The Essence of Rama

GIRISH BHANDARI





Rama is a symbol of sacrifice, a model of brotherhood, an ideal administrator, a warrior unparalleled. The term Rama Rajya stands for the mostexalted concept of a welfare state. Rama was not only divine, he was invested with the highest values of an enriched tradition started by Raghu. The essence of Rama is, therefore, the essence of excellence in every pursuit.As an avatara, Rama had to enact his `leela' in human form. As a child he let Kaushalya enjoy the divine pleasure of treating him as a child. But he wanted her to share a cosmic vision of his real self. Goswami Tulsidas describes that once Kaushalya bathed and fed Rama and placed him in his cradle. Then she prepared prasad and offered it to the Kuldevata in the puja room.She went and checked if the child was sleeping. He was. She went to complete the puja and found Rama there, eating the prasad. Kaushalya ran back to the cradle to find the child asleep. But when she returned to the puja room, he was there, eating the prasad. She was dumbfounded.
Then Rama revealed to her his swarupa, the universe itself, where birth and death, time and space, causality and effect were a seamless one. A bewildered Kaushalya, like Arjuna, was given a glimpse of the infinite.Rama's reign in Ayodhya, it is said, “...was such that no suffering of mental, bodily or physical nature afflicts its citizens.There is no animus and everyone is conscious of his duty . The forests are lush and the ecosystem healthy“.