik when they were born in bittoor. Probably at a later state they have installed these vigrahams of Sita-Luv-Kush.
Next when we go to Panchavati side to see KALE Ram, GORE Ram, Sita Gufa, Panchavati. Let us all go and see those places. Lets take leave for now in SriRamanin Padhayil and meet at Sita Gufa next week.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Sri Ramanin Padhayil - Episode 25 - Oct 27 2013
ஸ்ரீராமஜெயம்
तपः स्वाध्याय निरताम् तपस्वी वाग्विदाम् वरम् |
नारदम् परिपप्रच्छ वाल्मीकिः मुनि पुंगवम् || १-१-१
A thoughtful-meditator, an eternally studious sage in scriptures about the Truth and Untruth, a sagacious thinker, and a sublime enunciator among all expert enunciators is Narada, and with such a Divine Sage Narada, the Sage-Poet Valmiki is inquisitively enquiring about a man who is a composite for all merited endowments in his form and calibre. [1-1-1]
The above slogam is the first starting slogam of SriRamayanam by Valmiki. When Narada had come to Valmiki Ashram, Valmiki had asked many questions to Naradar in order to know about Ram's guna. In our life's all of us need a role modelwhom we can look up to and follow the foot path. The person need to be a Sandron, person who has learnt the sashthram, person who is interested in this world's good. When GOD himself had come down as Ram who else can be a role model for all of us. All the great acharya's have also followed the foot path of Emperuman. Ramayanam is nothing but Ram showing us all the great guna's for us to follow.
Key Takeaway
1. Ramayanam is nothing but Ram showing us all the great guna's for us to follow.
We are following SriRam both w.r.t the path he travelled i.e places he visited, and also w.r.t the way he lived by exhibiting all the good characteristics being our role model. As we are discussing from our first week - SriRamanin Padhay refers to both the above meaning. As part of SriRamaninPadhayil we need to follow his foot steps based on how he lived. If one tries to understand how Ram lived and if one follows all the values and discipline and darma followed by Ram life will be very good. Following Ram's path of travel and visiting all the places which Ram travelled helps in reducing our Papam. Due to these two reasons we are doing this program.
Key Takeaway
2. Visiting the places related to Ram and thinking about him and acting/following his foot path reduces our papam/sins.
We are at Nasik Panchavati and we also saw godavari utpathi(starting) place last week. Now we are at nasik. With nasik on one side and tapovan/panchavati/parnasala on the other side GOdavari is running in the middle in this town.
Key takeway
3. A couple need to learn from how they should live looking at Ram and Sita who were examples of aniyonyam and lived by example all the dharma to be followed in a married life.
If we visit this place, it is sure that one's married life will prosper and one will walk in the Dharma path and live in the path of Dharma Path. The water level here depends on the season but still the tourists are here all through the year. Avar thirumeni patta idam. Oru attrukke perumai pirabhavam. The water has been flowing continuously for many years and also this place and river has significance due to its relationship with Ram since it has been continously flowing since Ram's day. After finishing the Jala tharpanam and bath at Rama Kundam, next we are going to see many temples all in one street.
There is also a Black anjaneya swamy in the dwaram of this temple. The vigraham is not made of metal and instead the vigraham has been found in the Godavari padugai(river bed) and it has been made out of black sand of the godavari river bed. Since the idol is made of sand, there is no thirumanjanam(holy bath) done for the idol of this temple.
Upanyasam from Kala Ram Mandir
Now we are at Panchavati at the Kala Ram Mandir. Ram's natural color is black. Here emperuman shows us sevai in black color. Ram, Sita and Lakshman's wonderful darshan can be had here. Raja has spent many lakhs to built this temple some 1000 years ago. The idol is made from the Black sand from the Godavari river bed and not made of metal. Since the idol is made of
sand, there is no thirumanjanam(holy bath) done for the idol of this temple. Purathanamana kovil, Sirapakkalai , nun kalai is very wonderful in this temple. All of us should go and visit this temple and need to gain punyam.
Slogam
Ramaya Rama Bhadraya
Ramachandraya Vedhase
Raghu Nathaya Nathaya
Sitayah Pataye Namaha
Meaning : To Rama, Ramabhadra, Raghunatha(These are different names of Lord Rama),the Lord, the Consort of Seetha, our salutations to him.
Raman is Sita pathi. Sita is (Sivantha niram)red in color. Ram is black and hence he is known as "nila mega shyamalan","Mugil vannan", "Kadal vannan","Karu neela vannan", "Mega Vannan", "Neela vannan"
Next is white Ram temple. GORE means white. White Ram made out of White Marble. The idols in north india are made of White Marble stone. Hence this Ram is called as GORE Ram Mandir. The temple is in a small street. There is one beautiful dhyanam mandapam. We can see the idols of Ram, Lakshman, Sita. We need to understand about Ram and his Guna's when we visit these temples. Though Ram's external color is black he is full of satva gunam. Ram is reachable, Ram is full of Sattva Guna, ram's nature is to help and protect everyone. This is what Ram has left for us to follow and practice and it is a great treasure he has given us.
Key Takeaway
4. Ram is reachable, Ram is full of Sattva Guna, ram's nature is to help and protect everyone. This is what Ram has left for us to follow and practice and it is a great treasure he has given us.
In today's world the important focus is on environment. We should safe guard our environment and for the growth of human, other species should not get impacted or destroyed. Human's should stay in harmony with nature. This Satva gunam is what is needed in this hour. One should not disturb and should protect all the trees, planta, insects since they are all Jeevatma too. Ram had this pure mind. He only destroyed people who troubled or disturbed the world. He was protecting all the other creatures from the troublesome. He destroyed only the body and we need to note that the atma is not destroyed.
Next we are going to Panchavati. After visiting Ram Ghat/kundam the yatra group formed a queue to visit the next set of places like Kala Ram, Gore Ram, Parna Salai. Next is Parna Salai, Panchavati and Sita gufa. Parna Salai - Ram has stayed in a Kutiya/Kudil/straw cottage, Panchavati is the place with 5 Banyan trees and Sita Gufa which is a small cave and we need to crawl and go inside to see the idols.
Key Takeaway
5. From a small seed a big banyan tree grows. Similarly, if we follow small small good habits it will lead us to good path. Small habits like truth, patience, porumai, speak softly, reachable - these five things are like 5 vatam. We will all benefit and we will be beneficial to others too like a banyan tree.
The importance is not just the place, it is also because of the message these places tells us.
We are getting into the Parnakuti. A mahant has been serving in this temple for the past 40-50 years. So many Salagramam's are here. Let us listen to Panchavati and Parnasalai's significance from that place. Followed by a small Speech by the person in the temple at Parnakuti.
Upanyasam from Parna Salai :
On the 11th day we are at Panchavati. From Agasthyar's ashram, ram walked till here through the forest and reached Panchavati,Nasik. There are 5 banyan trees here and so called as panchavati. Now we are at Parna salai -Lakshman Ramanukaga amaitha parna salai. Ram was happy to see the parna salai built by lakshman. Ram said to lakshmana the following slogam on seeing the beautiful hermitage lakshmana had built.
Slogam:
भावज्ञेन कृतज्ञेन धर्मज्ञेन च लक्ष्मण |
त्वया पुत्रेण धर्मात्मा न संवृत्तः पिता मम || ३-१५-२९
Meaning:
"You are the knower of others feelings, knower of many skills, and the knower of what is right and honest, oh, Lakshmana, such as you are, being with you I deem that my virtue-souled father is not gone and forgotten. [3-15-29]
Ram said "with the intention of serving me Lakshmana you are doing all this as per the dharmam like how our father Dasarathan would have done to me if he was alive. Till you are with me, my father is not yet dead. " Ram, Lakshman and Sita had stayed in this parna salai happily. If we meditate from this place about Ram/Sita, our papam will get reduced and we shall be rescued from this samsaram. Everyone should visit this Parnasalai.
This is a Valmiki Ramayanam slogam. When we say Sita, she is our mother, Jagan matha, loga nayaki, jagath Janani. Such great Sita was imprisoned in Ashoka vanam for 10 months by ravana. As per the words of learned she got herself into this place. Though Ravanan tried to imprison her, it was our Jaganmatha who for the sake of the Deva's got herself into the prison.
Why did she get prisoned herself for 10 months at ravan's place ? It is for the sake of Deva's to kill Ravanna and save the Deva loga ladies who were at Ravana's place. Sita's story tells about "Sirai irunthaval yetram" as per PIllai ullagasiriyan. Ramayan's significance is due to the great episode of Sita being imprisoned for 10 months. There is a saying that Ravanan had 10 heads
and hence Sita was in ashoka van for 10 months. Deva srigal(ladies) were prisoned at Ravana's place and hence Sita took this attempt to rescue them.
Who is this Vedavati ?
It was vedavati who was taken by Ravanan to Lanka.
If you heard about THirumala Thirupathi Mahatmiyam, Venkatesa Mahatmiyam, Srinivasa Kalyanam you must have heard about Vedavati. Let us see Vedavati's story in short.
Kushadwajan's daughter is Vedavati. Vedavati wanted to marry Bhagwan only and she happen to do penance for the same. But Ravanan happen to see her one day and ravanan wanted to marry her. Ravanan also tried to misbehave with Vedavati. Then Vedavati said "I will be the reason for your death. You cannot reach me without my permission". Then Vedavati took another birth. In this janma when Ravana was trying to capture Sita, Sita was hidden magically in this cave by the Deva's and it was vedavati who went with Ravanan in the form of Sita in the pushpaka vimanam. Sita was kept here at this place Sita Gufa safely. Later Ram went and got back Sita. Sita did Agnipravesam and at that time bhooma devi and Agni bhagawan came with the actual Sita and explained about Vedavalli who was in the place of Sita. Vedavalli wanted to marry Ram. Sita herself told Ram "She saved us and she wanted to marry you". Ram declined due to the "EKA PATNI VIRATHAM" while he is as Ram and agreed to marry her in the avataram as Srinivasan. So in the next janma Vedavalli was born as PADMAVATHI daughter to AkasaRajan. We can visit Padmavathi thayar at Thirupathi Thiruchanoor. Ram himself was born as Srinivasar and he married Padmavathi. During Srinivasa kalyanam, Srinivasar called Padmavathi as "Vedavathi" which made Padmavathi realize all the earlier truth that she was none other than Vedavathi who saved Sita in her earlier Janma.
Sita was kept in this Gufa(cave)... Inside the Guha beautiful temple. One need to crawl and go inside. In the top floor we have Ram,Sita, Lakshman. After going inside the cave also, inside the cave very beautiful Ram,Lakshman and sita. Small place and only 4 or 5 can stand. There is a pujari. We had darshan of this beautiful temple.
Opposite to this is the beautiful depiction in modern dolls/art on how sita was when she was staying here.. all these are in modern doll representation..
Actually after watching all this and when we cross sita gufa then we could go to panchavati. Close to this, is a temple called Sundara Narayanan Temple built by Chandra Chudan which we shall see next.
Slogam - "Ponnivar Meni Maragathin Pongilam.."
On Nagapattinam Soundararajan permal, Thirumangai azhwar has sung 10 pasuram and this is the first pasuram.
This above one is the first song. Very beautiful song describing all the features of Bhagawan. Like this bhagwan is there in many thiruthalams. Thirumangai azhwar yennum PARAKALA NAYAGI sings this song with this bhavam on looking at this beautiful grace and beauty of Perumal. The pasuram " Is the thirumeni made out of gold, maragadam ? i do not know what it is made of..." We have had the darshan of this Soundararajan perumal.
Now we are at Nasik Panchavati and we have the darshan of Sundara Nayaryan Perumal in this beautiful form(sundara murthy). The vigraham is beautiful and black in color and very attractive. It is a separate temple and Narayanan is in this Temple. When Ram had come here all the Rishi's had darshan of Ram. All the rishi's didn't want this sundara ram to go away from this temple. As per the request of the Rishi's,Ram agreed to stay here as Sundara Narayanan in this Temple. Ram who is Narayanan himself stayed here as Sundara Narayanan. The ever beautiful Ram, the ever beautiful Sita as Narayanan and Mahalakshmi are here at Sundara Narayanan temple. This temple is very ancient and the idol is very old. The temple alone was renovated some years ago by Gangadhar Yashwanth Chandra Choodar. Perumal as Sundara Narayanan with Sangam and Chakram. On looking at this perumal's face "Kondal vannanai " pasuram of Thirupanazhwar is what one is reminded of.
Pasuram: "Allama maram.."
Perumal in this temple is black in color, neela meni vannan in a very attractive form. Next to Perumal is Mahalakshmi Thayar. On the other side is Thulasi Devi. Only this temple in the entire bharatha desam, we can see the temple for Thulasi. Perumal, lakshmi and thulasi devi are in this temple.
Let us hear from the Mahant of this temple. - The temple you are watching now is Sundara Narayanan Temple. One of the ancient temple in Nasik. You can see Three murthi - Lakshmi, Narayanan, Thulasi(vrinda devi) and then Garuda bhagawan below. This temple was renovated by Sardar Chandra Chood by spending 10 lakhs ruppes. Earlier it was a wooden temple but was
devasted during mughal period. When renovated, this temple was made using black stones. Some of the significance of this temple are as follows.
1. The significance of Thulasi being along with perumal and hence it is a very rare temple.
2. On 20 and 21st march, the first rays of the sun falls on the murthy of this temple first before falling on the earth. This is a very significant aspects of this temple.
3. Kade Ganesh and baite hanuman and it is very rare to see this combination.
4. Utsav Prathimahotsav during Karthik month during thirupuri Poornima.
5. Here Bhagawan kapaleshwar and Bhagawan Sundara Narayanan -- HARI HARE BET <>> Some ritual on Vaikunta Chaturdasi something is exchanged between Shiv and Vishnu in this temple.
We heard about the greatness of this temple. We do not need huge money to offer things to GOD. Instead we can offer 4 dhalam thulasi to perumal. Perumal is flattered because of this thulasi offering. 4 dhalam konda thulasi samarpikka vendum during daily Thiruvaradhanam.
Azhwar says "Poosum santhu yen nenjame...." referring to "I do not have sandanam, flowers or silk clothes. But i have my mind and song for you".
Similarly when we offer thulasi we need to say "Hey Kesava piriye unnai perumalluku Samarpikaren" yendru solli thulasiyai perumalluku samarpika vendum. This will help us to get rid of all our trouble. Perumal becomes happy due to this act of us since we offered Thulasi to him. Antha thulasi Devi is here in this temple along with sundara narayanan temple.
Key Takeaway
6. Offer what you have with full heart and mind.
7. when we offer thulasi we need to say "Hey Kesava piriye unnai perumalluku Samarpikaren" yendru solli thulasiyai perumalluku samarpika vendum. This will help us to get rid of all our trouble. Perumal becomes happy due to this act of us since we offered Thulasi to him.
Though this temple can be missed by people visiting Nasik since it is not in the main place. Each of you should go to this temple when you go to Nasik. Next is a important place 60 KM from this place following a deer.
At Thillai chittrakooda is perumal Govindarajan. Govindarajan empuremanai azhwar saw as Ram himself. That Ram bent his bow and sent an arrow to kill the Deer. That story has happened here in this place.
Marichan came in the form of a deer to take Ram away to a very long distance away from Sita. Marichan was asked to do this by Ravanan. Marichan who came was loitering her and there.
This happened when Sita/Ram were staying in the ParnaSalai ParnaKutty. This can be seen here at Nasik. The other places like the following we need to go and watch.
1. The place where Ram sent the Bow
2. The place the bow hit the deer
3. The place marichan died and fell down
Just in this place alone Ram was alone. Usually Ram, Lakshman and Sita used to walk together. But here in this place Ram was all alone. Pogathavar ponal aabhathu, villayatu vinaiyaga mudinthathu. Raman thanithu ponathe illai. Always he was either with lakshman or Lakshman and Sita. During this incident Ram was alone. Sita asked for the Maya Man - golden deer.
Ram went to capture the deer. Lakshman told there is nothing called golden deer and tolf that it is a maya man. But Ram didn't agree or listen. Ram wanted to capture the deer to fulfill the reason of his avatar i.e killing Ravanan.
There are many temples from Nasik on the way to the place where Marichan was killed. There is one at 32 KM, one at 39 KM and one at 42 KM and one at 60 KM. Each of these temples explain various states of Ram when he was trying to follow the deer till he killed Marichan.
The three important temples are Baneshwar, Madhyeshwar,MrigaVyadeshwar
In between these is another ram Mandir with Ram, Vittal and Krishnar.
The place where Marichan saw the arrow coming towards him and marcihan started to run is MADHYESHWAR
The place where Marichan got hit by the arrow and where he is about to fall is Mrigavyadeshwar. Vyadha means hunter, Mriga means animal. Place where Ram hunted the deer.
Should have Ram killed the deer ? No he must not have. But Ram's wish is not to kill the deer. Instead his wish was to capture the deer and keep it as a pet. But since the deer was trying to run away, Ram had to kill the deer. But the magic deer didn't fall here in Nasik once it was stuck by the arrow of Ram. Then Marichan took a huge form and he fell down very far near Aurangadabad and there is a temple too. We could not go there.
We saw Baneshwar, Madhyeshwar and Mrigavyadeshwar the places related to Ram bending the bow and killing the magic deer. Then Ram comes back from that place back to parna kuti.
Before that whatever, that should not have happened, had happened at Parnakuti and sita was captured by Ravanan. Before that Lakshman came away from Sita. Ram and Lakshman met on the way and returned back to the parnakuti in that hot son is the history.
Today we have seen Nasik and all the near by places in Nasik.
From Nasik if we travel for 25KM there is an important place called Taket - Jatayu moksha sthalam - Place where Ram gave Mukthi to Jatayu. Let us see that place next week. For now, we are starting from Nasik/Panchavati. Let go towards Taket. Raman Paradeivam, avane thirumal, muzhumuthar kadavul yendru nirubitha Jatayu moksha sthalam selvom.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Ram our best Role Model:
Slogam: "tapaswadyaya niratham tapasvi...."तपः स्वाध्याय निरताम् तपस्वी वाग्विदाम् वरम् |
नारदम् परिपप्रच्छ वाल्मीकिः मुनि पुंगवम् || १-१-१
A thoughtful-meditator, an eternally studious sage in scriptures about the Truth and Untruth, a sagacious thinker, and a sublime enunciator among all expert enunciators is Narada, and with such a Divine Sage Narada, the Sage-Poet Valmiki is inquisitively enquiring about a man who is a composite for all merited endowments in his form and calibre. [1-1-1]
The above slogam is the first starting slogam of SriRamayanam by Valmiki. When Narada had come to Valmiki Ashram, Valmiki had asked many questions to Naradar in order to know about Ram's guna. In our life's all of us need a role modelwhom we can look up to and follow the foot path. The person need to be a Sandron, person who has learnt the sashthram, person who is interested in this world's good. When GOD himself had come down as Ram who else can be a role model for all of us. All the great acharya's have also followed the foot path of Emperuman. Ramayanam is nothing but Ram showing us all the great guna's for us to follow.
