Musings on "araNyA-kAndam" of Desikan
From the Bhakti List Archives
• December 20, 1996
srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNe namaha sri vedanta desika guravE namaha Dear bhAgavatOttamA-s, Lord Rama is "caught", as it were, by Swami Desikan in Verse#28, being in an unusually chirpy and sunny mood !! We examined this elated mood of the Lord in my last posting through the phrase "jhangamapArijAtha" which seems to suggest that Rama was unceasingly exuding a magnetic CHARM wherever he went about in the Dandaka groves. Now I say, dear 'bhAgavatOttama-s', that the Lord was in such a wonderfully expansive mood because He was, at THAT POINT OF TIME in Dandaka, in deep and rapturous Love. For the FIRST TIME in His life, perhaps, the Lord seemed to have realised the true depths of His amorous feelings for his bride, "Sita-pirAtti". The well-springs of latent Love erupted forth, throbbed in His Heart and spread so much Romance and Goodness all around Him that He couldn't help feeling "giddy with Love" (to use a modern idiom!); He couldn't help it all, really, if it showed in His face or even in mere bodily movements; He couldn't also help it that the "glow of romance" He felt deep within Himself all rubbed off on the lovely Dandaka environs He and His beloved Consort roamed in !! It is that idyllic exuberance of the true and heady lover, which the Lord certainly was, that I think is captured by Desikan, the leonine poet, in Verse#28!! Now we need to understand why the Lord felt so exhilirated. And it is easy indeed given the dramatic context of the 'Raghuveera-gadyam' towards the end of the 'ayOdhyA- kAndam' and more specifically from Verse#23 through Verse#26. Let us pause for a moment and re-trace our steps to three singular stanzas: Verse #23 : bharadwAjashAsana parigrhIta- vichitra- chitrakootagiri- kattathata ramyAvasatha! Here the verse describes how the Lord built for Himself and His darling bride a beautiful cottage atop a secluded hillock in the verdant woods. Verse #25 : praNatha bharatha makuttathata sughattitha pAdukAgrayAbhishEka nirvarthitha sarvalOka yogakshEma ! In this verse is recorded that Lord Rama performed the "pAdukA" coronation of Bharatha and completed thereby the legal and constitutional formalities related to delegation of those powers needed by his brother for effective political governance of Ayodhya. Verse #26 : pishitaruchi vihita durita balamathana-thanaya balibhuganugathi sarabhasa shayana thruNashakala paripathanabhaya chakitha sakala suramunivara bahumatha mahAsrasAmarthaya ! In this verse Swami Desikan describes the pathetic fate that summarily befell Kakasuran, the sinful crow, for casting covetous and ravenous eyes on "pirAtti's" flesh. Dear 'bhAgavatOttama-s', we have now firmly and clearly identified the dramatic context of stanza #28 in the 'aranyA-kAndam', as contained in the above 3 verses of the 'ayodhya-kAndam'--- and all from the same 'gadyam'!! We can now proceed to use the "Rt.Hon'ble Sastry Approach" to examine how the 3 verses provide the basis for the great theme of "love" that the "giddy" Lord Rama demonstrated in the Dandaka woods and as revealed by Verse#28. We shall do so in my next posting. srimathe srivan satagopa sri narayana yatindra mahadesikaya namaha sudarshan srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNE namaha sri vedanta desika guravE namaha
- Next message: RANGASWAMY_at_plh.af.mil: "(no subject)"
- Previous message: Badri Seshadri: "vaikunda Ekaadasi"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]