Simplified Rituals - 4

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Fasting for religious and spiritual aims is as old as our Indian History. Gautama, before he became the Buddha, tried it and found that absolute fasting didn't lead him to his goal of Enlightenment.

Fasting for social and political aims was perfected in our times by Gandhiji...I mean the Mahatma, not the dimpled one.

Google tells me that he undertook as many as 27 fasts, from a minimum of one day to a maximum of 24 days. It seems he achieved his goals partially by his frequent fasts...at least his Calcutta fast appears to have done it:

...Dr. Dinshah Mehta³³ had in the meantime hurried away to get orange juice ready. Before breaking the fast Gandhiji according to his usual practice had prayer recited.

"When life is dry and parched up
Descend Thou in a shower of mercy. ..."

followed by Ramadhun³⁴ filled the air.

http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/gandhi/gandhi_fast.html


Our British Rulers were often at sixes and sevens what to do with Gandhiji and his fasts. When he fasted they put him in jail sometimes. And at others when they jailed him he went on fasts.

It is an irony of Fate that Gandhiji didn't die of fasting unto death, but of bullet wounds of a chap who perhaps never believed in fasting.

But I was 9 when a gent of our Nellore went on a fast unto death in 1952...and died after 58 days (and nights) of fasting. His name is Potti Sri Ramulu and he was a follower of Gandhiji (wiki):


Potti Sreeramulu (16 March 1901 – 16 December 1952), was an Indian revolutionary. A devout follower of Mahatma Gandhi, he worked for much of his life for humanitarian causes, including support for the Dalit community. Commenting on Sreeramulu's dedication and fasting ability, Gandhi once said "If only I have eleven more followers like Sriramulu I will win freedom from British rule in a year."^[1]

This fast of PSR was for the liberation of Andhras from the wicked rule of Tamilians ;)

He died fighting for a separate state for Andhras and his death achieved its goal...Nehruji promised the Andhra State within 3 days of his (i.e. PSR's) dying. Reason was the arson and looting that threatened to follow his death.

On what I now know as the afternoon of 16 December 1952, which happened to be during our Christmas vacation, half a dozen of our school pupil leaders landed up at my place in Muthukur, 12 miles from Nellore, carrying lathis and wearing khaki knickers. And shouting:

"PSR Jindabad! PSR Jindabad! Long Live PSR!"

Father asked them what the matter was and they said that news reached them that PSR died and so they wanted to riot. And Father advised them to just take a procession around the 4 streets of Muthukur and go home...which they did...those were simple days and we were a simple lot.

Our Nellore district has recently been christened: "PSR Nellore District" for reasons I know not.

And then a few years back there was this fast which achieved its goal of liberating people from the rule of Andhras, this time ;) 

Fortunately, the gent didn't die...he was promised what he wanted after a mere 10 days.

And then there was this fast unto death by the Gandhian, Anna Hazare, at Jantar Mantar, which went on for '98 hours'...i.e. 98 / 24 = 4.083333333 rec days (wiki):


...On the morning of 9 April 2011 Hazare ended his 98-hour hunger strike...



I guess this fast which was  for a strong Jan Lok Pal Bill was a partial success. It was followed by a 12-day long 'fast unto death' at Ram Lila Maidan...no death resulted fortunately but.

The only thing I recall from watching it on TV is the speech by a fairly sozzled ex-TV and Film actor. His speech was hilarious and reminded me of a famously lit-up Augustus Fink-Nottle's matchless effort speaking from the podium of the Market Snodsbury Grammar School's Prize Distribution Ceremony:

...'Now there,' boomed Gussie, continuing to point, 'is an instance of what I mean. Boys and ladies and gentlemen, take a good look at the object standing up there at the back - morning coat, trousers as worn, quiet grey tie, and carnation in buttonhole - you can't miss him. Bertie Wooster, that is, and as foul a pessimist as ever bit a tiger. I tell you I despise that man. And why do I despise him? Because, boys and ladies and gentlemen, he is a pessimist. His attitude is defeatist. When I told him I was going to address you this afternoon, he tried to dissuade me. And do you know why he tried to dissuade me? Because he said my trousers would split at the back.'...


...Posted by Ishani

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Simplified Rituals - 3

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My mom has ever been fond of Rudrabhishekam being performed in her own house at Gudur.