Key Takeaway
1. Ramayanam is nothing but Ram showing us all the great guna's for us to follow.
We are following SriRam both w.r.t the path he travelled i.e places he visited, and also w.r.t the way he lived by exhibiting all the good characteristics being our role model. As we are discussing from our first week - SriRamanin Padhay refers to both the above meaning. As part of SriRamaninPadhayil we need to follow his foot steps based on how he lived. If one tries to understand how Ram lived and if one follows all the values and discipline and darma followed by Ram life will be very good. Following Ram's path of travel and visiting all the places which Ram travelled helps in reducing our Papam. Due to these two reasons we are doing this program.
Key Takeaway
2. Visiting the places related to Ram and thinking about him and acting/following his foot path reduces our papam/sins.
We are at Nasik Panchavati and we also saw godavari utpathi(starting) place last week. Now we are at nasik. With nasik on one side and tapovan/panchavati/parnasala on the other side GOdavari is running in the middle in this town.
Rama Kundam:
The first place to visit is Rama Kundam. Raman and Sita had taken bath in this Rama kundam. They had taken bath and had swimming competitions too. Both have spent lots of time in Ekantham in this place. Each of these rocks/sands on the river bank is all telling us about Ram and Sita - avagargal anandam and aniyonyam. We all should also follow the dharma in our married lives and should try to live.Key takeway
3. A couple need to learn from how they should live looking at Ram and Sita who were examples of aniyonyam and lived by example all the dharma to be followed in a married life.
If we visit this place, it is sure that one's married life will prosper and one will walk in the Dharma path and live in the path of Dharma Path. The water level here depends on the season but still the tourists are here all through the year. Avar thirumeni patta idam. Oru attrukke perumai pirabhavam. The water has been flowing continuously for many years and also this place and river has significance due to its relationship with Ram since it has been continously flowing since Ram's day. After finishing the Jala tharpanam and bath at Rama Kundam, next we are going to see many temples all in one street.
KALA RAM Mandir
First is Kala Ram Mandir. This temple is under the maintenance of archealogical and survey deparment. Hence we need to take permission before visiting this temple. Sardar Odeshwar Peshawar has built this temple. 1784-1792 temple has been built with great difficulty. Built with black stones and the idol is also black. 32 ton weighing stone and silver, Gold etc were used to build this temple. The vimanam is very beautiful and is in north indian style. There are 96 pillars. 2000 people had built this temple. 23 lakh rupees has been spent to build this temple.There is also a Black anjaneya swamy in the dwaram of this temple. The vigraham is not made of metal and instead the vigraham has been found in the Godavari padugai(river bed) and it has been made out of black sand of the godavari river bed. Since the idol is made of sand, there is no thirumanjanam(holy bath) done for the idol of this temple.
Upanyasam from Kala Ram Mandir
Now we are at Panchavati at the Kala Ram Mandir. Ram's natural color is black. Here emperuman shows us sevai in black color. Ram, Sita and Lakshman's wonderful darshan can be had here. Raja has spent many lakhs to built this temple some 1000 years ago. The idol is made from the Black sand from the Godavari river bed and not made of metal. Since the idol is made of
sand, there is no thirumanjanam(holy bath) done for the idol of this temple. Purathanamana kovil, Sirapakkalai , nun kalai is very wonderful in this temple. All of us should go and visit this temple and need to gain punyam.
Slogam
Ramaya Rama Bhadraya
Ramachandraya Vedhase
Raghu Nathaya Nathaya
Sitayah Pataye Namaha
Meaning : To Rama, Ramabhadra, Raghunatha(These are different names of Lord Rama),the Lord, the Consort of Seetha, our salutations to him.
Raman is Sita pathi. Sita is (Sivantha niram)red in color. Ram is black and hence he is known as "nila mega shyamalan","Mugil vannan", "Kadal vannan","Karu neela vannan", "Mega Vannan", "Neela vannan"
GORE RAM Mandir
Next is white Ram temple. GORE means white. White Ram made out of White Marble. The idols in north india are made of White Marble stone. Hence this Ram is called as GORE Ram Mandir. The temple is in a small street. There is one beautiful dhyanam mandapam. We can see the idols of Ram, Lakshman, Sita. We need to understand about Ram and his Guna's when we visit these temples. Though Ram's external color is black he is full of satva gunam. Ram is reachable, Ram is full of Sattva Guna, ram's nature is to help and protect everyone. This is what Ram has left for us to follow and practice and it is a great treasure he has given us.
Key Takeaway
4. Ram is reachable, Ram is full of Sattva Guna, ram's nature is to help and protect everyone. This is what Ram has left for us to follow and practice and it is a great treasure he has given us.
In today's world the important focus is on environment. We should safe guard our environment and for the growth of human, other species should not get impacted or destroyed. Human's should stay in harmony with nature. This Satva gunam is what is needed in this hour. One should not disturb and should protect all the trees, planta, insects since they are all Jeevatma too. Ram had this pure mind. He only destroyed people who troubled or disturbed the world. He was protecting all the other creatures from the troublesome. He destroyed only the body and we need to note that the atma is not destroyed.
Next we are going to Panchavati. After visiting Ram Ghat/kundam the yatra group formed a queue to visit the next set of places like Kala Ram, Gore Ram, Parna Salai. Next is Parna Salai, Panchavati and Sita gufa. Parna Salai - Ram has stayed in a Kutiya/Kudil/straw cottage, Panchavati is the place with 5 Banyan trees and Sita Gufa which is a small cave and we need to crawl and go inside to see the idols.
PANCHAVATI, PARNASALAI, PARNAKUTI
Panchavati refers to the 5 banyan trees. Banyan tree gives shadow to all who come and sit under it. Not like a palm tree or other trees which gives shade only for few. Banyan tree can provide shade to a big battlion of soldiers and give them shadow.Key Takeaway
5. From a small seed a big banyan tree grows. Similarly, if we follow small small good habits it will lead us to good path. Small habits like truth, patience, porumai, speak softly, reachable - these five things are like 5 vatam. We will all benefit and we will be beneficial to others too like a banyan tree.
The importance is not just the place, it is also because of the message these places tells us.
We are getting into the Parnakuti. A mahant has been serving in this temple for the past 40-50 years. So many Salagramam's are here. Let us listen to Panchavati and Parnasalai's significance from that place. Followed by a small Speech by the person in the temple at Parnakuti.
Upanyasam from Parna Salai :
On the 11th day we are at Panchavati. From Agasthyar's ashram, ram walked till here through the forest and reached Panchavati,Nasik. There are 5 banyan trees here and so called as panchavati. Now we are at Parna salai -Lakshman Ramanukaga amaitha parna salai. Ram was happy to see the parna salai built by lakshman. Ram said to lakshmana the following slogam on seeing the beautiful hermitage lakshmana had built.
Slogam:
भावज्ञेन कृतज्ञेन धर्मज्ञेन च लक्ष्मण |
त्वया पुत्रेण धर्मात्मा न संवृत्तः पिता मम || ३-१५-२९
Meaning:
"You are the knower of others feelings, knower of many skills, and the knower of what is right and honest, oh, Lakshmana, such as you are, being with you I deem that my virtue-souled father is not gone and forgotten. [3-15-29]
Ram said "with the intention of serving me Lakshmana you are doing all this as per the dharmam like how our father Dasarathan would have done to me if he was alive. Till you are with me, my father is not yet dead. " Ram, Lakshman and Sita had stayed in this parna salai happily. If we meditate from this place about Ram/Sita, our papam will get reduced and we shall be rescued from this samsaram. Everyone should visit this Parnasalai.
Sita getting imprisoned herself
Slogam : Sundari Naguthasya..
This is a Valmiki Ramayanam slogam. When we say Sita, she is our mother, Jagan matha, loga nayaki, jagath Janani. Such great Sita was imprisoned in Ashoka vanam for 10 months by ravana. As per the words of learned she got herself into this place. Though Ravanan tried to imprison her, it was our Jaganmatha who for the sake of the Deva's got herself into the prison.
Why did she get prisoned herself for 10 months at ravan's place ? It is for the sake of Deva's to kill Ravanna and save the Deva loga ladies who were at Ravana's place. Sita's story tells about "Sirai irunthaval yetram" as per PIllai ullagasiriyan. Ramayan's significance is due to the great episode of Sita being imprisoned for 10 months. There is a saying that Ravanan had 10 heads
and hence Sita was in ashoka van for 10 months. Deva srigal(ladies) were prisoned at Ravana's place and hence Sita took this attempt to rescue them.
Sita Gumpha and the story of Vedavati
There is a famous story as part of Ramayanam told in north India. Looks like a true story though no references in Valmiki or Kambhar Ramayanam. Now we are going to see the place which is told in that story. Here is Sita Gufa. at Nasik/Panchavati. Gufa means Cave. This can also be told as tunnel / Surangapathai. From this place till Godavari Rama Kundam, looks like there was a underground tunnel earlier and it is currently closed. When Ravanan came and took away sita, the actual Sita was staying in this cave and it was Vedavati who was replaced as Sita and it was Vedavati who went with Ravanan to Ashoka Vanam. The sita was kept her secretly and safely in this cave.Who is this Vedavati ?
It was vedavati who was taken by Ravanan to Lanka.
If you heard about THirumala Thirupathi Mahatmiyam, Venkatesa Mahatmiyam, Srinivasa Kalyanam you must have heard about Vedavati. Let us see Vedavati's story in short.
Kushadwajan's daughter is Vedavati. Vedavati wanted to marry Bhagwan only and she happen to do penance for the same. But Ravanan happen to see her one day and ravanan wanted to marry her. Ravanan also tried to misbehave with Vedavati. Then Vedavati said "I will be the reason for your death. You cannot reach me without my permission". Then Vedavati took another birth. In this janma when Ravana was trying to capture Sita, Sita was hidden magically in this cave by the Deva's and it was vedavati who went with Ravanan in the form of Sita in the pushpaka vimanam. Sita was kept here at this place Sita Gufa safely. Later Ram went and got back Sita. Sita did Agnipravesam and at that time bhooma devi and Agni bhagawan came with the actual Sita and explained about Vedavalli who was in the place of Sita. Vedavalli wanted to marry Ram. Sita herself told Ram "She saved us and she wanted to marry you". Ram declined due to the "EKA PATNI VIRATHAM" while he is as Ram and agreed to marry her in the avataram as Srinivasan. So in the next janma Vedavalli was born as PADMAVATHI daughter to AkasaRajan. We can visit Padmavathi thayar at Thirupathi Thiruchanoor. Ram himself was born as Srinivasar and he married Padmavathi. During Srinivasa kalyanam, Srinivasar called Padmavathi as "Vedavathi" which made Padmavathi realize all the earlier truth that she was none other than Vedavathi who saved Sita in her earlier Janma.
Sita was kept in this Gufa(cave)... Inside the Guha beautiful temple. One need to crawl and go inside. In the top floor we have Ram,Sita, Lakshman. After going inside the cave also, inside the cave very beautiful Ram,Lakshman and sita. Small place and only 4 or 5 can stand. There is a pujari. We had darshan of this beautiful temple.
Opposite to this is the beautiful depiction in modern dolls/art on how sita was when she was staying here.. all these are in modern doll representation..
Actually after watching all this and when we cross sita gufa then we could go to panchavati. Close to this, is a temple called Sundara Narayanan Temple built by Chandra Chudan which we shall see next.
Sundara Naraynan Temple at Nasik with Thulasi devi
Temple called Sundara Narayanan Temple built by Chandra Chudan which we shall see next.Slogam - "Ponnivar Meni Maragathin Pongilam.."
On Nagapattinam Soundararajan permal, Thirumangai azhwar has sung 10 pasuram and this is the first pasuram.
This above one is the first song. Very beautiful song describing all the features of Bhagawan. Like this bhagwan is there in many thiruthalams. Thirumangai azhwar yennum PARAKALA NAYAGI sings this song with this bhavam on looking at this beautiful grace and beauty of Perumal. The pasuram " Is the thirumeni made out of gold, maragadam ? i do not know what it is made of..." We have had the darshan of this Soundararajan perumal.
Now we are at Nasik Panchavati and we have the darshan of Sundara Nayaryan Perumal in this beautiful form(sundara murthy). The vigraham is beautiful and black in color and very attractive. It is a separate temple and Narayanan is in this Temple. When Ram had come here all the Rishi's had darshan of Ram. All the rishi's didn't want this sundara ram to go away from this temple. As per the request of the Rishi's,Ram agreed to stay here as Sundara Narayanan in this Temple. Ram who is Narayanan himself stayed here as Sundara Narayanan. The ever beautiful Ram, the ever beautiful Sita as Narayanan and Mahalakshmi are here at Sundara Narayanan temple. This temple is very ancient and the idol is very old. The temple alone was renovated some years ago by Gangadhar Yashwanth Chandra Choodar. Perumal as Sundara Narayanan with Sangam and Chakram. On looking at this perumal's face "Kondal vannanai " pasuram of Thirupanazhwar is what one is reminded of.
Pasuram: "Allama maram.."
Perumal in this temple is black in color, neela meni vannan in a very attractive form. Next to Perumal is Mahalakshmi Thayar. On the other side is Thulasi Devi. Only this temple in the entire bharatha desam, we can see the temple for Thulasi. Perumal, lakshmi and thulasi devi are in this temple.
Let us hear from the Mahant of this temple. - The temple you are watching now is Sundara Narayanan Temple. One of the ancient temple in Nasik. You can see Three murthi - Lakshmi, Narayanan, Thulasi(vrinda devi) and then Garuda bhagawan below. This temple was renovated by Sardar Chandra Chood by spending 10 lakhs ruppes. Earlier it was a wooden temple but was
devasted during mughal period. When renovated, this temple was made using black stones. Some of the significance of this temple are as follows.
1. The significance of Thulasi being along with perumal and hence it is a very rare temple.
2. On 20 and 21st march, the first rays of the sun falls on the murthy of this temple first before falling on the earth. This is a very significant aspects of this temple.
3. Kade Ganesh and baite hanuman and it is very rare to see this combination.
4. Utsav Prathimahotsav during Karthik month during thirupuri Poornima.
5. Here Bhagawan kapaleshwar and Bhagawan Sundara Narayanan -- HARI HARE BET <
We heard about the greatness of this temple. We do not need huge money to offer things to GOD. Instead we can offer 4 dhalam thulasi to perumal. Perumal is flattered because of this thulasi offering. 4 dhalam konda thulasi samarpikka vendum during daily Thiruvaradhanam.
Azhwar says "Poosum santhu yen nenjame...." referring to "I do not have sandanam, flowers or silk clothes. But i have my mind and song for you".
Similarly when we offer thulasi we need to say "Hey Kesava piriye unnai perumalluku Samarpikaren" yendru solli thulasiyai perumalluku samarpika vendum. This will help us to get rid of all our trouble. Perumal becomes happy due to this act of us since we offered Thulasi to him. Antha thulasi Devi is here in this temple along with sundara narayanan temple.
Key Takeaway
6. Offer what you have with full heart and mind.
7. when we offer thulasi we need to say "Hey Kesava piriye unnai perumalluku Samarpikaren" yendru solli thulasiyai perumalluku samarpika vendum. This will help us to get rid of all our trouble. Perumal becomes happy due to this act of us since we offered Thulasi to him.
Though this temple can be missed by people visiting Nasik since it is not in the main place. Each of you should go to this temple when you go to Nasik. Next is a important place 60 KM from this place following a deer.
MARICHAN THE MAGIC DEER GETTING KILLED BY RAM
Pasuram by Kulasekarar azhwar " Silai vanaku man mariyai yeithan thannai thilla nagar chithirakodam thanul"At Thillai chittrakooda is perumal Govindarajan. Govindarajan empuremanai azhwar saw as Ram himself. That Ram bent his bow and sent an arrow to kill the Deer. That story has happened here in this place.
Marichan came in the form of a deer to take Ram away to a very long distance away from Sita. Marichan was asked to do this by Ravanan. Marichan who came was loitering her and there.
This happened when Sita/Ram were staying in the ParnaSalai ParnaKutty. This can be seen here at Nasik. The other places like the following we need to go and watch.
1. The place where Ram sent the Bow
2. The place the bow hit the deer
3. The place marichan died and fell down
Just in this place alone Ram was alone. Usually Ram, Lakshman and Sita used to walk together. But here in this place Ram was all alone. Pogathavar ponal aabhathu, villayatu vinaiyaga mudinthathu. Raman thanithu ponathe illai. Always he was either with lakshman or Lakshman and Sita. During this incident Ram was alone. Sita asked for the Maya Man - golden deer.
Ram went to capture the deer. Lakshman told there is nothing called golden deer and tolf that it is a maya man. But Ram didn't agree or listen. Ram wanted to capture the deer to fulfill the reason of his avatar i.e killing Ravanan.
There are many temples from Nasik on the way to the place where Marichan was killed. There is one at 32 KM, one at 39 KM and one at 42 KM and one at 60 KM. Each of these temples explain various states of Ram when he was trying to follow the deer till he killed Marichan.
The three important temples are Baneshwar, Madhyeshwar,MrigaVyadeshwar
In between these is another ram Mandir with Ram, Vittal and Krishnar.
RAM Temple
When Ram was chasing the deer, Ram was thirsty and he sent a bow and water came out and there is a temple in this place even today.
BANESHWAR, MADHYESHWAR, Mrigavyadeshwar
The place where Ram sent the bow is BANESHWAR.The place where Marichan saw the arrow coming towards him and marcihan started to run is MADHYESHWAR
The place where Marichan got hit by the arrow and where he is about to fall is Mrigavyadeshwar. Vyadha means hunter, Mriga means animal. Place where Ram hunted the deer.
Should have Ram killed the deer ? No he must not have. But Ram's wish is not to kill the deer. Instead his wish was to capture the deer and keep it as a pet. But since the deer was trying to run away, Ram had to kill the deer. But the magic deer didn't fall here in Nasik once it was stuck by the arrow of Ram. Then Marichan took a huge form and he fell down very far near Aurangadabad and there is a temple too. We could not go there.
We saw Baneshwar, Madhyeshwar and Mrigavyadeshwar the places related to Ram bending the bow and killing the magic deer. Then Ram comes back from that place back to parna kuti.
Before that whatever, that should not have happened, had happened at Parnakuti and sita was captured by Ravanan. Before that Lakshman came away from Sita. Ram and Lakshman met on the way and returned back to the parnakuti in that hot son is the history.
Today we have seen Nasik and all the near by places in Nasik.
From Nasik if we travel for 25KM there is an important place called Taket - Jatayu moksha sthalam - Place where Ram gave Mukthi to Jatayu. Let us see that place next week. For now, we are starting from Nasik/Panchavati. Let go towards Taket. Raman Paradeivam, avane thirumal, muzhumuthar kadavul yendru nirubitha Jatayu moksha sthalam selvom.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Sri Ramanin Padhayil - Episode 26 - Nov 3 2013
ஸ்ரீராமஜெயம்
We are going to visit an important place as part of SriRamaninPadhayil. Veda's and upanishad talk very high about doing saranagathi to Bhagawan. Truth is that we do not have the shakthi and knowledge which can lead us to mukthi. Then the option is to seek bhagawan's help and seek refuge at HIS feet "Bhagawane unnidathil thanjam, Neye pugal" yendru bhakthi bhavanai undha avanai pattrugirom. Sriman Narayanan gives mukthi to all those who seek him and who take refuge at HIS feet. Mukthi here is nothing but Vaikunta Padhavi. This is a great note.
Key Takeaway
1. Saranagati is the key message in Ramayanam. Vibhishana saranagati at Thirupullani and Vibhishana got kainkaryam. Jataya saranagati resulted in moksham for Jataya.
