PART 2, CHAPTER 20, VERSE 31, SANSKRIT:
Sa shht`achaaashht`au cha varshhaan`i
vatsyaami vijanee vanee
aasevamaano vanyaani
phalamuulaishcha cartayan.
CONTEXT
Before leaving Ayodhya to forests, Rama promised his mother, to live like a sage.
ENGLISH:
"Satisfying myself with the roots and the fruits of the forest, I shall spend fourteen years in the uninhabited forest".
CRITICAL REMARKS:
*As there is nothing wrong for a person of warrior/king caste to eat non-vegetarian food, Rama ought to have remained silent. Unnecessarily he made a declaration and broke it.
*The very next day of entering the forest, Sita, Rama and Lakshmana three people jointly finished four deer in one evening. Pl. see post No 005.
2-52-102 Sanskrit Verse
Tau tatra hatvaa caturaha mahaa mruigaan
Varaaham Rishyam Prushatam Mahaa rurum
aadaaya mEdhyam tvaritam bubhukshitau
vAsaaya kaale yayatur vanaha patim.
2 comments:
One must look at this like seeing a sentimental Tamil film; director K.S. Gopalakrishnan of the olden days was a past master at the art of wringing tears from the audience !!
Here, Rama, like a child, is trying to eke out his mother's sympathy for stopping his 'vanavaasa',by saying that he would have none of the luxuries while she (Kousalya) would have those. You get the point?
Valmiki Ramayana, the original narration of Ramayana, has a total of 537 chapters, and over 24,000 verses, arranged into six kandas, or books. There are only two references to meat, and over a hundred references to vegetarian diet.
of one is :-
The Ayodhya Kanda has 119 chapters. Chapter 20 describes Mother Kaushalya's grievous lamentation on hearing from her son Rama, that He has been banished to the forest. Rama tells her in verse 29,"I shall live in a solitary forest like a sage for fourteen years, avoiding meat and living with roots, fruits and honey". Can we validly infer from this that Lord Rama ate meat while in Ayodhya, and now He promises to avoid it in the forest? The exact words used are 'hitva aamishham'. 'aamisham' refers to meat and 'hitva' refers to 'disregarding' or 'with the exception of' (Monnier Williams dictionary). Traditionally, in Vedic culture, when a son leaves home to go to distant lands, he reassures his parents, that he would abide by strict moral codes and never deviate from the religious principles. Say a student promises his parents when going to stay in the hostel, "I won't drink alcohol while in the hostel." Does this mean that he is drinking it while at home? Obviously not. Similarly it's in this mood that Lord Rama assures His mother that he wouldn't stoop low.
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