The first I heard of this ritual was after I took my parents on a pilgrimage to Kashi (Benares, the abode of Namo) in 1984 which was Father's only wish by me. After her ritual bath in the Ganges, my mom collected Ganges Water (Ganga Jal) in about half a dozen one-liter glass bottles for her own subsequent use during her lifetime. Ganga Jal was free then...I don't know now.

On their return to Gudur from their Kashi Yatra, my parents went through the default ritual called: Kashi Samaaraadhan (Kashi Feast). I couldn't participate in it since I was then too busy doing my own Samaaraadhan at IIT KGP (feeding marks to my students glancing at their answer-scripts).  But I happened to be halting at Gudur for a couple of days on my way to Madras on one of my two official visits. 

And my mom was earlier in tears saying that Kashi Samaaraadhan involved an elaborate Shiv Puja including Rudrabhishekam, and Shivji is ever fond of Bel Leaves (Bilva Patra) being dumped on his head, and there was not a single bel tree in Gudur. I consoled her that every other Qrs in KGP has a bel tree in its backyard since Bengalis are very fond of the fruit of this tree saying that it cures a couple of dozen bodily ailments...from constipation to cancer. So I collected a couple of bags of bel leaves and gifted them to her. 

Apparently the feast was a great success with Father as the Karta of the Samaaraadhan.

I came to know that Sri Ramji, on his wayward way to Sri Lanka, found a Shiv Ling by the wayside at a certain place in Tamilnadu and performed Rudrabhishekam to it to propitiate Shivji and bless him that he would succeed in killing Ravanji and fetching Sitaji. The place is now called Rameswaram and is one of the holy Dhams. I always thought that Rameswaram temple has Sri Ramji's idol in its sanctum sanctorum but no...it is a Shivji's temple...one lives and learns and forgets.

After Father's death in 1994, on one of my visits to Gudur, my mom told me that she had promised Shivji that her only son would perform the next Rudrabhishekam at her home since it pleases Shivji and possibly gets her son a Deanship (which he declined later on).

I was dubious since I am not a devout brahmin, wearing the sacred thread as and when required and hanging it on the peg soon after the event. But she insisted and I asked her what it entailed. And she told me it is very simple...the Punditji will arrive from Nellore by the 9 AM bus, and start the proceedings, and the Punditji and I have to take fresh baths before the start of the ritual, and desist from eating anything at all till it was all over. This didn't scare me since I love taking as many baths as I can, and can starve as and when required...the Rudrabhishekam proper will be over by 1 PM (3 hours of puja during which I can't get up from my seat).

The Punditji arrived and after our baths and coffees (allowed as many times as needed in between), he took a brass plate and asked my mom to fetch all the Shiv Lings in her Pujagrih and her neighbors'. He himself collected a dozen from Nellore and also a Saligram that looked like a spherical stone to me (see picture above).

Apparently these Saligrams are found only in Nepal on the riverbed of Gandaki. And they are the very incarnations of Lord Vishnu (Sri Ramji). And the family which decides to install them in their puja has to obey very strict rules like they have to be worshiped everyday without fail, come fire or brimstone.

That reminded me of a charming story told by Father. Apparently this Rishi (whose name I forget) had a Saligram in his puja, and his kid-son (of Ishani's age) was very fond of pinching this stone early every morning and dumping it in their backyard well. The rishi had to jump into the well everyday and search and retrieve his Saligram. He got vexed by and by, and one day cursed his son that any stone that he threw into water will not sink henceforth but float...so that he didn't need to jump into the well anymore but just pick his floating Saligram using a rope tied to a bucket.

And in due course Sri Ramji had to build a bridge (Raam Seth) across the sea to go forth with his army to fetch Sitaji.  And his monkey warriors used to bring boulders after boulders and dump them into the sea water...and they all sank without trace. And then someone told Sri Ramji about this rishi's kid with this curse on him, and Sri Ramji asked this kid to be fetched forthwith. The kid grew up into a youth by then and was only too willing to help Sri Ramji. Then on, as monkey after monkey brought their boulders, they would hand them over to this guy who would throw them into the sea one by one and they would keep floating forever...making a veritable pontoon bridge:

  

 http://www.psgtech.edu/ncc/images/Wings/EP/Bridges/Pontoon%20Bridge02.jpg

So our Pundit arranged all those idols in the brass plate and my mom handed him the Panchamrit fluid consisting of:

1. Milk, 2. Sugar, 3. Honey, 4. Curd, and 5. Ghee

And arranged a bucket of well-water brought from the local Shiv Temple and mixed it with the Ganga Jal in one of her old bottles. And everything else was made ready. 