1. On the shore at Rameshwaram Thirupullani, Vibhishana seeks refuge at Rama's feet and doing saranagati. Ram got the kngdom of Lanka and gave it to Vibhishanan. Ram gave the
oppurtunity of doing Kainkaryam(service) to Vibhishana.
2. But for Jatayu, who didn't even say saranam to Ram, Ram gave him moksham.
Jatayu was born as an eagle. Jatayu helped Sita. Jatayu got hurt because of Ravanan and he died. Ram gives mukthi to Jatayu. Jatayu is not a Rishi, not a tapasvi who did tapas for many thousand years. Jatayu is not a human like us who can do Saranagati. Jatayu didn't follow bhakthi margam like prahalad, vithuran, Sanjayan, Uddhavan. Jatayu is representative of common person like us. Jatayu explains us that anyone can attain mukthi. Ram's greatness is that he helps anyone even a person of lower category - migavum thazhthavanaiyum uyarthugiran Raman. One need not bother or worry on following things like where and how I was born ? How is my behaviour till now ? if it is bad behaviour can i become a bhakthan, did i loose my life ?
All those questions just don't matter, if one becomes a bhakthan today and if he is ready to take refuge at Ram's feet. Ram gives mukthi to all those who do saranagati at his feet. This is what Jatayu moksham explains us. We are going to a place where Jatayu attained mukthi and the place where Ram did the final rites for Jatayu.
was bit scary since it was deserted and it was dark too. There was a north indian pujari who was there for evening puja. He had a big sword and also a dog with him. It was scary to see all the actions which the north indian pujari was doing especially with the sword. It was doubtful if we shall return safely. Inspite of all these odds, one good thing was that we were at jatayu moksha sthalam and hence we are sure of Ram taking care of us. Then somehow managed to find all the buses around 7.30 PM and it was too dark too. Let's see what happen next in that place.
Slogam:: Aapathaam
Sriramchandran aapathu anaithaiyum pokubhavan, selvangal anaithaiyum nalgubhavan, sarva sampathugalaiyum kodupavan, ivulagu selvathai kodukiran, avvulagamana paramapatham vaikunta selvathaiyum nalgugiran.
From Nasik panchavati, one need to come in the mumbai highway, after 35 KM, turn left to reach GOTHI. Beautiful scenic beauty on the way to Taked. Taked is the place where Jatayu got its mukthi. If someone dies, we human's think so much and then do the final rites for that person. But Ram didn't mind that jatayu is a bird, Ram took Jatayu on his lap, Ram did the final rites(IMACH CHADANGU) for Jatayu. Ram showed the highest mukthi margam(path) to Jatayu and guided him towards Vaikuntam. Thinking about all this itself gives gooseberry bumps to us. Let's watch on what are the various things at this place.
Jatayu mukthi sthalam is called as Taked. We saw the map and route towards Taked. It is difficult to reach that place since the route is not good and lots of villages. The place had electricity.
There are mahant and pujari's who are living there and they speak hindi. They all helped us a lot. We were also scared and careful during our travel to that place. After seeing all the buses we got our lives back. Taked is the place where Jatayu's life went away and went to moksham. We got life only after seeing all the buses safely. Ram is like pranavayu and we were sitting thinking and meditating on him while the entire group was trying to reach that place. After everyone came, we had a small upanyasam at that place. It was dark, fear and hungry too. All were curious and scared whether they would reach back safely from that place since it was late evening.
Slogam:: Yaa kathir
Achariyamana slogam. We did the parayanam of this slogam and the sargam.
When we travelled in 2010, we happen to travel during day and happen to visit all the places at Taked leisurely. It is a beautiful place.
2) Ram, Sita , Lakshman Idol in a separate temple called Sri Ram Mandir.
3) Jatayu with Ram and Lakshman : During the actual incident sita is not there but Sita is here in the form of Vigraham. Jatayu is also there on the top of the vimanam in the form of eagle.
We all enjoyed visiting this place. Ramapiran muzhu muthar kadavul. Even in the human form he showed that he is Paramatma/Parathparan. In spite of Narayanan taking such a simple avatharam as Ram, this is the place where he explained all of us that Ram is the Paramatman.
The above lines are from Kurathazhwan's athimanusa sthavam and he asks the above lines to Ram. Jatayu is a bird which didn't had knowledge to do Jnana yogam, bhakthi yogam or Karma yogam. Jatayu didn't follow any of the rules to take one to mukthi. If a person is dying in the hands of a brahmanan(Andanan), then it is told in dharmashastram that he does not get mukthi in that birth. Ravanan though is a Rakshashan, as per his varnam he is a Brahmanan. Ravanan is from the Pulasthiyar's vamsam. Pulasthiyar is a rishi. So Jatayu is not capable to attain mukthi because of these two reasons. But how did Jatayu attain mukthi ? Rama it is all because of your blessings. Ram you can give mukthi to anyone.
All the viewers close your eyes and do think about this. What is the goodness we have with us ? We do not have karma , jnana , bhakthi yogam. But unfortunately we have all the bad qualities with us.
As from thirumalai pasuram :: Pothellam..
Thondaradipodi azhwar says "what have i done ? no karma, jnana, bhakthi yogam, i am not even able to offer a flower to you. I have not done anything to you. But just because of your karunai i can attain mukthi. I do not have answers for any questions. Only if you shower karunai on me then i can attain moksham. "
Key Takeaway
2. We all jeevatma's are in helpless state where we cannot find way by ourselves to attain moksham. It is only through Ram's Karunai we can attain moksham. So we pary to ram and he will rescue us and will give us the highest abode.
This is the state each of us are in. We need not worry about this state of ours. We need not feel sad. Yevalavukku yevallavu thazhuntha idathil pallathil irukomo, athanaiku athanai uyartha gunagalode Raman ullar. Yenna kuraivu sollungo ? Naam ARIVU ONDRUM ILLATHAVARGAL. Ram KURAI ONDRUM ILLATHAVAN. Raman thannidam irukkum niraiyai namidam pottutar yendral, naamum uyarunthu vida mattoma ? Atharku sakshi than than Jatayu moksham. Let us all understand our state is same as the state of Jatayu and let us all see this place while we are at home and do the dhyanam on this sargam. If we all pray to Ram, he will rescue us and will give us the highest abode. Let us all pray to Jatayu that we all need to get the bhagyam to do the atleast a small kainkaryam similar to what jatayu did for Ram. Let us sing pallandu and start from here.
During the return journeyfrom taked back to Nasik, the trip was more adventurous since one of the bus got stuck in the muddy terrain. We managed to reach at 10.30 PM and then ate our dinner which was ready. Next day morning, we saw all the other places in Nasik and was planning to take a train to pune( in 2006). From pune, we took two trains via lonawala reached Guntakal. We need to go to Kishkinda.
One has to go till Guntakkal and from their take local buses to reach Hampi and Hospet where we had stayed. From the place where we stayed we need to travel 16 KMs to see the places which we wanted to see. As usual there were adventure here too and we managed to reach as per the plan.
Here we are entering Kishkinta and first lets see the parikrama and we need to go aroung the entire town once. This town is with 60KM circumference with tungabhadra flowing in the middle. On one side of the river is the fort and the kingdom and on the other side is all the caves. There is no bridge on the river and one need to go around to reach from this side to other side.
Let us do the pradakshinam of Kishkinda.
1. Tungabadra river - Valmiki Ramayanam does not talk about this river. But an ancient and important river.
2. Vali Quila - This is the place where Vali's fort was there. The place from where Vali was ruling the kingdom and later Sugreeva pattabhishekam happened here.
3. Spatika Shila - Rocky mountains like spatikam. Brahma has created this place with these rocky mountains.
4. Pampa Saras - Like golden water, a pond filled with lotus leaves.
5. Sugreeva Gufa - Sugreevan was hiding here too. He was hiding at Rishyamuka parvatham. There is one sugreeva cave here too.
6. Aanegunti - Chintamani - This is the place where Vali and sugreevan fought and Ram shot an arrow from the place where he was standing.
7. Madhuvan - Hanuman and the monkeys when they returned after seeing sita where so happy that they came to this madhuvan of Sugreevan to drink honey. The didn't go directly to Sugreeva instead came to this madhuvan and destroyed the madhuvan in happiness and drank t he honey.
8. Anjana Parvatham - This is the place where Anjana did tapas for 7000 years to get Hanuman.
9. Raghunath Mandir at Malyavan Parvatham - This malyavan parvatham is called as prasavana giri. Ram had stayed in this mountain for 4 months for the rainy season to get over so that they can go in search of sita.
10. Mathanga parvatham - Place where Mathanga maharishi's ashram was there.
11. Sabhari Parvatham - Place where sabhari's ashram was there. Mathangar's seedai is Sabhari. She is the one who gave the fruits to Ram when Ram had come here.
12. Sita Kundam - It is told that while coming back from Lanka, the place where sita had taken bath. Pushapa vimanam had stopped for a moment to take all the women from this place on the way back from lanka to ayodhya, so this might be true.
13. Ranganatha Perumal temple - Temple in southern style.
14. Vittala Krishnan temple - There is a belief that vittala bhagawan went to pandaripuram from the place.
Like this many places to visit and see let us see them all.
Slogam ::
Anjana nandanam Veeram janaki soka nasanam,
Kapeesa Maksha hantharam, Vande lanka bhayangaram.
Salutations to the terror of Lanka,Who is the heroic son of Anjana,Who brought to an end , all sorrows of Sitha,Who is the king of monkeys ,Who killed Aksha[1] the son of Ravana.
Slogam :
"yatra yatra raGhunAtha keerthanam tatra tatra krta mastakAnjalim |
BhAShpavAri paripoorNa lOchanam mAruthim namatha rAkShasAnthakam ||"
I pray and salute the son of wind god,Who brought to end the rakshasas,Who is always present with eye full of tears,With head bowed in veneration,Wherever the praise of Lord Rama is sung.
Wherever the name and glory of lord Shri Ram is chanted, Shri HanumAn, the destroyer of evils and demons, appears there with folded hands and tears of joy.
This is the mountain where all the rishi's came to bless Hanuman and all the deva's gave all the boon to hanuman. Parashivan was born as Hanuman and this is told clearly in the puranas.
Such is the greatness of Hanuman and we get gooseberry bumps when we go and stand in that place. Beautiful creation and he is the example for bhakthi, humbe nature, does not lift his head when we say Ram and tears rolling from them. This is the birth place of such great anjaneyar. Beautiful temple with Ram, lakshman, Sita and Anjaneyar.
On the other side, Sindur Hanuman who is 7 feet tall.
Next we can see anjana devi with little Hanuman.
When Hanuman tried to catch Suryan, Suryan taught all the ilakkanam, ilakkiyam , vedanta to Hanuman. Suryan asked Hanuman to help Sugreevan who will be born later and who is
Suryan's son. Suryan requested Hanuman, to help and protect Sugreevan who might be in danger. Kishkinta is the place where they lived. Anjanadri, Anjanagiri is the name of this
mountain. If we follow this mountain range down south we shall hit NALLAMALA mountain range, which is the place where THIRUMALA, SAPTHAGIRI is located. This Anjanadri is linked till there and one of the the 7 hills is named so. She had done penance there too. Let us pray for rama bhakthi here at anjanadri to hanuman. Let us move towards PAMPA SARAS.
We saw the anjana Parvatham and there is a golden place there. Very bright and shiny and they say that it is the place where Anjaneyar was born.
Slogam :: Kon vasmin
This is the questions asked by Valmiki to Narada during the starting of Ramayanam.
Valmiki listed 16 great characters and asked Narada "is there anyone with all these 16 characters(uyartha panbhugal) ? ". Naradar said "Valmiki neer ketta anaithu uyarntha panbhu oruthar idathil kana mudiyathu. Slogam - "Ishvaku vamsa prabhavaha ramo nama..." . Ishvagu vamsathil piranthu, anaithu vedangalalum potrappadum ramannidathil than kana
mudiyum."
1. MANASAROVAR at Himachalam
2 & 3 NARAYANASAROVAR & BINDU SAROVAR at Gujarat
4. PAMPA SAROVAR at Karnataka
With Pampa Sarovar and Tungabhadra river kishkinta is a wonderful place with natural scenic beauty.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
We are going to visit an important place as part of SriRamaninPadhayil. Veda's and upanishad talk very high about doing saranagathi to Bhagawan. Truth is that we do not have the shakthi and knowledge which can lead us to mukthi. Then the option is to seek bhagawan's help and seek refuge at HIS feet "Bhagawane unnidathil thanjam, Neye pugal" yendru bhakthi bhavanai undha avanai pattrugirom. Sriman Narayanan gives mukthi to all those who seek him and who take refuge at HIS feet. Mukthi here is nothing but Vaikunta Padhavi. This is a great note.
Saranagati as in Ramayanam
Sriramayanam is for teaching us and telling us about Saranagati and moksham. Though there are many stories in Ramayanam, there are two important sections in particular.Key Takeaway
1. Saranagati is the key message in Ramayanam. Vibhishana saranagati at Thirupullani and Vibhishana got kainkaryam. Jataya saranagati resulted in moksham for Jataya.
1. On the shore at Rameshwaram Thirupullani, Vibhishana seeks refuge at Rama's feet and doing saranagati. Ram got the kngdom of Lanka and gave it to Vibhishanan. Ram gave the
oppurtunity of doing Kainkaryam(service) to Vibhishana.
2. But for Jatayu, who didn't even say saranam to Ram, Ram gave him moksham.
Jatayu was born as an eagle. Jatayu helped Sita. Jatayu got hurt because of Ravanan and he died. Ram gives mukthi to Jatayu. Jatayu is not a Rishi, not a tapasvi who did tapas for many thousand years. Jatayu is not a human like us who can do Saranagati. Jatayu didn't follow bhakthi margam like prahalad, vithuran, Sanjayan, Uddhavan. Jatayu is representative of common person like us. Jatayu explains us that anyone can attain mukthi. Ram's greatness is that he helps anyone even a person of lower category - migavum thazhthavanaiyum uyarthugiran Raman. One need not bother or worry on following things like where and how I was born ? How is my behaviour till now ? if it is bad behaviour can i become a bhakthan, did i loose my life ?
All those questions just don't matter, if one becomes a bhakthan today and if he is ready to take refuge at Ram's feet. Ram gives mukthi to all those who do saranagati at his feet. This is what Jatayu moksham explains us. We are going to a place where Jatayu attained mukthi and the place where Ram did the final rites for Jatayu.
Travel from Nasik to Taket via Igatapuri
We were at Nasik and after seeing all the places at Nasik, Panchavati we started from there. From Nasik need to cross Guthi towards Igatapuri in Maharastra. From Nasik go towards Igatapuri for 35 Km and take diversion to Taked. The route from Igatapuri to Taked is a scenic beauty with lots of small free flowing rivers, tall mountains, flower filled gardens, mild snow/dews and one can see the clouds filled with dews. This is not a place where one need to spend 25K to visit, instead it is Jatayu mukthi sthalam. From Igatapuri we need to reach the Maharastra tourism development center and need to take a turn. The entire place is deserted forest and hence it is difficult to find the way due to no sign boards. We had gone multiple times in the beginning to confirm the route. But still we got confused during the yatra. In 2006, we started at 3.30 PM and expected to reach the place in 1.5 hours. So the plan was to go and visit and return back to Nasik that night. Unfortunately we lost the way since the first bus driver didn;t take a turn and all the drivers followed that vehicle. I(Swamin) happen to reach the place in a car with his wife and perumal. We also managed to reach with some difficulties. It was also getting dark and one of the vehicle had a narrow escape else it would have fallen in a river. It was indeed with great difficulty we all managed to reach. We all had a doubt if are reaching Jatayu moksha sthalam or are we going to moksham. Though the first group reached, itwas bit scary since it was deserted and it was dark too. There was a north indian pujari who was there for evening puja. He had a big sword and also a dog with him. It was scary to see all the actions which the north indian pujari was doing especially with the sword. It was doubtful if we shall return safely. Inspite of all these odds, one good thing was that we were at jatayu moksha sthalam and hence we are sure of Ram taking care of us. Then somehow managed to find all the buses around 7.30 PM and it was too dark too. Let's see what happen next in that place.
Slogam:: Aapathaam
Sriramchandran aapathu anaithaiyum pokubhavan, selvangal anaithaiyum nalgubhavan, sarva sampathugalaiyum kodupavan, ivulagu selvathai kodukiran, avvulagamana paramapatham vaikunta selvathaiyum nalgugiran.
Taked - Jatayu moksham
When Ram left from Ayodhya at Guptar ghat he took all the ayodhya people with him to Vaikuntam. We are at the place where Ram explained that he is capable of giving vaikunta prapti. We have seen in many places about how Ram gives all the things need to live in this world. Ram gives Vaikuntam itself. A human can do deeds of God. Vaikuntam is someting only Narayanan can give us and not even the other gods. Ram gave that vaikuntam to a bird called Jatayu. When Ravanan abducted sita, Jatayu fought with Ravanan and lost its feathers. Wounded Jatayu fell down and was struggling for his life. When Ram came in search of Sita, he saw the wounded Jatayu. We have reached Jatayu, the place which explains that Ram gives us moksham.
From Nasik panchavati, one need to come in the mumbai highway, after 35 KM, turn left to reach GOTHI. Beautiful scenic beauty on the way to Taked. Taked is the place where Jatayu got its mukthi. If someone dies, we human's think so much and then do the final rites for that person. But Ram didn't mind that jatayu is a bird, Ram took Jatayu on his lap, Ram did the final rites(IMACH CHADANGU) for Jatayu. Ram showed the highest mukthi margam(path) to Jatayu and guided him towards Vaikuntam. Thinking about all this itself gives gooseberry bumps to us. Let's watch on what are the various things at this place.
Jatayu mukthi sthalam is called as Taked. We saw the map and route towards Taked. It is difficult to reach that place since the route is not good and lots of villages. The place had electricity.
There are mahant and pujari's who are living there and they speak hindi. They all helped us a lot. We were also scared and careful during our travel to that place. After seeing all the buses we got our lives back. Taked is the place where Jatayu's life went away and went to moksham. We got life only after seeing all the buses safely. Ram is like pranavayu and we were sitting thinking and meditating on him while the entire group was trying to reach that place. After everyone came, we had a small upanyasam at that place. It was dark, fear and hungry too. All were curious and scared whether they would reach back safely from that place since it was late evening.
Slogam:: Yaa kathir
Achariyamana slogam. We did the parayanam of this slogam and the sargam.
When we travelled in 2010, we happen to travel during day and happen to visit all the places at Taked leisurely. It is a beautiful place.
Places at Taked
1) Sarvatheertham :: This is the place Ram shot an arrow to get water for the ima chadangu. We can either take bath or do prokshanam of that water. Water is always coming from the bottom - UTTRU. There is a link between jatayu's leg and this water.
2) Ram, Sita , Lakshman Idol in a separate temple called Sri Ram Mandir.
3) Jatayu with Ram and Lakshman : During the actual incident sita is not there but Sita is here in the form of Vigraham. Jatayu is also there on the top of the vimanam in the form of eagle.
We all enjoyed visiting this place. Ramapiran muzhu muthar kadavul. Even in the human form he showed that he is Paramatma/Parathparan. In spite of Narayanan taking such a simple avatharam as Ram, this is the place where he explained all of us that Ram is the Paramatman.
