Namaste!
Recap from last week: Sage Rushyashrunga and his disciples were invited to Ayodhya by King Dasharadha to perform the great Ashwamedha yaaga.
King Dasharadha on an auspicious day requested Sage Rushyashrunga to head and lead the Ashwamedha yaaga. After agreeing to the request, Sage Rushyashrunga ordered the king to perform the yaaga rituals under his guidance and leave the horse without any guard.
Ashwamedha yaaga is one of the most sacred yaagas that was performed in the earlier yugas where in a horse would be left free to roam without its guard. Whichever kingdom it enters, the horse shall not be stopped. If it is stopped then it means the king of that kingdom has chosen to fight against this King and he would be defeated and that kingdom would be merged in Kosala.
To start this yaaga, King Dasharadha went himself to invite all the purohiths and his teachers to attend the yaaga. why did he have to invite his purohiths and respect them though himself being an emperor? purohith means pura+hitha, one who wishes for the good of others, If a guru or purohith is pleased, that is all you would want in your life for whatever he would wish for you would come true. Once the great Adi Shankaracharya went for his bhiksha and stopped infront of an old woman's house. He asked her for bhiksha, she came out with a dry amla (indian gooseberry) fruit and gave it to him telling that that is all she had with her. He was pleased with her generosity and immediately uttered a poem called "Kanakadhaara Stuthi" right there. Goddess Lakshmi was so pleased that she showered golden amlas then and there. That is the power of a guru, a purohith and a teacher. Never ever disrespect any guru or purohith however he is.
So King Dasharadha was told to start the preparations and all this year yagnas will be taking place and there would be annadaana every day. King Dasharadha fed everyone who ever came to him for whole one year. Also, he ordered his ministers to get ready for this and also invite, the elderly, the people who had done any sort of yagnas earlier, the people who knew Vaastu, leaders, the construction people who would be needed to build houses for everyone who would reside there for an year until this finishes, carpenters, labourers, accountants, sculptors, actors and actresses for entertainment. Along with these people he asked them to gather people to be ready for annadaana thrice daily. He ordered that not even a single person should go without eating and also no one should leave half hearted; everyone should be fed with love, respect and to their heart's content and also no one were to be insulted. Also he ordered his prime minister Sumantra to personally invite King Janaka , the king of Kashi, the king of Kekaya- his father inlaw, king Romapaada- sage Rushyashrunga's father inlaw, kings of sindhu and Souveera, sourashtra and southern kingdoms.
So after an year the horse came back to the yagnashaala (where the yagna is taking place) on the banks of Sarayu. Kids, women, men, diseased, kings, lords, servants, sanyasis, workers, tapasvis every one... literally everyone were fed what they needed and how they wanted all that year. Some lakhs of people ate and happily blessed him that his wish would be fulfilled. Our lives would be blessed if we could at least feed one or two people heartily. It is said that God comes in the form of needy. Never reject anyone who is in need. Feed the homeless, feed the needy, donate to temples who do this, donate to people who serve cows- for cows are known to have all the Gods in them, never kill them! Donate to veda paathashaalas for they would create future purohiths who would bless our children, donate to orphanages, God would definitely reward us when we need!
A golden platform was built to finish the yaaga.The next day a smoke emitting from the yagna was inhaled by Dasharadha and his Queen and thus finished the yaaga by rewarding these purohiths generously. Along with these he rewarded them with ten lakh cows, ten crore gold coins and 40 crore silver coins. (Ashwamedha yaga is not to be conducted in this Kaliyuga, but H.H. Sri Chandrasekhara Paramacharya swami has concluded that anyone who does or sponsors the funeral ceremonies of an orphan dead body is considered to have done an Ashwamedha yaaga)
He then proceeded forward to do an "ishti", a yaga which would help him get what he wanted. Since he wanted a son, Sage Rushyashrunga asked him to perform a "putra- kama- ishti" = homa to fulfill a desire to have a son. Every God was called through homa and they would sit there and so there came Lord Brahma. Everyone else there then complained to him about Ravana. They said " O lord Brahma, Ravana's tortures are now unbearable, with your boons, he now controls everything even the sun and the moon. The wind follows his orders and the sea stops its tides when he comes near. He insults everyone who worships lord Vishnu and not him. So here a question would arise in the minds of some of us, why would lord give boons to demons and the bad people? Ever thought why would all the rakshasaas pray to Lord Brahma or Shiva or Durga and they grant their wishes? It is because after all they are their children too! Imagine a father with 5 sons out of whom 4 turned out to be hard working and good people and the last one turned into a thief. If this father was having a celebration at his home wouldn't he invite the last son too? wouldn't he give him some money to buy some clothes and also give him another chance to change himself and come into the right path? Father would then at last call the cops as a last measure even if the son wouldn't change after repeated efforts. Even this effort is to save his son from the ultimate death penalty. The same is with the God, he cannot ignore his sons who turned bad and only tend to good people. He would give them a chance, give them what they ask and wait for some time to see if they change, but if they won't then he himself would come down to end them and restore peace.