Parayanam at Taked
Let us hear the parayanam and upanyasam which happened at Taked. Jatayu did mangalasasanam to Ram as soon as he saw him. Ram replied "Mangalasasanam irukkatum. How did you get hurt ? Who did this to you ?" Jatayu said " Rama checking about me let me be on one side. I saw Ravanan abducting sita from you and lakshman. Ravanan took away my life and he took Sita who is your life. So he took away two lives. Your life(sita) was taken by him and my life is also gone and i feel on this earth. Go immedaitely to protect Sita. " Ram got badly upset. On seeing Jatayu, Ram remembered all the love and affection which his father dasarathan has shown to him. Ram touched Jatayu with all the love and affection he showed to his father dasarathan. Ram took Jatayu and placed him on his lap and cried. Jatayu left his prana after telling all the things about sita to Ram and then Ram did the anthima samskaras for Jatayu.Moksham is possible only due to Perumal's Karunai
Slogam : Akshunna
The above lines are from Kurathazhwan's athimanusa sthavam and he asks the above lines to Ram. Jatayu is a bird which didn't had knowledge to do Jnana yogam, bhakthi yogam or Karma yogam. Jatayu didn't follow any of the rules to take one to mukthi. If a person is dying in the hands of a brahmanan(Andanan), then it is told in dharmashastram that he does not get mukthi in that birth. Ravanan though is a Rakshashan, as per his varnam he is a Brahmanan. Ravanan is from the Pulasthiyar's vamsam. Pulasthiyar is a rishi. So Jatayu is not capable to attain mukthi because of these two reasons. But how did Jatayu attain mukthi ? Rama it is all because of your blessings. Ram you can give mukthi to anyone.
All the viewers close your eyes and do think about this. What is the goodness we have with us ? We do not have karma , jnana , bhakthi yogam. But unfortunately we have all the bad qualities with us.
As from thirumalai pasuram :: Pothellam..
Thondaradipodi azhwar says "what have i done ? no karma, jnana, bhakthi yogam, i am not even able to offer a flower to you. I have not done anything to you. But just because of your karunai i can attain mukthi. I do not have answers for any questions. Only if you shower karunai on me then i can attain moksham. "
Key Takeaway
2. We all jeevatma's are in helpless state where we cannot find way by ourselves to attain moksham. It is only through Ram's Karunai we can attain moksham. So we pary to ram and he will rescue us and will give us the highest abode.
This is the state each of us are in. We need not worry about this state of ours. We need not feel sad. Yevalavukku yevallavu thazhuntha idathil pallathil irukomo, athanaiku athanai uyartha gunagalode Raman ullar. Yenna kuraivu sollungo ? Naam ARIVU ONDRUM ILLATHAVARGAL. Ram KURAI ONDRUM ILLATHAVAN. Raman thannidam irukkum niraiyai namidam pottutar yendral, naamum uyarunthu vida mattoma ? Atharku sakshi than than Jatayu moksham. Let us all understand our state is same as the state of Jatayu and let us all see this place while we are at home and do the dhyanam on this sargam. If we all pray to Ram, he will rescue us and will give us the highest abode. Let us all pray to Jatayu that we all need to get the bhagyam to do the atleast a small kainkaryam similar to what jatayu did for Ram. Let us sing pallandu and start from here.
During the return journeyfrom taked back to Nasik, the trip was more adventurous since one of the bus got stuck in the muddy terrain. We managed to reach at 10.30 PM and then ate our dinner which was ready. Next day morning, we saw all the other places in Nasik and was planning to take a train to pune( in 2006). From pune, we took two trains via lonawala reached Guntakal. We need to go to Kishkinda.
Kishkinda
Ram searching sita, reached Kishkinda where pampa saras, chintamani, aanegundi, vali quila, sugreeva gufa with many such places. There is no direct train to kishkinda, which is near Hampi part of Vijayanagar kingdom. Kings of Vijayanaga kingdom has built a huge temple at Hampi and kishkinta is near that place. This is the Vanara rajyam.One has to go till Guntakkal and from their take local buses to reach Hampi and Hospet where we had stayed. From the place where we stayed we need to travel 16 KMs to see the places which we wanted to see. As usual there were adventure here too and we managed to reach as per the plan.
Here we are entering Kishkinta and first lets see the parikrama and we need to go aroung the entire town once. This town is with 60KM circumference with tungabhadra flowing in the middle. On one side of the river is the fort and the kingdom and on the other side is all the caves. There is no bridge on the river and one need to go around to reach from this side to other side.
Kishkinda - Parikrama
1. Tungabadra river - Valmiki Ramayanam does not talk about this river. But an ancient and important river.
2. Vali Quila - This is the place where Vali's fort was there. The place from where Vali was ruling the kingdom and later Sugreeva pattabhishekam happened here.
3. Spatika Shila - Rocky mountains like spatikam. Brahma has created this place with these rocky mountains.
4. Pampa Saras - Like golden water, a pond filled with lotus leaves.
5. Sugreeva Gufa - Sugreevan was hiding here too. He was hiding at Rishyamuka parvatham. There is one sugreeva cave here too.
6. Aanegunti - Chintamani - This is the place where Vali and sugreevan fought and Ram shot an arrow from the place where he was standing.
7. Madhuvan - Hanuman and the monkeys when they returned after seeing sita where so happy that they came to this madhuvan of Sugreevan to drink honey. The didn't go directly to Sugreeva instead came to this madhuvan and destroyed the madhuvan in happiness and drank t he honey.
8. Anjana Parvatham - This is the place where Anjana did tapas for 7000 years to get Hanuman.
9. Raghunath Mandir at Malyavan Parvatham - This malyavan parvatham is called as prasavana giri. Ram had stayed in this mountain for 4 months for the rainy season to get over so that they can go in search of sita.
10. Mathanga parvatham - Place where Mathanga maharishi's ashram was there.
11. Sabhari Parvatham - Place where sabhari's ashram was there. Mathangar's seedai is Sabhari. She is the one who gave the fruits to Ram when Ram had come here.
12. Sita Kundam - It is told that while coming back from Lanka, the place where sita had taken bath. Pushapa vimanam had stopped for a moment to take all the women from this place on the way back from lanka to ayodhya, so this might be true.
13. Ranganatha Perumal temple - Temple in southern style.
14. Vittala Krishnan temple - There is a belief that vittala bhagawan went to pandaripuram from the place.
Like this many places to visit and see let us see them all.
Slogam ::
Anjana nandanam Veeram janaki soka nasanam,
Kapeesa Maksha hantharam, Vande lanka bhayangaram.
Salutations to the terror of Lanka,Who is the heroic son of Anjana,Who brought to an end , all sorrows of Sitha,Who is the king of monkeys ,Who killed Aksha[1] the son of Ravana.
Slogam :
"yatra yatra raGhunAtha keerthanam tatra tatra krta mastakAnjalim |
BhAShpavAri paripoorNa lOchanam mAruthim namatha rAkShasAnthakam ||"
I pray and salute the son of wind god,Who brought to end the rakshasas,Who is always present with eye full of tears,With head bowed in veneration,Wherever the praise of Lord Rama is sung.
Wherever the name and glory of lord Shri Ram is chanted, Shri HanumAn, the destroyer of evils and demons, appears there with folded hands and tears of joy.
Names of Hanuman
Maruthi, Anjaneyar, Hanuman, Bajarangabali, vayu putran, Vayukumaran, Rama Dhoothan so many great names for Anjaneya swami.Ram's journey to Kishkinda.
When we say kishkinda, first we are reminded of Anjaneyar. Ram when he came in search of Sita, was asking for the route as he travels all the way. After jatayu's mukthi, Ram starts to walk towards south. In Valimiki Ramayanam, route is explained as follows. First towards west, then turn towards south, crossed the mountain range and the forest. During that time AYOMUKHI tried to stop them. Avalai banga paduthi vittar. Then they met KABHANDAN . They killed kabhandan too. It was kabhandan who told them the route. There is a lady called Sabhari of vettuva jathi, she is waiting there for you. Go and check with her for the route. THere is a king of vanaras called SUGREEVAN, go and develop friendship with him. This will help you to find and go in search of Sita. Ram followed the route and continued his search. This is one route which is explained.
The other one which is also told is from abhobilam in AP. Ram went till ahobilam and from Ahobilam he came west to reach kishkinda. It is also said that he came through Badrachalam. The important route is the first one which we saw. As soon as Ram reached Kishkinda, he first saw PAMPA SARAS as per the direction given by kabhandan. We shall see this in detail later.ANJANAGIRI , ANJANADRI, ANJANA PARVATHAM
Before that let us see why Kishkinta was first formed. Why was anjana giri here ? Hanuman was born before Sugreevan, Vali. Anjaneyar was born here almost 17 lakhs years ago. Entire bharatha desam prays to Hanuman. Not just hindu's ie Sanatana Dharma people, instead people from all other religion, other nation, many language also visit Hanuman temple. Visting anjaneyar temple gives energy to the person. This mountain is around 250 feet tall. One has to climb 550 steps. Not so difficult if we climb by saying "Jai hanuman", "Jai sriram". This kishkinta was made(Nirmanam) by Brahma himslef. Around 40 lakh years ago, Brahma made this place called Kishkinta specially for the monkeys to live. 33 crore monkey's used to live in this place. Other than this so many monkey's across bharatham. Vali was the king of all these monkey's. During Thretha Yugam(Raman's time), many years ago Anjana Devi did penance for 7000 years. Kesari is Hanuman's dad's name. Even today, this mountain is so beautiful. Hanuman thought the suryan to be a fruit and tried to catch it and we know what happened after that. At that time brahma gave a boon that brahmasthiram will not harm you, You will get to see the parabrahmam nayaranan.This is the mountain where all the rishi's came to bless Hanuman and all the deva's gave all the boon to hanuman. Parashivan was born as Hanuman and this is told clearly in the puranas.
Such is the greatness of Hanuman and we get gooseberry bumps when we go and stand in that place. Beautiful creation and he is the example for bhakthi, humbe nature, does not lift his head when we say Ram and tears rolling from them. This is the birth place of such great anjaneyar. Beautiful temple with Ram, lakshman, Sita and Anjaneyar.
On the other side, Sindur Hanuman who is 7 feet tall.
Next we can see anjana devi with little Hanuman.
When Hanuman tried to catch Suryan, Suryan taught all the ilakkanam, ilakkiyam , vedanta to Hanuman. Suryan asked Hanuman to help Sugreevan who will be born later and who is
Suryan's son. Suryan requested Hanuman, to help and protect Sugreevan who might be in danger. Kishkinta is the place where they lived. Anjanadri, Anjanagiri is the name of this
mountain. If we follow this mountain range down south we shall hit NALLAMALA mountain range, which is the place where THIRUMALA, SAPTHAGIRI is located. This Anjanadri is linked till there and one of the the 7 hills is named so. She had done penance there too. Let us pray for rama bhakthi here at anjanadri to hanuman. Let us move towards PAMPA SARAS.
We saw the anjana Parvatham and there is a golden place there. Very bright and shiny and they say that it is the place where Anjaneyar was born.
Slogam :: Kon vasmin
This is the questions asked by Valmiki to Narada during the starting of Ramayanam.
Valmiki listed 16 great characters and asked Narada "is there anyone with all these 16 characters(uyartha panbhugal) ? ". Naradar said "Valmiki neer ketta anaithu uyarntha panbhu oruthar idathil kana mudiyathu. Slogam - "Ishvaku vamsa prabhavaha ramo nama..." . Ishvagu vamsathil piranthu, anaithu vedangalalum potrappadum ramannidathil than kana
mudiyum."
Brahma & Kishkinda
Like how valmiki listed the guna's, here in kishkinta one can see lots of rocks pilled one on the other. These are not just rocks and each of these parangal sings about the greatness of hanuman, tells about the love and affection of hanuman, talks about maruthi's greatness - the one who will not die. Oovuru kallum kavi padum, kavyam vadikkum. Looks like Brahma had pilled all these rocks for the monkeys to jump and go around. It was diffcult for us to climb those mountain. All those including the elderly people enjoyed the stay at Kishkinta by climbing on those mountains, river bath at tungabhadra and going arond kishkinta.Pampa Saras or Pampa Sarovar
Ram came to this place when he reached Kishkinta. This is not the pambha river of kerala. This is a small pond/poigai. This pampa saras is filled with lotus at times and on the bank one can see Ram's thiruvadi and lakshman's thiruvadi. Kabhandan told the way to ram to reach this place. When Kabhandan was killed by Ram, he got papa vimochanam and kabhandan gave the details of Pampa Sarovar to Ram. We took bath there and people from many places come and visit here.
Sarovar created by Brahma during Shristi
Brahma when he started to create the universe i.e during shristi he created 4 important Sarovar's.1. MANASAROVAR at Himachalam
2 & 3 NARAYANASAROVAR & BINDU SAROVAR at Gujarat
4. PAMPA SAROVAR at Karnataka
With Pampa Sarovar and Tungabhadra river kishkinta is a wonderful place with natural scenic beauty.
Sri Ramanin Padhayil Calendar 2014 by Kinchitkaram trust
Far away from all the mechnical life and hurry, all the places in Sri Ramanin Anu yatra are places like this. This program is telecasted for all of us to watch from home since all cannot travel to these places for varied reasons. Do book the Kinchitkaram trust Calendar titled "Sri Ramanin Padhayail" for the year 2014 which explains Ram's various guna's like Sathiyam, Ozhukkam, Karunai, Porumai, veeram, Shanthi, mukthi alithal with pictures and storied from Ramayanam. Also one can get 4 DVD of all the places we have seen in this series. This is a great treasure/ pokkisham. Great oppurtunity to understand the guna's which ram followed and also to see all the punya kshetram's which Ram walked all through india.ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Sri Ramanin Padhayil - Episode 27 - Nov 10 2013
ஸ்ரீராமஜெயம்
Sri Rama Rama Rameti Rame Rame Manorame
Sahasranama Thathulyam Rama Nama Varanane.
We are continuing in Sri Ramanin Padhayil. Currently we are at kishkinta. Going to visit Pampa saras, Lakshmi kovil and Sabhari asharam.
Lakshmi Kovil
Lakshmi is there everywhere. But there is a speciality in this place. When Ram had come here, Sita was not there. Ram had lost sita and he came alone to kishkinta.
So here sita is there in a separate kovil. The people here wanted to have darshan of sita too. Ram made a way for that too. After the war completion, when Ram was travelling back to ayodhya he came here. When Ram came back in the pushpaka vimanam, all the women monkeys also boarded in the vimanam and went to ayodhya. All the women in this town saw sita first time when the pushpaka vimanam landed. This lakshmi kovil is here for the people of kishkinta, to get the same happiness of what the women got when they saw sita in the pushpaka vimanam. Very wonderful sannidhi. With Pampa saras full of lotus on one side. Lakshmi who is of colour of lotus, with lotus garland, with lotus in her hands to play with and Eyes like Lotus.
visva priyE VishNu manOnukulE
tvath paada padmam mayi sannidhathsva
We worship lakshmi everyday with this slogam and we happen to see that Lakshmi kovil.
Key Takeaway
1. Worship our mother Lakshmi everyday saying 'Padhma priyE Padmini Padma hasthE
PadmAlayE Padma daLAyadhAkshi visva priyE VishNu manOnukulE tvath paada padmam mayi sannidhathsva"
Sabari ashram
Ram had so much love and affection towards Sita. Looks like Sabari was aware of this Ram's love towards Sita. If Sita had been with Ram she would have done all the service to Ram in a humble manner. Sabhari did service to Ram in a similar fashion.
Now we have reached a very sacred place. This is sabhari ashram. Gugan was a hunter. Sabari was also born in hunter's kulam - veduvachi. Ram accepted gugan as his brother. Similarly, Ram accepted the kainkaryam done by Sabhari. Our papam get purified when we are here in this ashram. Our mind,body and atma need to get purified. All that happens while we are here. Sabari told that to Ram. Mathangar is Sabari's aasan/teacher. Mathangar is going to moksham, his sishya sabari also wanted to go with him. Mathangar replied to Sabari that you stay here, Ram and lakshman will come here. You do the thondu/service for them by giving fruits to them. Ram and Lakshman came here. Sabari was a very old lady. Thazhuthazhutha kural. She told to Ram "I am waiting here with these fruits. Look at me with your beautiful eyes.".
Slogam :: "cakshuSaathava saumyena putasmi Raghunandhana.." ( 3-74-13 ?)
Perumal kataksham kidaithal nambhaludaiya sabham yellam tholaiyum. This is the place where that had happened - sabhari ashram. If we are at this place, then we get the kataksham of Ram directly.
Greatness of Acharya Bhakthi and Bhagawan is Paramatma
Ram had so much love and affection towards sabhari that he ate all the fruits given by her with so much love. In fact Ram didn't eat the fruits from Guhan but he had eaten from Sabari. Because Ram had promised to kaikeyi that he will not live a luxuroius life(suga bhogam anubhavikka matten). So he didn't eat the fruits served by Guhan. But he ate from Sabhari. Do you know what is the difference ? Sabhari didn't give it on her own. It was Sabari's acharyan who has ordered her to wait with the fruits for Ram. Because it was Sabari's acharyan's order Ram had to follow so that the acharyan's words doesn't get false. Even bhagawan wants the words of an acharyan to come true and he followed this. Hence Ram ate the fruits served by Sabhari. Requesting Ram Sabari said "Rama naan purapadugiren. The moment you saw me, i got rid of all the punya papam. All my karma's are gone. Now i have to directly go to vaikuntam. " Ram also accepted the request of Sabhari told "Poituva Sabari.". This incident explains that Ram is a paramatma. Ram gave mukthi to Jatayu. Sabhari kitta moksham poitu va nu sollarar Ram.
Vedanta Desikan says : " Bhagavathi bharadwaje bukthi thi thatha sabhari grihe.."
Ram ate at Bharadwaja ashram what the great Rishi Bharadwaj offered him. Ram also ate at sabari ashram. Ram does not differentiate between his bhakthas. This is the great information we have understood at Sabhari ashram.
Key takeaway
2. Ram didn't eat the fruits given by Guhan but he ate what Sabhari gave. Sabhari was waiting as per the orders of her acharyan. Ram had to accept the fruits from sabhari else the acharyan's words would not come true. Even Ram acts so that the words of an acharyan comes true.
3. The incident of Ram giving moksham to Sabari explains us that Ram is paramatma.
4. Bhagawan does not differentiate between his bhakthas. Ram ate what Bharadwajar gave and also what sabhari gave. The attitude and bhakthis is what is important.
Let us all pray to get a small bit of the bhakthi which sabhari had for Ram. Lets move forward to the next place.
Madhuvan
Now we are at the place called Madhuvan. Please do call all the children in your house to listen to this story. They will like this story a lot. When you visit Kiskinta don't miss to visit this place. There are very serious people and very jovial people too. We need both this in our life. One cannot be just jovial or just serious always which will result in pressure. Need to be happy.
Hanuman is a great scholar, great speaker and a knowledgeable minister. If you listen to what that hanuman did in the madhuvan, all the kids will start to jump up and down.
Sugreevan had ordered the monkeys that they need to find sita in a month's time. Sugreevan used to be very strict with respect to his orders and if someone does not follow the orders e used to cut the head of that person first and then only he will start to check on what happen. what is the use in enquiring after the head is cut ? But Hanuman, Jambhavan, angadan took beyond the 1 month time set by sugreevan. This itself must have put them in fear since they didn't meet the orders of sugreevan. But they didn't get frightened because they have seen Sita.
Because of the reason that they have seen sita they were not frightened. Also, once they have reached Kishkinda all the monkey should have directly gone to meet Ram and Sugreeva to say
"Kanden Sita". Instead they came to this madhuvan first. Kurangu Kaila poomalai kidaithal yenna aagum ? The entire range of fruits and trees - mango, jackfuit, banana, coconut and many such trees blossmed with fruits and flowers. Also the madhuvan was filled with singing cuckoos, dancing peacock's, croaking cocks and many types of flowers. Nectar flowing from all those different types of flowers. On seeing all these Hanuman says " We have completed the task assgined to us. There is this thottam on the way. Let us all go inside this grove. Dhomsam pannalam. Let us eat all the fruits, vegetables, drink the nectar, Let us uproot all the trees, plants. " On hearing this all the monkeys were very happy and they started to jump here and there and they started to enjoy and destroy the trees in the madhuvan. Valmiki bhagawan such a great rishi had explained this in two full sargam about how the monkeys behaved in the madhuvan. Chinna pasangal yellam ambhula yeri thumbhu la payum nu solluvome. Can valmiki explain the activities of monkey ? Yes he has done it beautifully. One monkey cried becuase it ate stomach full, one monkey was giggling Ga ga ga because it didn't knew what it ate, one monkey was rolling , one moneky said that it was not hanuman but him who saw sita.
Valmiki explains this as follows in slogam 14 of sargam 61 of sundara kandam " gaayanti = were singing, praNamanti = were offering salutations, nR^ityanti = were dancing, prahasanti = were laughing loudly, patanti = were falling down, vicharanti = were moving in different directions, plavanti = were jumping up, pralapanti = were talking incoherently. "
** From Valmikiramayanam.net*****
Sundara kanda : Sargam 61 :
Leaving Mount Mahendra and leaping ahead towards Kishkindha, the monkeys on their way halt at Madhuvana, a protected grove abounded in honey which was dear to Sugreeva and
guarded by the monkey, Dahimukha. When the monkeys started to enjoy drinking of honey in the grove with the permission of Prince Angada, Dahimukha hinders in their way. The monkeys bruise Dadhimukha with their nails and teeth.
Slogam 14 to 18
Some were singing. Some were offering salutations. Some were dancing. Some were laughing loudly. Some were falling down. Some were moving in different directions. Some were jumping up. Some were talking incoherently. Some were leaning against one another. Some were falling upon one another. Some were disputing with one another. Some were playing with one another. Some were running from one tree to another. Some were falling down to the ground from the tree-tops. Some, with a missile-like speed, were flying towards the tops of gigantic trees from the ground.While one was singing, another approached him laughing. While one was laughing, another approached him weeping. While one was weeping, another approached him pushing. While one was pushing, another approached him roaring.That army of monkeys, moving in excessively honey-drunken state, became highly excited. None in that army was not drunk. None in that army was not satiated.
**********
That grove was so dear to Sugreevan and he had taken care of it like his life. Sugreevan had kept Dahimukhan as the guard for that madhuvan. Dadhimukhan tried to stop the monkeys. He went to Hanuman and asked how he could do this. But Hanuman hit Dadhimukhan nicely. We are having darshan of that Hanuman in Sindhura roopam here at Madhuvan.
Dadhimukhan got scared and he went to complain this to Sugreevan. He went to Sugreevan and said " Your life is lost sugreeva". Sugreevan was confused and then Dadhimukhan continued to say that the Madhuvan which was more dear than sugreeva's life has been destroyed and Hanuman himself is part of the crime. Sugreevan on hearing this from Dadhimukhan, took his tail and hit on the rock next to him showing his happiness. Sugreevan was happy to hear that since he was confident that they must have seen Sita. Lakshman was next to him. Monkey's when they are happy they will hit using the tail. Lakshman was confused on seeing Sugreevan being happy on hearing his grove been destroyed. They must have seen Sita, lakshmana else they will not enter my Madhuvanam that too after skipping the deadline of 30 days. They must have entered the Madhu vanam due to the fact that they have found sita.
Sundara kandam : Sargam 63 : Slogam 15 - 17
"By seeing the manner in which these returned monkeys overpowered, destroyed and behaved towards Madhuvana, we can deduce that the monkeys would not have indulged in such an exploit, had they not accomplished my purpose." "When those monkeys have overpowered Madhuvana, then it means that our task has been accomplished by the monkeys. Seetha was found. There is no doubt. None other than Hanuma must have seen Seetha."
Our elders have written "Good that madhuvan was on the way back to kishkinda because of which Ram's back got spared". "Madhuvanam irunthatho yengal Raman mudugu pizhaithathu." That is if the Madhuvan wasn't there, the entire monkey group would have come directly to meet Ram and they would have shown the happiness by hitting Ram on his back by saying "Kanden Sitayai", then next monkey would come and will say "Kanden Sitayai". Because of the Madhuvan their excitement got reduced before they reached Ram. Even after this all the monkey exhibited weird behaviour and they all came one by one in queue to say "Kanden Sitayai".
Finally anjaneyar came and told ram which kambhan explains as follows in TiruvaDi tozhuda PaDalam : 1271)
"kaNDanen karppinukku aNIyaik kaNgaLaal /
teNN tirai alai kaDal ilangai tenn nagar/
aNdar naayaka! Ini turathi aiyamum
paNDu uLa tuyarum enru anuman pannuvaan//
"drishTaa seetaa iti vikraanta: sam kshEpENa nyavEdayat" (Valmiki Ramayanam Sundarakandam 57-36)
Ram had listen to this eagerly with tear's rolling from his eyes. Thazhuthazhutha kuralil kannum kaneerumaga raman kettundu irunthu irukkar. Yevalavu anandamana, bhava poorvamana gattam. We have seen this beautiful madhuvan today. When you all visit this place do spend 2 hours at Madhuvan with your kids. Then only the kids can have fun and experience and learn what the monkeys did to madhuvan.
Let us see the arathi by the pujari and hear from the pujari of the hanuman temple at madhuvan. Please see the video.
MALYAVAN , SESHNAG, SPATIKA SHILA , RAGHUNATH MANDIR
As part of SriRamaninPadhayil we are at kiskinta. We are going to have the darshan of an important place. Malyavan, Malyavanth - is the mountain name. There is a Raghunath mandir here. Ram had styed here for 4 months after Vali vatham and sugreeva pattabhishekam. It was rainy season and hence they could not go in search of Sita. Since Ram had stayed here for 4 months this place is supposed to be very sacred. Need to climb up the mountain by walk saying Rama Namam or can use auto's. We can reach the temple in 15 minutes. Big and beautiful temple. We can see the sannidhi of Ram, Lakshman and Sita and Hanuman.
There is also one sannidi for Lakshmi devi.
The important significance in this temple is adi sheshan referred as SESHNAG which is peruman's padukkai/bed. That Adi sheshan is in the form of one huge big rock as a mountain. Ram has been carved on this stone itself. When we go for darshan and check from behind the idol of ram, one can understand that Ram malaiyil irunthe yezhunthu arullivullar. They also call this place as Spatika Shila. Spatikam refers to the purest stone called spatikam. Spatikam is more transparent, pure without any dhosham. This mountain has been made of rocks of such type. Saptha giri - yezhumalai is considered to be bhagawan Srinivasar's thiruvudambhu. It is said that he is Adisheshan.
Here at Spatika Shila,
Ram has japa malai and does not have bow in his hands. Ram is in mediatation state here. One cannot fight during rainy season. Sitayai vittu pirindha raman, viraga thapathil thudithu kondu irukkirar Ram. He was having japa mala and meditating. Days passed by. Then Hanuman went to Lanka. Hanuman met sita and gave her the ring which has ram's name in it. Then Hanuman got back choodamani from Sita and came back to kishkinta. Ram was here in this mountain when Hanuman returned. Anjaneyar said " kaNDanen karppinukku aNIyaik kaNgaLaal", "Rama i met Sita. But i just didn't see a human lady called Sita. Uyarntha kudi pirappu, sirantha porumai, niruppai pondra karpu. Indha moondrum sertunthu nattiyam aduvathai than naan kanden.". Saying this Hanuman gives choodamani to Ram. Even today Anjaneyar swami is in that thirukolam. Next to them is lakshman who is watching this scene - thazhuthazhuthu kondu parthu kondu irukkirar lakshman. Wonderful sannivesham. Raman who is none other than GOD himself and he was expecting help from Hanuman. Ram is faithul to Hanuman. Is there any work which cannot be done by GOD ? So much importance/respect is given by Bhagawan to his bhakthan. This is shown in this incident. What happened after this is more important.
Yuddha Kandam : Sargam 1 : 11th Slogam
Meaning : "By finding out Sita, the Raghu dynasty as well as myself and the valiant Lakshmana too, have been rightly saved today."
Yuddha Kandam : Sargam 1 : 13th Slogam "eshhaH sarvasya bhuutaH .... hanuumataH "
Meaning : "Let me at least embrace this magnanimous Hanuman since in the present circumstances, this is all that is easily obtained from me."
Ram said " You have saved me and Sita today two lives. I do not have either of the lives with me here to give you. What can i give back to you in return ? All i can do it hug you."
Ram then hugged Hanuman - Raman than thirumeniyodu thazhuvikkondar. Is there any better prize which one can get ? Sarveshwaran Ramachandran who is told is the veda's. Ram himself praised a bhakthan and thanked HAnuman for the help he did. Ram was with all tears since he didn't know how to repay for the help done by Hanuman. Such is the greatness of Anjaneyar.
Hanuman Mandir opposite to Malyavan
Just straight opposite to this malyavan mountain, is anjaneyar in a cave temple. Wonderful thirukolam of Anjaneyar. Hanuman had stayed here in the caves for long time.
When Ram had stayed for 4 months, hanuman used to come to this cave which is opposite to malyavan to have darshan of Ram.
Sita with 4 hands
Sita didn't come to this place. However, We can see Sita here with 4 hands. Piratti is here to protect all the people here.
Rama Bhanam
Rama Bhanam is a pond in the front. To serve water for Ram, using an arrow this water came out.
Lakshmana Bhanam
Lakshmana bhanam is a pond in the back which is the water which came out after Lakshman shot an arrow.
From the back side of the temple one can see for about 4 acres land is full of stones and we can also see rishyamukha parvath. Very beautiful place. So we had the darshan of Raghunathan at the place called Malyavan in Kishkinda. Lets go to other places.
Upanyasam at Malyavan
We are at Malyavan mountain as part of Sri Rama Anu yatra. Malyavan was part of Kishkinta samrajyam. After sugreeva pattabhishekam, all the vanaras wanted to go in search of Sita. Due to rainy season they could not go in search of sita. They had to wait for 4 months. As per the words given to Kaikeyi, Ram didn't go inside the city of kishkinta and instead stayed here in this mountain called malyavan which was in the out skirts for 4 months with Lakshman. Kar kalam, azhagiya vanam, manda marudha kattru, pampa saras lirunthu thamarai dhathukal loda koodina marutham, intha kattru yellam Ramanai nayagiyai vittu pirinthu pirivattramaiyinale, viragathabhathale thunbhuruthina. Ram saw all these and spent 4 months. After that as per lakshman's words, sugreevan sent his monkey clan to all sides to go in search of sita.
We had a great upanyasam in that place. The upanyasam was great because of the place where it was done and everyone liked that place. Many were talking about the upanyasam and about that place. Hence it is a good upanyasam. Let us hear from that.
He called all the vanarottama's to start the search. All the monkey's from various places came to kishkinta. Sugreevan split they into groups and sent them to search and assigned them different directions like north, east, west. To south, he called upon Jambhavan, angadan, Hanuman. Everyone came and were eagerly waiting for the next order from Ram/Sugreevan. But Hanuman didn't come and he was wondering why Ram who is a purushottam, chakravarthy thirumagan is focussed in searching his wife and not on the kingdom. He was a brahmachari and hence he could not understand. So ram calls Hanuman and gives his ring to Hanuman. Whichever monkey got that ring would have crossed the ocean. It is not just because he was Hanuman. Also none of the jeevatma's can protect themselves or take care of their things on their own. It is all possible because of the ring which Ram gave. If Ram had given it to some other monkey, probably that monkey would have cross the ocean. Why did Ram selected Hanuman and he gave the ring ? Ram thought that Hanuman is thinking weird so let him go, see and come. The search started. A group went southwards towards mahendra giri parvatham. Fom Mahendra giri parvatham, Hanuman jumped and crossed the ocean. He searched the entire lanka and saw sita. On seeing Sita Hanuman felt that Sita and Ram are made for each other and how are they staying away from each other. Hanuman started to wonder how come Ram was able to live and how he is still alive all these days after losing Sita. Till seeing Sita hanuman's perspective and thoughts were different and after seeing her his perspective changed and started thinking how come Ram is still alive without sita. Meanwhile, Ravana came there to meet Sita with his entire group and started to trouble sita. Then Ravana gave 60 days time to sita to change her mind. On hearing that Sita started to do updadesam to Ravana " if you want go and seek refuge at Ram's feet. You do not have the eligibility for that too. Go and atleast make friends with Ram. " Koodi irukkum pothum upadesippal, Pirinthu irukkum pothu upadesippal, upadesathale thirunthatha pothu azhagaleyum arulaleyum piratti thiruthi parkiral.
Sita tried to advice ravana but all in vain. Ravana went away after giving 60 days time to sita. Sita was upset and she decided to commit suicide by tying her hair on the tree. She lifted her head to see the tree. Meanwhile, Hanuman, who was sitting on the branches up high came down to the lower branches of that tree. He started to say SriRamayanam once completely. Sita started to listen to Rama namam and story which hanuman was telling. Ram Namam is capable of safeguarding the life ( rama nanam pogira uyirai thadukum). Sita was saved from committng suicide and then Hanuman came in front of Sita and told her who he is and who sent him. Rama Namam sitayai asvasa paduthiyathu. Then Sita asked Hanuman to tell the identification and anga adayalam of Ram. Then Hanuman told everything about Ram and gave the ring to Sita. Vanginal, mulai kuvalaiyul vaithanal, than thirumarbhil thazhuvikk kondu azhuthu azhuthu ummi virugi pirintha uyir than petraval pol aanal. Mothirathai kandaval viral niyabagam vara, viral kandaval thol niyabagam vara, tholai kandaval ramane niyabhagam vara, ramani aalinganam pannikondar pole sitai vimmi irunthal. Hanuman was sad on one side. Ithu mothiram raman illai yendru therinthal intha pen yevalavu varutha paduvalo theriyalai. Sirithu neral sirikiral, sirithu neram azhugiral janaki. Ramanoda serunthu irunthathai ninaithu sirikiral, pirinthathai ninaithu azhugiral. Mothirathai kaiyil vanginal janaki antha mothiram iruvaraiyun oru vatti intha mothiram serthu vaithu irukku. Oru vatti ramanukku sitaikum pranayarosham- udal. Udal nala rendu perum pesalai. Vilaiyatta sitayin nettri thilagathai azhithu vittan raman. Sitaiku kovum, pathivirathai naan irukken, sumangali nettri kumkum yeppadi azhikalam yendru kovum 3 naal pesalai. Ramaanum purinchindutan, thappu pannitom yendru thonitthu anal vittu koduthu pesa manasu varalai. Naan purushotaman aache yendru ivar ninaika, naan deva devamahishi aache yendru aval ninaika, Raman than mothirathai kazhati pottutu, yen mothirathai kannum yendru sonnan. Sitai foudn the ring and gave it to ram and the fight got over. Sita remembered all this. Andru serthu vaitha mothiram indru verumane perivil vanthu nirkirathe. Sita than thirumarbhil haram kuda sathikkamal irunthalam. Rama aalinganam pothu ramanukku uruthum yendru. Anal ippozhuthu avanukkum ivallukkum idaiyil 100 yojanai visithiramaga ulla samudhrame kidaikirathu. Then hanuman got her Choodamani. This choodamani was given by Dasarathan to Sita. This was the only jewellery left with sita and the rest she had dropped on thw way at kishkinta. Hanuman comes back as Sita Dhootan. He went as Rama Dhootan and came back as Sita Dhootan. hen he went he said "Dhooto ham Ramasya " and when he came back he said "Dasoham Kosalendrasya" Dasan attitude /serving attitude comes in not just seeing Ram but seeing sita and Ram. Then Hanuman came to Ram and said "Drishta Sita" "Parthen sitaiyai".. he didn't even say Sita Drishta/ Sitai kanapatal but he said "Kanappatal sita". Why he said "Kanden Sitayai" instead of "Sitayai Kanden" ? He said so, because ram will not be able to tolerate on what has happned to sita if Hanuman had started with Sita. Antha thudippu Swamiku koodathu yendra yennam Dasan/Hanumanukku irunthathu. Then Ram enquired about what all Sita told and what all she spoke. Come sit next to me and say what Sita told. Kambhar has written here that Hanuman said " I didn't see Sita, i saw nalla kudu pirappu, karpu, porumai intha moondrum narthanam adindu irukkartha parthene thavira sitai parkavillai". Then Hanuman told that Sita has given time of 1 month beyond which she will not live. The Ram replied "if Sita can stay live for 1 month then let her be chiranjeevi". What does this mean ? Ram meant "I am not able to stay without sita for a minute but look Hanuman sita is going to stay for a month. " Does this mean that ram has more affection than sita ? It might look so from the statement, but as per our poorvacharya's, "Such is the greatness of Sita that Ram is unable to stay away from her even for a minute when compared with the greatness of Ram where Sita is able to stay for a month". So Sita's greatness if explained here. This is not competition between the love and affection of Ram and sita. They both compete each other to protect people like us is the inner meaning. "
(Ozhukkam-Way of Living)
VALI VATHAM
When we hear the name kishkinta, all we remember is the fight between Vali and Sugreeva in which Ram killed Vali by hiding. There are discussion on whether it was correct for Ram to kill Vali from a hide out. But Vali himself have explained us on whether it is correct or not( Izhukka Izhukku illaiya). Similarly, Vali's wife Tharai also explains that there is no fault in this action taken by Ram and Ram has only punished an animal for the mistake committed, the king has punished the person who has committed mistake, when giving punishment no one will come in the front to fight, if a tiger has entered a village and if it is killing the villagers then the villagers will try to attach the tiger from a hide out. This is exactly what Ram has done and hence it is not a crime. This argument has been clearly explained and closed long time ago. (Ozhukkam-Way of Living)
Now we are going to the place where Ram was hiding and from where he shot an arrow. The route to that place is little adventurous and difficult to climb. On the left side is tungabhadra river. Nice route to walk especially in the evening when the sun is setting giving a golden look to the river. There is one Sannidhi for Narasimha swami before climbing the mountain. After having darshan there if we climb the rocky mountain, then there is one more temple on the top. In front of that temple, we can see Ram's Patham(feet) from where Ram had stood and shot the arrow. We can see the Ramar patham and mark of the bow/arrow. Ram has shot the arrow from here and Vali was fighting with Sugreeva at a distance far away.