So here at the yaagashaala everyone told Brahma what a headache this Ravana has become. Lord Brahma accepted this and said Ravana when prayed to me excluded Nara and vaanara, man and monkey. But any man cannot be able to end Ravana knowing his strength. When they were thinking what to do then Sri Maha Vishnu came there all of a sudden and everyone bowed to him and requested him to take that human form and help them. Lord doesn't come after any one just like that because some one asked. He said "Beware everyone! if some one destructed the law, objected/ rejected the vedas, troubled the good and the sanyasis, killed the cows and at last never respected me (God) then I would come down to end him!" He said this time I will take a human form and become the son of this king Dasharadha and kill that Ravana, not just him but anyone who is related to Ravana in a bad way and then rule this Earth for eleven thousand years to prove the greatness of humans.
After this puthrakameshti homa, Yagna purusha came out from the homa kunda and then walked straight to king Dasharadha and gave him the paayasam cooked by the devatas and asked him to give this to his beloved wives out of his 360 wives (true!) so that they will bear your sons and saying so yagna purusha disappeared. Thus, Dasharadha made the payasam in to 2 halves, he gave one half of the entire to Queen Kousalya, 3/8th to Sumitra and 1/8th to Kaikeyi. Dasharadha was now eager to see his sons take birth. On the other hand, Lord Brahma ordered all the other Deva, kinnera, Kimpurusha, Gandharva men to give birth to sons that are vaanaras (monkeys) but are as mighty as their fathers to help Sri Rama in the future fight. So following the orders, Vali was born as the son of Indra, Sugriva to Surya, Taarudu to Bruhaspathi, Jambavanta to Brahma, Gandhamana to Kubera, Nala to Vishwakarma, Neela to Agni, maindha and dvivida to Ashwini devatas, Sushena to Varuna, Sharabha to Parjanya, Sriman Hanuma to Vaayu. Sriman Hanuman took birth as the mightiest among all the vaanaras and with utmost love and respect to wards Sri Rama. Also there were many more lakhs of vanaras that were born to help Sri Rama and defeat Ravana. These monkeys were mighty and capable of lifting elephants, mountains with their hands and throw away.
On the auspicious day of punarvasu nakshatra, karkataka lagna, navami tithi, chaitra maasa and when all the planets were at their highest and best positions, Lord Maha Vishnu took birth as the Son of king Dasharadha and queen Kousalya in the Ikshvaku Vamsha. Kaikeyi gave birth to second son of Dasharadha, Bharatha. Sumitra gave birth to two beautiful twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna.
Hearing their birth everyone celebrated, danced, sang and decorated their houses as if it was their own son that was born. King Dasharadha donated lakhs of cows and gold coins to everyone he met.
A son should be named either by his grandfather or a Guru only. So Dasharadha asked sage Vashishta to name his sons and sage Vashishta named the eldest son of Dasharadha with an easily pronounceable name with only two words, the first word is a agni beeja-akshara from Ashta-akshari mantra and the other word, an amrutha beeja-akshara from Pancha-akshari mantra and named him:
"RAMA"
He then named Dasharadha's second son as Bharatha, third son as Lakshmana and fourth son as Shatrughna.
Make it a practice to write Rama naama as frequently as possible, get a notebook and start writing. Let us make it a habit to make our kids to write it at least 11 times a day which will definitely save them all their life.
||Om Shantih Shantih Shantih||
Precap next week: Importance of the name Rama and his childhood.
Sai Ram
Vipanchi Krishna.
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