Next to this place, there is a cave where sugreevan had stayed. Ram and Sugreevan had many discussions here. Sugreevan had explained why he was hiding in rishyamugha parvatham, about vali, about their friendship etc. Very cold place. One need to be careful to go inside since the height is very less. This is the cave sugreevan had stayed.
So on one side is the Sugreevan cave and the place from where Ram shot the arrow.
Next week we shall see the place where the arrow went.
Upanyasam from that place
SriRamachandran had come in south-west direction searching Sita. On the way he killed Kabhandan and understood the route to Kishkinta from Kabhandan. Ram reached till Sabhari Ashram. Sabhari gave fruits and did aradhana to perumal. Due to Ram's anugraham and Sabhari's acharya anugraham, Ram sent Sabhari to moksham. As per the route told by Sabhari, Ram reached the Rishyamukha parvatham. At Rishyamukha parvatham, Sugreevan of the monkey clan was hiding from his brother Vali. Ram became friend with Sugreevan. Sugreevan also promised that he would help in searching sita. Ram promised that he will help Sugreevan to fight Vali who abducted his wife too. Sugreevan wanted to test if Ram was capable to fight with Vali. A test was conducted here. We can also see the Ram's padu kamalam here. Close by river tungabhadra is flowing. On the other side of the river 7 sala viruksham(trees) were there.
Vali had the power to shatter each of those trees with one arrow for each tree. Sugreevan told Ram that if Ram had the shakthi to uproot(thulaikum) those trees then he will accept that Ram had the shakthi to kill Vali. Ram took his bow and arrow. With one arrow ram shattered all the 7 trees at one shot. Ram is known as "Sinaiyai mara maram yezhu yeithiyavan". Many azhwar's have sung on this incident of Ram hitting those trees. "Punarai ninna maram .." In Krishnavataram, HE went between two trees and in Ramavatharam he shot down 7 trees. After this act by Ram, Sugreevan understood about Ram's power and got confidence that Ram can kill Vali. This is told as a story.
One more story told here is as follows.
Opposite to this place, on the other side of the river tungabhadra, we can see a rocky mountain and on top it there is a mandapam. On the top of this mountain sugreevan and vali had fought. Ram had shot the arrow standing on the other side of the mountain and shot arrow to kill Vali.
The place where we are standing is the place where Ram's shakthi was shown to us - Raman shakthi, veeram velipatta idam. Every jeevatma is dependent on this shakthi and veeram of Perumal. We are not living depending on our shakthi but we all are depended on HIS shakthi. To show all this, perumal in his various avataram explains this by doing all these acts. Killing Vali or shooting 7 trees are not activities which bring keerthi/fame to perumal. But still he is doing all this and he is showing all this to us because for us these acts are extraordinary. If Perumal can do these extraordinary acts easily, then perumal can also do the most extraordinary important task of helping us cross this samsaram to lead us to moksham. This confidence gets built on seeing these extraordinary acts by perumal and we all start understanding his Shakthi. If peruman can do all these tasks(though it is easy for him, it is difficult for us) easily so the confidence builds up.
How to reach Kishkinta ?
This place is easily reachable. Kishkinta is near Hampi which is near Hospet.
So at kishkinta we saw the place where Ram stood and shot the arrow. We can also see the mountain where Vali & Sugreeva fought. The place of 7 sala viruksham/trees can also be seen. The cave in which Ram and Sugreevan had discussion can also be seen. Ivai yavum kana kan kodi(1000) irukka vendiya thalangal.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Sri Rama Rama Rameti Rame Rame Manorame
Sahasranama Thathulyam Rama Nama Varanane.
We are continuing in Sri Ramanin Padhayil. Currently we are at kishkinta. Going to visit Pampa saras, Lakshmi kovil and Sabhari asharam.
Lakshmi Kovil
Lakshmi is there everywhere. But there is a speciality in this place. When Ram had come here, Sita was not there. Ram had lost sita and he came alone to kishkinta.
So here sita is there in a separate kovil. The people here wanted to have darshan of sita too. Ram made a way for that too. After the war completion, when Ram was travelling back to ayodhya he came here. When Ram came back in the pushpaka vimanam, all the women monkeys also boarded in the vimanam and went to ayodhya. All the women in this town saw sita first time when the pushpaka vimanam landed. This lakshmi kovil is here for the people of kishkinta, to get the same happiness of what the women got when they saw sita in the pushpaka vimanam. Very wonderful sannidhi. With Pampa saras full of lotus on one side. Lakshmi who is of colour of lotus, with lotus garland, with lotus in her hands to play with and Eyes like Lotus.
Slogam :
Padhma priyE Padmini Padma hasthE
PadmAlayE Padma daLAyadhAkshivisva priyE VishNu manOnukulE
tvath paada padmam mayi sannidhathsva
(Extended Meaning): Oh MahA Lakshmi , who is very fond of the lotus flower! Oh supreme One holding that lotus flower in Your hands ! Oh Mother seated on a golden lotus ! Oh the most beautiful One with the eyes resembling that of the enchanting petals of a tender lotus ! Oh parama KaaruNya mUrthy filled with dayA for one and all ! Oh auspicious Lady , who is tuned closely to the wishes of Your Lord ! Please place Your auspicious lotus feet on my siras !
Key Takeaway
1. Worship our mother Lakshmi everyday saying 'Padhma priyE Padmini Padma hasthE
PadmAlayE Padma daLAyadhAkshi visva priyE VishNu manOnukulE tvath paada padmam mayi sannidhathsva"
Sabari ashram
Ram had so much love and affection towards Sita. Looks like Sabari was aware of this Ram's love towards Sita. If Sita had been with Ram she would have done all the service to Ram in a humble manner. Sabhari did service to Ram in a similar fashion.
Now we have reached a very sacred place. This is sabhari ashram. Gugan was a hunter. Sabari was also born in hunter's kulam - veduvachi. Ram accepted gugan as his brother. Similarly, Ram accepted the kainkaryam done by Sabhari. Our papam get purified when we are here in this ashram. Our mind,body and atma need to get purified. All that happens while we are here. Sabari told that to Ram. Mathangar is Sabari's aasan/teacher. Mathangar is going to moksham, his sishya sabari also wanted to go with him. Mathangar replied to Sabari that you stay here, Ram and lakshman will come here. You do the thondu/service for them by giving fruits to them. Ram and Lakshman came here. Sabari was a very old lady. Thazhuthazhutha kural. She told to Ram "I am waiting here with these fruits. Look at me with your beautiful eyes.".
Slogam :: "cakshuSaathava saumyena putasmi Raghunandhana.." ( 3-74-13 ?)
Perumal kataksham kidaithal nambhaludaiya sabham yellam tholaiyum. This is the place where that had happened - sabhari ashram. If we are at this place, then we get the kataksham of Ram directly.
Greatness of Acharya Bhakthi and Bhagawan is Paramatma
Ram had so much love and affection towards sabhari that he ate all the fruits given by her with so much love. In fact Ram didn't eat the fruits from Guhan but he had eaten from Sabari. Because Ram had promised to kaikeyi that he will not live a luxuroius life(suga bhogam anubhavikka matten). So he didn't eat the fruits served by Guhan. But he ate from Sabhari. Do you know what is the difference ? Sabhari didn't give it on her own. It was Sabari's acharyan who has ordered her to wait with the fruits for Ram. Because it was Sabari's acharyan's order Ram had to follow so that the acharyan's words doesn't get false. Even bhagawan wants the words of an acharyan to come true and he followed this. Hence Ram ate the fruits served by Sabhari. Requesting Ram Sabari said "Rama naan purapadugiren. The moment you saw me, i got rid of all the punya papam. All my karma's are gone. Now i have to directly go to vaikuntam. " Ram also accepted the request of Sabhari told "Poituva Sabari.". This incident explains that Ram is a paramatma. Ram gave mukthi to Jatayu. Sabhari kitta moksham poitu va nu sollarar Ram.
Vedanta Desikan says : " Bhagavathi bharadwaje bukthi thi thatha sabhari grihe.."
Ram ate at Bharadwaja ashram what the great Rishi Bharadwaj offered him. Ram also ate at sabari ashram. Ram does not differentiate between his bhakthas. This is the great information we have understood at Sabhari ashram.
Key takeaway
2. Ram didn't eat the fruits given by Guhan but he ate what Sabhari gave. Sabhari was waiting as per the orders of her acharyan. Ram had to accept the fruits from sabhari else the acharyan's words would not come true. Even Ram acts so that the words of an acharyan comes true.
3. The incident of Ram giving moksham to Sabari explains us that Ram is paramatma.
4. Bhagawan does not differentiate between his bhakthas. Ram ate what Bharadwajar gave and also what sabhari gave. The attitude and bhakthis is what is important.
Let us all pray to get a small bit of the bhakthi which sabhari had for Ram. Lets move forward to the next place.
Madhuvan
Now we are at the place called Madhuvan. Please do call all the children in your house to listen to this story. They will like this story a lot. When you visit Kiskinta don't miss to visit this place. There are very serious people and very jovial people too. We need both this in our life. One cannot be just jovial or just serious always which will result in pressure. Need to be happy.
Hanuman is a great scholar, great speaker and a knowledgeable minister. If you listen to what that hanuman did in the madhuvan, all the kids will start to jump up and down.
Sugreevan had ordered the monkeys that they need to find sita in a month's time. Sugreevan used to be very strict with respect to his orders and if someone does not follow the orders e used to cut the head of that person first and then only he will start to check on what happen. what is the use in enquiring after the head is cut ? But Hanuman, Jambhavan, angadan took beyond the 1 month time set by sugreevan. This itself must have put them in fear since they didn't meet the orders of sugreevan. But they didn't get frightened because they have seen Sita.
Because of the reason that they have seen sita they were not frightened. Also, once they have reached Kishkinda all the monkey should have directly gone to meet Ram and Sugreeva to say
"Kanden Sita". Instead they came to this madhuvan first. Kurangu Kaila poomalai kidaithal yenna aagum ? The entire range of fruits and trees - mango, jackfuit, banana, coconut and many such trees blossmed with fruits and flowers. Also the madhuvan was filled with singing cuckoos, dancing peacock's, croaking cocks and many types of flowers. Nectar flowing from all those different types of flowers. On seeing all these Hanuman says " We have completed the task assgined to us. There is this thottam on the way. Let us all go inside this grove. Dhomsam pannalam. Let us eat all the fruits, vegetables, drink the nectar, Let us uproot all the trees, plants. " On hearing this all the monkeys were very happy and they started to jump here and there and they started to enjoy and destroy the trees in the madhuvan. Valmiki bhagawan such a great rishi had explained this in two full sargam about how the monkeys behaved in the madhuvan. Chinna pasangal yellam ambhula yeri thumbhu la payum nu solluvome. Can valmiki explain the activities of monkey ? Yes he has done it beautifully. One monkey cried becuase it ate stomach full, one monkey was giggling Ga ga ga because it didn't knew what it ate, one monkey was rolling , one moneky said that it was not hanuman but him who saw sita.
Valmiki explains this as follows in slogam 14 of sargam 61 of sundara kandam " gaayanti = were singing, praNamanti = were offering salutations, nR^ityanti = were dancing, prahasanti = were laughing loudly, patanti = were falling down, vicharanti = were moving in different directions, plavanti = were jumping up, pralapanti = were talking incoherently. "
** From Valmikiramayanam.net*****
Sundara kanda : Sargam 61 :
Leaving Mount Mahendra and leaping ahead towards Kishkindha, the monkeys on their way halt at Madhuvana, a protected grove abounded in honey which was dear to Sugreeva and
guarded by the monkey, Dahimukha. When the monkeys started to enjoy drinking of honey in the grove with the permission of Prince Angada, Dahimukha hinders in their way. The monkeys bruise Dadhimukha with their nails and teeth.
Slogam 14 to 18
Some were singing. Some were offering salutations. Some were dancing. Some were laughing loudly. Some were falling down. Some were moving in different directions. Some were jumping up. Some were talking incoherently. Some were leaning against one another. Some were falling upon one another. Some were disputing with one another. Some were playing with one another. Some were running from one tree to another. Some were falling down to the ground from the tree-tops. Some, with a missile-like speed, were flying towards the tops of gigantic trees from the ground.While one was singing, another approached him laughing. While one was laughing, another approached him weeping. While one was weeping, another approached him pushing. While one was pushing, another approached him roaring.That army of monkeys, moving in excessively honey-drunken state, became highly excited. None in that army was not drunk. None in that army was not satiated.
**********
That grove was so dear to Sugreevan and he had taken care of it like his life. Sugreevan had kept Dahimukhan as the guard for that madhuvan. Dadhimukhan tried to stop the monkeys. He went to Hanuman and asked how he could do this. But Hanuman hit Dadhimukhan nicely. We are having darshan of that Hanuman in Sindhura roopam here at Madhuvan.
Dadhimukhan got scared and he went to complain this to Sugreevan. He went to Sugreevan and said " Your life is lost sugreeva". Sugreevan was confused and then Dadhimukhan continued to say that the Madhuvan which was more dear than sugreeva's life has been destroyed and Hanuman himself is part of the crime. Sugreevan on hearing this from Dadhimukhan, took his tail and hit on the rock next to him showing his happiness. Sugreevan was happy to hear that since he was confident that they must have seen Sita. Lakshman was next to him. Monkey's when they are happy they will hit using the tail. Lakshman was confused on seeing Sugreevan being happy on hearing his grove been destroyed. They must have seen Sita, lakshmana else they will not enter my Madhuvanam that too after skipping the deadline of 30 days. They must have entered the Madhu vanam due to the fact that they have found sita.
Sundara kandam : Sargam 63 : Slogam 15 - 17
"By seeing the manner in which these returned monkeys overpowered, destroyed and behaved towards Madhuvana, we can deduce that the monkeys would not have indulged in such an exploit, had they not accomplished my purpose." "When those monkeys have overpowered Madhuvana, then it means that our task has been accomplished by the monkeys. Seetha was found. There is no doubt. None other than Hanuma must have seen Seetha."
Our elders have written "Good that madhuvan was on the way back to kishkinda because of which Ram's back got spared". "Madhuvanam irunthatho yengal Raman mudugu pizhaithathu." That is if the Madhuvan wasn't there, the entire monkey group would have come directly to meet Ram and they would have shown the happiness by hitting Ram on his back by saying "Kanden Sitayai", then next monkey would come and will say "Kanden Sitayai". Because of the Madhuvan their excitement got reduced before they reached Ram. Even after this all the monkey exhibited weird behaviour and they all came one by one in queue to say "Kanden Sitayai".
Finally anjaneyar came and told ram which kambhan explains as follows in TiruvaDi tozhuda PaDalam : 1271)
"kaNDanen karppinukku aNIyaik kaNgaLaal /
teNN tirai alai kaDal ilangai tenn nagar/
aNdar naayaka! Ini turathi aiyamum
paNDu uLa tuyarum enru anuman pannuvaan//
"drishTaa seetaa iti vikraanta: sam kshEpENa nyavEdayat" (Valmiki Ramayanam Sundarakandam 57-36)
Ram had listen to this eagerly with tear's rolling from his eyes. Thazhuthazhutha kuralil kannum kaneerumaga raman kettundu irunthu irukkar. Yevalavu anandamana, bhava poorvamana gattam. We have seen this beautiful madhuvan today. When you all visit this place do spend 2 hours at Madhuvan with your kids. Then only the kids can have fun and experience and learn what the monkeys did to madhuvan.
Let us see the arathi by the pujari and hear from the pujari of the hanuman temple at madhuvan. Please see the video.
MALYAVAN , SESHNAG, SPATIKA SHILA , RAGHUNATH MANDIR
As part of SriRamaninPadhayil we are at kiskinta. We are going to have the darshan of an important place. Malyavan, Malyavanth - is the mountain name. There is a Raghunath mandir here. Ram had styed here for 4 months after Vali vatham and sugreeva pattabhishekam. It was rainy season and hence they could not go in search of Sita. Since Ram had stayed here for 4 months this place is supposed to be very sacred. Need to climb up the mountain by walk saying Rama Namam or can use auto's. We can reach the temple in 15 minutes. Big and beautiful temple. We can see the sannidhi of Ram, Lakshman and Sita and Hanuman.
There is also one sannidi for Lakshmi devi.
The important significance in this temple is adi sheshan referred as SESHNAG which is peruman's padukkai/bed. That Adi sheshan is in the form of one huge big rock as a mountain. Ram has been carved on this stone itself. When we go for darshan and check from behind the idol of ram, one can understand that Ram malaiyil irunthe yezhunthu arullivullar. They also call this place as Spatika Shila. Spatikam refers to the purest stone called spatikam. Spatikam is more transparent, pure without any dhosham. This mountain has been made of rocks of such type. Saptha giri - yezhumalai is considered to be bhagawan Srinivasar's thiruvudambhu. It is said that he is Adisheshan.
Here at Spatika Shila,
Yuddha Kandam : Sargam 1 : 11th Slogam
Meaning : "By finding out Sita, the Raghu dynasty as well as myself and the valiant Lakshmana too, have been rightly saved today."
Yuddha Kandam : Sargam 1 : 13th Slogam "eshhaH sarvasya bhuutaH .... hanuumataH "
Meaning : "Let me at least embrace this magnanimous Hanuman since in the present circumstances, this is all that is easily obtained from me."
Ram said " You have saved me and Sita today two lives. I do not have either of the lives with me here to give you. What can i give back to you in return ? All i can do it hug you."
Ram then hugged Hanuman - Raman than thirumeniyodu thazhuvikkondar. Is there any better prize which one can get ? Sarveshwaran Ramachandran who is told is the veda's. Ram himself praised a bhakthan and thanked HAnuman for the help he did. Ram was with all tears since he didn't know how to repay for the help done by Hanuman. Such is the greatness of Anjaneyar.
Hanuman Mandir opposite to Malyavan
Just straight opposite to this malyavan mountain, is anjaneyar in a cave temple. Wonderful thirukolam of Anjaneyar. Hanuman had stayed here in the caves for long time.
When Ram had stayed for 4 months, hanuman used to come to this cave which is opposite to malyavan to have darshan of Ram.
Sita with 4 hands
Sita didn't come to this place. However, We can see Sita here with 4 hands. Piratti is here to protect all the people here.
Rama Bhanam
Rama Bhanam is a pond in the front. To serve water for Ram, using an arrow this water came out.
Lakshmana Bhanam
Lakshmana bhanam is a pond in the back which is the water which came out after Lakshman shot an arrow.
From the back side of the temple one can see for about 4 acres land is full of stones and we can also see rishyamukha parvath. Very beautiful place. So we had the darshan of Raghunathan at the place called Malyavan in Kishkinda. Lets go to other places.
Upanyasam at Malyavan
We are at Malyavan mountain as part of Sri Rama Anu yatra. Malyavan was part of Kishkinta samrajyam. After sugreeva pattabhishekam, all the vanaras wanted to go in search of Sita. Due to rainy season they could not go in search of sita. They had to wait for 4 months. As per the words given to Kaikeyi, Ram didn't go inside the city of kishkinta and instead stayed here in this mountain called malyavan which was in the out skirts for 4 months with Lakshman. Kar kalam, azhagiya vanam, manda marudha kattru, pampa saras lirunthu thamarai dhathukal loda koodina marutham, intha kattru yellam Ramanai nayagiyai vittu pirinthu pirivattramaiyinale, viragathabhathale thunbhuruthina. Ram saw all these and spent 4 months. After that as per lakshman's words, sugreevan sent his monkey clan to all sides to go in search of sita.
We had a great upanyasam in that place. The upanyasam was great because of the place where it was done and everyone liked that place. Many were talking about the upanyasam and about that place. Hence it is a good upanyasam. Let us hear from that.
He called all the vanarottama's to start the search. All the monkey's from various places came to kishkinta. Sugreevan split they into groups and sent them to search and assigned them different directions like north, east, west. To south, he called upon Jambhavan, angadan, Hanuman. Everyone came and were eagerly waiting for the next order from Ram/Sugreevan. But Hanuman didn't come and he was wondering why Ram who is a purushottam, chakravarthy thirumagan is focussed in searching his wife and not on the kingdom. He was a brahmachari and hence he could not understand. So ram calls Hanuman and gives his ring to Hanuman. Whichever monkey got that ring would have crossed the ocean. It is not just because he was Hanuman. Also none of the jeevatma's can protect themselves or take care of their things on their own. It is all possible because of the ring which Ram gave. If Ram had given it to some other monkey, probably that monkey would have cross the ocean. Why did Ram selected Hanuman and he gave the ring ? Ram thought that Hanuman is thinking weird so let him go, see and come. The search started. A group went southwards towards mahendra giri parvatham. Fom Mahendra giri parvatham, Hanuman jumped and crossed the ocean. He searched the entire lanka and saw sita. On seeing Sita Hanuman felt that Sita and Ram are made for each other and how are they staying away from each other. Hanuman started to wonder how come Ram was able to live and how he is still alive all these days after losing Sita. Till seeing Sita hanuman's perspective and thoughts were different and after seeing her his perspective changed and started thinking how come Ram is still alive without sita. Meanwhile, Ravana came there to meet Sita with his entire group and started to trouble sita. Then Ravana gave 60 days time to sita to change her mind. On hearing that Sita started to do updadesam to Ravana " if you want go and seek refuge at Ram's feet. You do not have the eligibility for that too. Go and atleast make friends with Ram. " Koodi irukkum pothum upadesippal, Pirinthu irukkum pothu upadesippal, upadesathale thirunthatha pothu azhagaleyum arulaleyum piratti thiruthi parkiral.
Sita tried to advice ravana but all in vain. Ravana went away after giving 60 days time to sita. Sita was upset and she decided to commit suicide by tying her hair on the tree. She lifted her head to see the tree. Meanwhile, Hanuman, who was sitting on the branches up high came down to the lower branches of that tree. He started to say SriRamayanam once completely. Sita started to listen to Rama namam and story which hanuman was telling. Ram Namam is capable of safeguarding the life ( rama nanam pogira uyirai thadukum). Sita was saved from committng suicide and then Hanuman came in front of Sita and told her who he is and who sent him. Rama Namam sitayai asvasa paduthiyathu. Then Sita asked Hanuman to tell the identification and anga adayalam of Ram. Then Hanuman told everything about Ram and gave the ring to Sita. Vanginal, mulai kuvalaiyul vaithanal, than thirumarbhil thazhuvikk kondu azhuthu azhuthu ummi virugi pirintha uyir than petraval pol aanal. Mothirathai kandaval viral niyabagam vara, viral kandaval thol niyabagam vara, tholai kandaval ramane niyabhagam vara, ramani aalinganam pannikondar pole sitai vimmi irunthal. Hanuman was sad on one side. Ithu mothiram raman illai yendru therinthal intha pen yevalavu varutha paduvalo theriyalai. Sirithu neral sirikiral, sirithu neram azhugiral janaki. Ramanoda serunthu irunthathai ninaithu sirikiral, pirinthathai ninaithu azhugiral. Mothirathai kaiyil vanginal janaki antha mothiram iruvaraiyun oru vatti intha mothiram serthu vaithu irukku. Oru vatti ramanukku sitaikum pranayarosham- udal. Udal nala rendu perum pesalai. Vilaiyatta sitayin nettri thilagathai azhithu vittan raman. Sitaiku kovum, pathivirathai naan irukken, sumangali nettri kumkum yeppadi azhikalam yendru kovum 3 naal pesalai. Ramaanum purinchindutan, thappu pannitom yendru thonitthu anal vittu koduthu pesa manasu varalai. Naan purushotaman aache yendru ivar ninaika, naan deva devamahishi aache yendru aval ninaika, Raman than mothirathai kazhati pottutu, yen mothirathai kannum yendru sonnan. Sitai foudn the ring and gave it to ram and the fight got over. Sita remembered all this. Andru serthu vaitha mothiram indru verumane perivil vanthu nirkirathe. Sita than thirumarbhil haram kuda sathikkamal irunthalam. Rama aalinganam pothu ramanukku uruthum yendru. Anal ippozhuthu avanukkum ivallukkum idaiyil 100 yojanai visithiramaga ulla samudhrame kidaikirathu. Then hanuman got her Choodamani. This choodamani was given by Dasarathan to Sita. This was the only jewellery left with sita and the rest she had dropped on thw way at kishkinta. Hanuman comes back as Sita Dhootan. He went as Rama Dhootan and came back as Sita Dhootan. hen he went he said "Dhooto ham Ramasya " and when he came back he said "Dasoham Kosalendrasya" Dasan attitude /serving attitude comes in not just seeing Ram but seeing sita and Ram. Then Hanuman came to Ram and said "Drishta Sita" "Parthen sitaiyai".. he didn't even say Sita Drishta/ Sitai kanapatal but he said "Kanappatal sita". Why he said "Kanden Sitayai" instead of "Sitayai Kanden" ? He said so, because ram will not be able to tolerate on what has happned to sita if Hanuman had started with Sita. Antha thudippu Swamiku koodathu yendra yennam Dasan/Hanumanukku irunthathu. Then Ram enquired about what all Sita told and what all she spoke. Come sit next to me and say what Sita told. Kambhar has written here that Hanuman said " I didn't see Sita, i saw nalla kudu pirappu, karpu, porumai intha moondrum narthanam adindu irukkartha parthene thavira sitai parkavillai". Then Hanuman told that Sita has given time of 1 month beyond which she will not live. The Ram replied "if Sita can stay live for 1 month then let her be chiranjeevi". What does this mean ? Ram meant "I am not able to stay without sita for a minute but look Hanuman sita is going to stay for a month. " Does this mean that ram has more affection than sita ? It might look so from the statement, but as per our poorvacharya's, "Such is the greatness of Sita that Ram is unable to stay away from her even for a minute when compared with the greatness of Ram where Sita is able to stay for a month". So Sita's greatness if explained here. This is not competition between the love and affection of Ram and sita. They both compete each other to protect people like us is the inner meaning. "
(Ozhukkam-Way of Living)
VALI VATHAM
When we hear the name kishkinta, all we remember is the fight between Vali and Sugreeva in which Ram killed Vali by hiding. There are discussion on whether it was correct for Ram to kill Vali from a hide out. But Vali himself have explained us on whether it is correct or not( Izhukka Izhukku illaiya). Similarly, Vali's wife Tharai also explains that there is no fault in this action taken by Ram and Ram has only punished an animal for the mistake committed, the king has punished the person who has committed mistake, when giving punishment no one will come in the front to fight, if a tiger has entered a village and if it is killing the villagers then the villagers will try to attach the tiger from a hide out. This is exactly what Ram has done and hence it is not a crime. This argument has been clearly explained and closed long time ago. (Ozhukkam-Way of Living)
Now we are going to the place where Ram was hiding and from where he shot an arrow. The route to that place is little adventurous and difficult to climb. On the left side is tungabhadra river. Nice route to walk especially in the evening when the sun is setting giving a golden look to the river. There is one Sannidhi for Narasimha swami before climbing the mountain. After having darshan there if we climb the rocky mountain, then there is one more temple on the top. In front of that temple, we can see Ram's Patham(feet) from where Ram had stood and shot the arrow. We can see the Ramar patham and mark of the bow/arrow. Ram has shot the arrow from here and Vali was fighting with Sugreeva at a distance far away.
Next to this place, there is a cave where sugreevan had stayed. Ram and Sugreevan had many discussions here. Sugreevan had explained why he was hiding in rishyamugha parvatham, about vali, about their friendship etc. Very cold place. One need to be careful to go inside since the height is very less. This is the cave sugreevan had stayed.
So on one side is the Sugreevan cave and the place from where Ram shot the arrow.
Next week we shall see the place where the arrow went.
Upanyasam from that place
SriRamachandran had come in south-west direction searching Sita. On the way he killed Kabhandan and understood the route to Kishkinta from Kabhandan. Ram reached till Sabhari Ashram. Sabhari gave fruits and did aradhana to perumal. Due to Ram's anugraham and Sabhari's acharya anugraham, Ram sent Sabhari to moksham. As per the route told by Sabhari, Ram reached the Rishyamukha parvatham. At Rishyamukha parvatham, Sugreevan of the monkey clan was hiding from his brother Vali. Ram became friend with Sugreevan. Sugreevan also promised that he would help in searching sita. Ram promised that he will help Sugreevan to fight Vali who abducted his wife too. Sugreevan wanted to test if Ram was capable to fight with Vali. A test was conducted here. We can also see the Ram's padu kamalam here. Close by river tungabhadra is flowing. On the other side of the river 7 sala viruksham(trees) were there.
Vali had the power to shatter each of those trees with one arrow for each tree. Sugreevan told Ram that if Ram had the shakthi to uproot(thulaikum) those trees then he will accept that Ram had the shakthi to kill Vali. Ram took his bow and arrow. With one arrow ram shattered all the 7 trees at one shot. Ram is known as "Sinaiyai mara maram yezhu yeithiyavan". Many azhwar's have sung on this incident of Ram hitting those trees. "Punarai ninna maram .." In Krishnavataram, HE went between two trees and in Ramavatharam he shot down 7 trees. After this act by Ram, Sugreevan understood about Ram's power and got confidence that Ram can kill Vali. This is told as a story.
One more story told here is as follows.
Opposite to this place, on the other side of the river tungabhadra, we can see a rocky mountain and on top it there is a mandapam. On the top of this mountain sugreevan and vali had fought. Ram had shot the arrow standing on the other side of the mountain and shot arrow to kill Vali.
The place where we are standing is the place where Ram's shakthi was shown to us - Raman shakthi, veeram velipatta idam. Every jeevatma is dependent on this shakthi and veeram of Perumal. We are not living depending on our shakthi but we all are depended on HIS shakthi. To show all this, perumal in his various avataram explains this by doing all these acts. Killing Vali or shooting 7 trees are not activities which bring keerthi/fame to perumal. But still he is doing all this and he is showing all this to us because for us these acts are extraordinary. If Perumal can do these extraordinary acts easily, then perumal can also do the most extraordinary important task of helping us cross this samsaram to lead us to moksham. This confidence gets built on seeing these extraordinary acts by perumal and we all start understanding his Shakthi. If peruman can do all these tasks(though it is easy for him, it is difficult for us) easily so the confidence builds up.
How to reach Kishkinta ?
This place is easily reachable. Kishkinta is near Hampi which is near Hospet.
So at kishkinta we saw the place where Ram stood and shot the arrow. We can also see the mountain where Vali & Sugreeva fought. The place of 7 sala viruksham/trees can also be seen. The cave in which Ram and Sugreevan had discussion can also be seen. Ivai yavum kana kan kodi(1000) irukka vendiya thalangal.
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
Sri Ramanin Padhayil - Episode 28 - Nov 17 2013
ஸ்ரீராமஜெயம்
As part of Sri Ramanin Padhayil, following Ram's footsteps we are at Kishkinda.
time, Ram should have shot the arrow on Vali. But Ram didn't do so, since he could not recognize who is vali and who is sugreevan. Sugreevan got badly hurt by Vali and came running to Ram and asked Rama "Rama why did you do so ? I was scared of Vali and hiding in rishyyamukha parvatham. But now Vali is aware of me. Why didn't you protect me ?". All these discussions happened here and Sugreevan got treated here in this cave. Then Ram explained the reason of why didn't shot arrow since he could not differentiate vali and sugreeva. Then Ram asked Sugreevan to wear a garland of flower called GAJAPUSHPIKA and then asked Sugreeva to go for the fight. All these discussion and Ram/Sugreeva friendship happened here in this Cave. If
we go and sit inside this cave, one can see a mild stream of water falling. It is a great exprience to sit here. It is like sitting in a AC when we sit inside that rocky caves. In bhagavadam, Sukacharyar says "Whenever we need water rivers are there, whenever we need food we don't need a vessel instead we have hands, we don't need tools like spoon instead we have teeth, if we want to stay somewhere during rainy season, then the caves are there.Nature as given everything and why human need to suffer ?" This place makes us understand that it is all true. We all wanted to talk about the sargam/charitham here in this cave/hill. We had that oppurtunity and you all can also hear the same.
Upanyasam in the cave
"This is the place where Ram and Sugreeva discussed. Lots of rock's surrounding this cave. Ram belong to human clan and Sugreevan monkey clan. It is a wonder to know that how this friendship happened between human and monkey. When Hanuman meets Sita in the ashoka vanam, Sita asks Hanuman about this on how the friendship happened between the monkey's and the human's. What we need to understand is that bhagawan does not discriminate on whom he is becoming friend with. It is Ram's greatness that he accepted Sugreevan's friendship and accepted him as his brother. This is called as Sowsiliyam one of the guna's of perumal. When Ram and Sugreeva met first time, they spoke for sometime and then they were staring continously at each other. We all shall stare at someone who is very beautiful. Similarly, Ram was seeing sugreevan with great anniyonyam. Anniyonyamaga thirupthiye yerpadatha mathiri Raman Sugreevanai parthu ondu irunthar. If Ram has to see a monkey like this it is nothing other than Mother's vathsalyam. Like how a mother is not satisfied even if she is watching her child for a long time and she still longs to watch the child. Similarly, Bhagawan like to see his bhaktha's.
Nammazhwar explains this in the pasuram "Iruthum.."
Perumalin thiruvadi thamaraiyin kezhe Nammazhwarai vaithu vittu, kan kottamal perumal Azhwaraiye nokki kondu iruntharam. Antha nokkam, kan parvai kidaika bhakthargal yevvvalavu bhagyam panni irukka vendum. It is because of this "Perumal's Kan Parvai Kataksham" all are sins will go and we can reach high abodes. So it is in this place perumal did the kataksham of someone whom he met just a day ago. Each of these rocks have imprints of Ram's SOWSILYAM and one who visits here can only understand the same. "
There is also Raman thiruvadi for which there is a lamp lite and worshipped. Huge rock underwhich ram's thiruvadi is there. First Vali was shot and Vali notices the name RAMA on the arrow. Then Ram comes there. Ram came to this huge rock and then Ram gave mukthi to Vali. That place is filled with huge rocks on which only monkey's can live. We drank that river water and we also had a upanyasam on that huge rock. After the upanyasam no one was willing to go from that place. Just in one place we can see stone with red stain. The rock is red only in that place since Vali's blood was there. In the entire kishkinta we can only see red stains on the rocks only in this place. It was a wonder to listen to all these.
You are hearing the upanyasam which we had at that place since that is itself a great feeling and great to hear. Then later we have enquired and collected many information from the localities which you are listening in the upanyasams added later in detail to explian the TV viewers. It was almost 6 PM in the evening and great to see the sun set with monkeys, deers,
peacock and a setting sun like an orange fruits, golden sun. We all just forgot all the pain we took to reach that place after seeing that place and the beautiful sun set. All the pain we felt only after retrurning back. We saw the place from where Ram hit the arrow and the place where the vali-sugreevan fight happened. Let's go and visit all the great sannidhi's in Kishkinda and listen to the parayanam and the upanyasam.
Parayanam :: See the video
Upanyasam:
Ravanan abducted sita. On the way to lanka, somewhere closer to Kishkinta, rishyamuga parvatham, Sugreevan, Jambhavan, Hanuman were all hiding. Ravanan had abducted sita and took the sky route to reach lanka. Sita had removed all her thiruvabharanam and packed them in a cloth and she dropped it in the place where these monkey clan lived. Sita dropped it to help Ram if he is coming in search of her to identify her. As per Valmiki, Ravanan was busy driving the pushpaa vimanam and hence he didn't notice Sita dropping all here jewels. Sugreeva was one among the monkeys. This entire kingdom at kishkinta used to be filled with monkey and ruled by king Vali. Vali's brother is Sugreevan. Once, an asuran came to fight with Vali. The fight went on for many days. Sugreevan was waiting outside the cave where the fight was happening between the asura and vali. After many days, sugreevan saw river of blood flowing from the cave. Sugreevan thought that vali died and he got scared and closed the cave with a huge rock so that the asuran will not be able to come out. Sugreevan's goal was to safeguard the people from that asuran and sugreevan didn't wish to rule the kingdom. Then the ministers for the sake of the kingdom did pattabhishekam for sugreevan. But Vali did not die, it was the asuran who died. Then vali was trying to come out and happen to see the cave closed by the rock. Then vali managed to come out of the cave because of his strength. Vali could not find sugreevan and also came to know that he started to rule the kingdom. Vali misunderstood that sugreevan planned to kill him to rule the kingdom. Vali chased sugreevan. Sugreevan
tried to explain the truth and did saranagathi at his brother's feet. It is the responsibility of the king to protect his people. But vali failed to do so. Vali started to chase Sugreevan. Sugreevan tried to escape from vali and managed to reach Rishyamukha parvatham. Due to the curse by Mathanga munivar, Vali cannot get into Rishyamukha parvatham and if vali comes then he might have to loose his life. So Sugreevan decided to stay in Rishyamukha parvatham whcih is closer to kishkinta. Valimiki writes that Sugreevan tried to escape and ran across the world and finally managed to reach rishyamukha parvatham. Probably, sugreevan might not have been aware of the curse by Mathangar and hence he might have reached Rishyamukha parvatham after going across the world.
We heard the upanyasam which happened at Kishkinta and also came to know the reason behind why Sugreevan and vali had the misunderstanding and why sugreevan was hiding at rishyamukha parvatham. We found answers to many such questions. You all might have a question in your mind. Vali raised many questions on why Ram should hide and kill him. Is hiding and killing not a bad thing for Ram ? Vali asked so many such questions to Ram.
The Vali asked many questions to Ram as follows...
1. We have not known each other why did you kill me ?
2. I am living in the forest and you live in the kingdom
3. why do you need to kill me without any reason ?
4. Even if i have done a mistake ..why ? what mistake did i do ? did i kill women ? did i kill cow ?
5. Even if you were hunting you will do it for the flesh, skin, hair or nail of that animal ? e.g Rabbit flesh, tiger nail, elephant hair.. but why to hunt a monkey ?
Ram answered to Vali..
1. Do not say we are not related. This kingdom belong to Ishvagu kulam. you are living in this forest belonging to our kingdom and you are making a mistake. As a king i do have the rights to punish you. A king need not know all the people in the kingdom by name.
2 and 3 I am human/king so living in the kingdom and you being a monkey is living in the forest.
4. Yes you have made a mistake. You have abducted your brother's wife and made her your wife. You didn't protect your brother inspite of him asking for protection at your feet.
5. An animal can be hunted if that animal is troublesome. There is no need for a reason to kill an animal if that is troublesome for the sake of safety of the people.
If we think /meditate about all these while in Kishkinta we can easily understand all these. Beautiful place. Even when you visit these places in an yatra, do take a ramayanam book and do the parayanam of each of the sargam in those places and sure you will understand the mahatmiyam of those places. Next there is a ranganathar temple, vittala krishnan temple and after that we shall start from kishkinta.
First is Ranganathar temple. Ranganathar is the perumal whom Ram himself did aradhanam and is currently at Srirangam. Like how Arangan is in the sleepign posture on the banks of cauvery, similarly on the bank of tungabadra this ranganathar is there with his right hand holding his head(thalaiku anai) , left hand stretched perumal is here in a chinna sayana thirukolam.
Pasuram : Payum neer.. Thirumalai Thondaradipodi azhwar
In 2006, we did go before evening and had great darshan. In 2010, it was dark and no electricity and hence managed. Also from there went to the place from Ram hit the arrow through the sannidhi street of this temple. Tungabhadra was beautiful during sunset like a velli keetru.
Yedisaiyum ariya iyanbhuven...". This place is so beautiful and wish Vittal Krishnan was also there inside this temple. There are those stone pillars which have beautiful music/sapthaswaram coming out from them. Huge mandapams in which those days veda parayanam, uthsavam must all have happened.
Further down is Pattabhiramar sannidhi in which there is no vigraham too. Huge 100 pillar mandapam, one stone vigraham. So we have seen three temples and in which ranganathar temple aradhanai is done today though the temple is not very ancient(600 years?) like the other two. The archealogical survey of india is beautifully maintaining. If you visit this place do visit these temples and all these great treasures and let us thank them for leaving all this to us.
As part of SriRamanin Padhyail, we have been seeing things from two perspective - one is following Ram by following all his Guna's and one is following the footstep of Ram by travelling to all the punyakshetram Ram travelled. Now we are at Kishkinda. We have seen all the places related to Ram here. Now before starting from Kishkinda, we need to understand the Ozhukkam and what Ram teaches us through all these incidences at Kishkinda.
1. When Sita is with Ram then Ram does not punish anyone. Sita was not here with Ram while in Kishkinda and hence Vali got punished by Ram. This is a great truth and hence we need to seek refuge at Mahalakshmi's feet and then through her need to seek Ram's feet. We need Mahalakshmi's anugraham for getting Perumal's anugraham.
2. Ram accepted sugreevan as his friend. Sugreevan was a monkey, without kingdom , without wife and Ram accepted him as his friend and also accepted him as his brother. Which human will do this ? Ozhukkam is we should not look bad on others or illtreat others because of their status or how they are.
"Anniyonyam abhivikshantam na thruthi.."
When they became friends, Ram was continously looking at Sugreevan without even blinking is eyes. How and why should Ram do this to a monkey ? This is because of the greatness of the friendship - natpin vieeryam. Vittula solla mudiyatha rahasyathai, we generally talk to friends. Ram and sugreevan had that great frienship among them. We need understand this as well that "Uyarvu thazhvu parka koodathu"
3. Greatness of Bhakthi which hanuman had on Ram. This is the place where Hanuman was born. So key take away is to understand the bhakthi which hanuman had and all the service Hanuman did due to the love and affection he had towards Ram. We also need to seek for getting the same type of bhakthi which Hanuman had on Ram. Kishkinda teaches us this bhakthi.
Inspite of who we are , we need to be simple with lots of bhakthi in us without thimir, ahankaram. We need to learn this from Kishkinta. One can understand all this from home too, but to really feel this visiting this place gives us this great impact and makes us understand all these great guna's due to the vibrations of this place.
So we are going to start from Kishinda and on the way we are going to visit another peruman too. Gadak is the place where Narayanan is there. Did Ram go there ? Let us see. Ramanin padhai continues...
ஸர்வம் ஸ்ரீ கிருஷ்ணார்ப்பணம்
As part of Sri Ramanin Padhayil, following Ram's footsteps we are at Kishkinda.
Tungabhadra River
Kishkinda is on the banks of river Tungabhadra and it was the capital for the monkey clan. We reached Kishkinda and on the first day, we saw many places in kishkinda. We stayed there that night. But many hundreds of people cannot stay in Kishkinda due to the lack of facilities. So some of them can stay at a place called as AANEGUNTI or need to stay at Hospet. So we all stayed at Hospet. Next day morning, we all came to river Tungabhadra for the bath. So we just carried our clothes and came to the banks of river Tungabhadra. Very wonderful expierence. The river's padi thurai was very comfortable even for the aged to take a bath. We changed our clothes,finished the anushtanams, prayed to the surya bhagawan, Whoever wanted to do tharpanam they did it, whoever wanted to do sandhyavandhanam, meditation, pranayanam - all these are very good for our mind - manasukku ramyamaga irukkum. Good change from our mechanical life to experience all these pleasant experiences. After Tungabhadra, we went to other places.Cave where Ram and Sugreevan had the discussion
Last week, we saw the place from where Ram shot the arrow to kill Vali. We saw the place which had the Ramar padham and a stone with arrow sign in red. Next, little away from this place, when we come down there is a small cave. This is the cave in which Ram and Sugreevan stayed and discussed. What was the discussion on ? When Vali and Sugreevan fought for the firsttime, Ram should have shot the arrow on Vali. But Ram didn't do so, since he could not recognize who is vali and who is sugreevan. Sugreevan got badly hurt by Vali and came running to Ram and asked Rama "Rama why did you do so ? I was scared of Vali and hiding in rishyyamukha parvatham. But now Vali is aware of me. Why didn't you protect me ?". All these discussions happened here and Sugreevan got treated here in this cave. Then Ram explained the reason of why didn't shot arrow since he could not differentiate vali and sugreeva. Then Ram asked Sugreevan to wear a garland of flower called GAJAPUSHPIKA and then asked Sugreeva to go for the fight. All these discussion and Ram/Sugreeva friendship happened here in this Cave. If
we go and sit inside this cave, one can see a mild stream of water falling. It is a great exprience to sit here. It is like sitting in a AC when we sit inside that rocky caves. In bhagavadam, Sukacharyar says "Whenever we need water rivers are there, whenever we need food we don't need a vessel instead we have hands, we don't need tools like spoon instead we have teeth, if we want to stay somewhere during rainy season, then the caves are there.Nature as given everything and why human need to suffer ?" This place makes us understand that it is all true. We all wanted to talk about the sargam/charitham here in this cave/hill. We had that oppurtunity and you all can also hear the same.
Upanyasam in the cave
"This is the place where Ram and Sugreeva discussed. Lots of rock's surrounding this cave. Ram belong to human clan and Sugreevan monkey clan. It is a wonder to know that how this friendship happened between human and monkey. When Hanuman meets Sita in the ashoka vanam, Sita asks Hanuman about this on how the friendship happened between the monkey's and the human's. What we need to understand is that bhagawan does not discriminate on whom he is becoming friend with. It is Ram's greatness that he accepted Sugreevan's friendship and accepted him as his brother. This is called as Sowsiliyam one of the guna's of perumal. When Ram and Sugreeva met first time, they spoke for sometime and then they were staring continously at each other. We all shall stare at someone who is very beautiful. Similarly, Ram was seeing sugreevan with great anniyonyam. Anniyonyamaga thirupthiye yerpadatha mathiri Raman Sugreevanai parthu ondu irunthar. If Ram has to see a monkey like this it is nothing other than Mother's vathsalyam. Like how a mother is not satisfied even if she is watching her child for a long time and she still longs to watch the child. Similarly, Bhagawan like to see his bhaktha's.
Nammazhwar explains this in the pasuram "Iruthum.."
Perumalin thiruvadi thamaraiyin kezhe Nammazhwarai vaithu vittu, kan kottamal perumal Azhwaraiye nokki kondu iruntharam. Antha nokkam, kan parvai kidaika bhakthargal yevvvalavu bhagyam panni irukka vendum. It is because of this "Perumal's Kan Parvai Kataksham" all are sins will go and we can reach high abodes. So it is in this place perumal did the kataksham of someone whom he met just a day ago. Each of these rocks have imprints of Ram's SOWSILYAM and one who visits here can only understand the same. "
Rock on which Vali and Sugreeva Fought
At Kishkinta, there is a place where Vali and Sugreeva fought. It is a big Parangal. The size of that parangal was like that of a big ground. One cannot even imagine such a huge parangal. We can see that parangal from the place from where Ram shot the arrow on Vali. Everyone, wanted to go and visit that place and it was difficult to walk and reach there. Elderly people also wanted to go. It was almost evening time and to reach that place by walk would talk minimum 45 minutes. Managed to climb those huge rocks. It was scary too. On the way to that place, we happen to see a beautiful Ramar sannidhi. This had a huge single rock on which were carved Ram, Sita, lakshman and Anjaneyar. It was great to have darshan at this temple and we got enthusiasm to travel further. Manasuke ithamaga irunthathu uthsagam oru vegam vanthathu. Then we managed to reach that huge rock - parangal, the place vali-sugreev fight happened. It was a wonder to notice that -"We were able to see the place of Vali and sugreevan fight from the place where Ram stood.But we were not able to see the place where Ram stood from the place where Vali and Sugreeva fought." So Vali and sugreeva would not have been able to notice Ram standing, but Ram was able to see them fighting from the place where he was hiding. Next to that huge rock one can see Tungadhadra.There is also Raman thiruvadi for which there is a lamp lite and worshipped. Huge rock underwhich ram's thiruvadi is there. First Vali was shot and Vali notices the name RAMA on the arrow. Then Ram comes there. Ram came to this huge rock and then Ram gave mukthi to Vali. That place is filled with huge rocks on which only monkey's can live. We drank that river water and we also had a upanyasam on that huge rock. After the upanyasam no one was willing to go from that place. Just in one place we can see stone with red stain. The rock is red only in that place since Vali's blood was there. In the entire kishkinta we can only see red stains on the rocks only in this place. It was a wonder to listen to all these.
You are hearing the upanyasam which we had at that place since that is itself a great feeling and great to hear. Then later we have enquired and collected many information from the localities which you are listening in the upanyasams added later in detail to explian the TV viewers. It was almost 6 PM in the evening and great to see the sun set with monkeys, deers,
peacock and a setting sun like an orange fruits, golden sun. We all just forgot all the pain we took to reach that place after seeing that place and the beautiful sun set. All the pain we felt only after retrurning back. We saw the place from where Ram hit the arrow and the place where the vali-sugreevan fight happened. Let's go and visit all the great sannidhi's in Kishkinda and listen to the parayanam and the upanyasam.
Parayanam :: See the video
Upanyasam:
Ravanan abducted sita. On the way to lanka, somewhere closer to Kishkinta, rishyamuga parvatham, Sugreevan, Jambhavan, Hanuman were all hiding. Ravanan had abducted sita and took the sky route to reach lanka. Sita had removed all her thiruvabharanam and packed them in a cloth and she dropped it in the place where these monkey clan lived. Sita dropped it to help Ram if he is coming in search of her to identify her. As per Valmiki, Ravanan was busy driving the pushpaa vimanam and hence he didn't notice Sita dropping all here jewels. Sugreeva was one among the monkeys. This entire kingdom at kishkinta used to be filled with monkey and ruled by king Vali. Vali's brother is Sugreevan. Once, an asuran came to fight with Vali. The fight went on for many days. Sugreevan was waiting outside the cave where the fight was happening between the asura and vali. After many days, sugreevan saw river of blood flowing from the cave. Sugreevan thought that vali died and he got scared and closed the cave with a huge rock so that the asuran will not be able to come out. Sugreevan's goal was to safeguard the people from that asuran and sugreevan didn't wish to rule the kingdom. Then the ministers for the sake of the kingdom did pattabhishekam for sugreevan. But Vali did not die, it was the asuran who died. Then vali was trying to come out and happen to see the cave closed by the rock. Then vali managed to come out of the cave because of his strength. Vali could not find sugreevan and also came to know that he started to rule the kingdom. Vali misunderstood that sugreevan planned to kill him to rule the kingdom. Vali chased sugreevan. Sugreevan
tried to explain the truth and did saranagathi at his brother's feet. It is the responsibility of the king to protect his people. But vali failed to do so. Vali started to chase Sugreevan. Sugreevan tried to escape from vali and managed to reach Rishyamukha parvatham. Due to the curse by Mathanga munivar, Vali cannot get into Rishyamukha parvatham and if vali comes then he might have to loose his life. So Sugreevan decided to stay in Rishyamukha parvatham whcih is closer to kishkinta. Valimiki writes that Sugreevan tried to escape and ran across the world and finally managed to reach rishyamukha parvatham. Probably, sugreevan might not have been aware of the curse by Mathangar and hence he might have reached Rishyamukha parvatham after going across the world.
We heard the upanyasam which happened at Kishkinta and also came to know the reason behind why Sugreevan and vali had the misunderstanding and why sugreevan was hiding at rishyamukha parvatham. We found answers to many such questions. You all might have a question in your mind. Vali raised many questions on why Ram should hide and kill him. Is hiding and killing not a bad thing for Ram ? Vali asked so many such questions to Ram.
Vali questioning Ram
1. We have not known each other why did you kill me ?
2. I am living in the forest and you live in the kingdom
3. why do you need to kill me without any reason ?
4. Even if i have done a mistake ..why ? what mistake did i do ? did i kill women ? did i kill cow ?
5. Even if you were hunting you will do it for the flesh, skin, hair or nail of that animal ? e.g Rabbit flesh, tiger nail, elephant hair.. but why to hunt a monkey ?
Ram answered to Vali..
1. Do not say we are not related. This kingdom belong to Ishvagu kulam. you are living in this forest belonging to our kingdom and you are making a mistake. As a king i do have the rights to punish you. A king need not know all the people in the kingdom by name.
2 and 3 I am human/king so living in the kingdom and you being a monkey is living in the forest.
4. Yes you have made a mistake. You have abducted your brother's wife and made her your wife. You didn't protect your brother inspite of him asking for protection at your feet.
5. An animal can be hunted if that animal is troublesome. There is no need for a reason to kill an animal if that is troublesome for the sake of safety of the people.
If we think /meditate about all these while in Kishkinta we can easily understand all these. Beautiful place. Even when you visit these places in an yatra, do take a ramayanam book and do the parayanam of each of the sargam in those places and sure you will understand the mahatmiyam of those places. Next there is a ranganathar temple, vittala krishnan temple and after that we shall start from kishkinta.
Ranganathar Temple at Kishkinta
There are some devasthanams at Kishkinta. One of that is the Ranganathar temple. There is a vittala krishnar temple and a pattabhiramar temple and a kothandaramar temple. Many of these temples have been destroyed. So we cannot find the vigraham in those temples. These temples are by the vijayanagara kingdom rulers. From 1422 these sculptures started to exist. They have built many temples even in tamil nadu. Krishnadevarayar a great king did help in growth of great sculptures, poets and a great bhakthan. Let us pay our thanks to those kings.First is Ranganathar temple. Ranganathar is the perumal whom Ram himself did aradhanam and is currently at Srirangam. Like how Arangan is in the sleepign posture on the banks of cauvery, similarly on the bank of tungabadra this ranganathar is there with his right hand holding his head(thalaiku anai) , left hand stretched perumal is here in a chinna sayana thirukolam.
Pasuram : Payum neer.. Thirumalai Thondaradipodi azhwar
In 2006, we did go before evening and had great darshan. In 2010, it was dark and no electricity and hence managed. Also from there went to the place from Ram hit the arrow through the sannidhi street of this temple. Tungabhadra was beautiful during sunset like a velli keetru.
Vittala Krishnan temple at Kishkinda
Next is vittala krishnan temple. You all might have seen this rath in many videos. This is inside the Vitta krishnan temple. Similarly, when you come out of that temple, one can also see a Narasimha vigraham which also you might have seen is also close by. HUge narasimhar and everyone was excited to see this vigraham. Prathistai panna narasimhar illai, padai(invading) yeduppin pothu sithaikappatta narasimhar. Beautiful art work by great artists which has been done over many years/days. But due to political or religious trouble the work by great artists are spoiled and we need to protect them. It is always easy to destroy and only difficult to built. One will be stunned to see how beautiful this Narasimhar would have been and unfortunately we have lost it while in this bharatha desam. In the vittala Krishnan kovil right from the Gopuram everything has been destroyed. We go inside with heavy heart and were astonished to see beautiful sculptures. We can also see Nammazhwar in this temple. Azhwar thirunagari Namazhwar is here in silasasanam. Bhakthi is beyond region, language. As per madurakaviazhwar "Yedisaiyum ariya iyanbhuven...". This place is so beautiful and wish Vittal Krishnan was also there inside this temple. There are those stone pillars which have beautiful music/sapthaswaram coming out from them. Huge mandapams in which those days veda parayanam, uthsavam must all have happened.
Further down is Pattabhiramar sannidhi in which there is no vigraham too. Huge 100 pillar mandapam, one stone vigraham. So we have seen three temples and in which ranganathar temple aradhanai is done today though the temple is not very ancient(600 years?) like the other two. The archealogical survey of india is beautifully maintaining. If you visit this place do visit these temples and all these great treasures and let us thank them for leaving all this to us.
What does Kishkinda teaches us ?
As part of SriRamanin Padhyail, we have been seeing things from two perspective - one is following Ram by following all his Guna's and one is following the footstep of Ram by travelling to all the punyakshetram Ram travelled. Now we are at Kishkinda. We have seen all the places related to Ram here. Now before starting from Kishkinda, we need to understand the Ozhukkam and what Ram teaches us through all these incidences at Kishkinda.
1. When Sita is with Ram then Ram does not punish anyone. Sita was not here with Ram while in Kishkinda and hence Vali got punished by Ram. This is a great truth and hence we need to seek refuge at Mahalakshmi's feet and then through her need to seek Ram's feet. We need Mahalakshmi's anugraham for getting Perumal's anugraham.
2. Ram accepted sugreevan as his friend. Sugreevan was a monkey, without kingdom , without wife and Ram accepted him as his friend and also accepted him as his brother. Which human will do this ? Ozhukkam is we should not look bad on others or illtreat others because of their status or how they are.
"Anniyonyam abhivikshantam na thruthi.."
When they became friends, Ram was continously looking at Sugreevan without even blinking is eyes. How and why should Ram do this to a monkey ? This is because of the greatness of the friendship - natpin vieeryam. Vittula solla mudiyatha rahasyathai, we generally talk to friends. Ram and sugreevan had that great frienship among them. We need understand this as well that "Uyarvu thazhvu parka koodathu"
3. Greatness of Bhakthi which hanuman had on Ram. This is the place where Hanuman was born. So key take away is to understand the bhakthi which hanuman had and all the service Hanuman did due to the love and affection he had towards Ram. We also need to seek for getting the same type of bhakthi which Hanuman had on Ram. Kishkinda teaches us this bhakthi.
Key Takeaway
1. When Ram was with Sita he forgives but when Ram was alone he punishes. Vali got punished.
2. Ram accepted Sugreevan as his friend and as brother too. We should not decide anything based on the outward apperance, status. We should not look bad on others or illtreat others because of their status or how they are.
3. We need to learn from Hanuman about Rama bhakthi.
4. Who we are does not matter and how we are w.r.t Bhakthi without ahankaram is all that matters.
So we are going to start from Kishinda and on the way we are going to visit another peruman too. Gadak is the place where Narayanan is there. Did Ram go there ? Let us see. Ramanin padhai continues...
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