And our Punditji instructed me that all I had to do was sit down and keep pouring spoonfuls of this holy water on the idols again and again and again for all of 3 hours...that's all... as he would be reciting his Rudram Namakam Chamakam.

I asked my mom why she goes about this drill every once in a while and she replied that she loves to hear the recitals of these holy chants. Indeed I too began to love them. As you can guess, they are full of Namo (sorry PM!) and Cha ('and') like:

...namo bhavavaaa cha rudraaya cha

nama: sharvaaya cha pashupataye cha

namo neelageevaaya cha shitikanthaaya cha

nama: kapardine cha vyuptakeshaaya cha

nama: sahasraaksaaya cha shatadhanvane cha

namo gireeshaaya cha shipivishtaaya cha...

As to why it takes all of 3 hours is because the Namakam Chamakam shloks (a few hundred of them) have to repeated all of 11 times back and forth!

I was a great success in the ritual because I had ceased to be a chain smoker by then and didn't have to sneak away every half hour as I had to in my marriage.

And then in April 2007, I got a phone call from my mom saying that her 85th birthday was soon coming up and she wished to have a Maha-Rudrabhishekam performed on the occasion in her home at Gudur and she wished I would go there and preside over it. And I asked her what this Maha adjective was all about since I was thorough with the Mini thing alright. And she told me that it consisted of as many as 11 ordinary Rudrabhishekams. 

And since the phone bill was mounting, she cut it at that leaving me wondering if I can sustain 11 of those things at one go...maybe the whole thing would take a couple of non-stop days during which I had to starve.

Anyway I reached Gudur a day before and my mom told me not to worry.

Next morning I was waiting for our Punditji and he arrived from Nellore duly followed by 11 well-fed youth in pants and shirts and beedis. And our Punditji told me proudly that they were all his students (shishyas). And they started chatting and reading newspapers and when my mom invited them for their baths, they refused saying that they had already had their baths at Nellore. And mom was dubious but her Punditji assured her that he was a witness to their baths. And he ordered them to strip and get into the dhotis hidden in their bags. 

And they did it and were waiting and sulking and demurring. Mom asked them what was the delay for and the Punditji whispered to her that his students were all graduates working as school teachers and they were not used to starving and had to be fed tiffin by way of upma or idlis.

Mom was stunned and had to send me to the Iyer Canteen to fetch 12 plates of upma. 

After gorging on their second breakfast (they had theirs at Nellore), they got ready and all of them took their seats in a semicircle around Shivji and his stones and idols. 

Punditji didn't have to instruct me what to do since I knew the job cut out for me already.

And as he began chanting his Rudram Namakam Chamakam, I was bracing for a longish ordeal, and I asked our Punditji how long his 11 recitals would take...11 x 3 = 33 hours? 

He laughed and replied:

"No, no, all of us (including his 11 disciples) would read the texts simultaneously....that makes 11 Rudrabhishekams in just the same 3 hours"

Mathemagic!

I was reminded of our childhood quiz:

"If it takes 2 hours for 1 sari to dry on the wash line, how many hours it would take 10 saris to dry?"

"No, not 2 x 10 = 20...no! Just the same 2 hours!"

...Posted by Ishani

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Simplified Rituals - 2

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My grannie told me that her mom's wedding festival went on (apparently) for all of 14 days (and nights). And her own got compressed to a pitiable week. And her daughter's wedding was over in just three days...folks got too busy. My own marriage lasted for two nights and a day. My son's was through in one night and the next day...it was all over by the evening.

I recall this 3-day thing very well...no, not my  mom's marriage, naturally, but his youngest brother's marriage in Nellore in 1953 when I was all of ten years. 

We were a couple of dozen kids of a rough and tumble generation and we didn't participate as dignified guests...we ran all over the place and were busy playing outdoor games.

Suddenly I spotted a farmer carrying on his bent shoulders his farmyard yoke enter the marriage hall. I was familiar with this yoke thing, not so much because I was a village bumpkin in our Muthukur school, but since it was in our Nehurji's election symbol in the election just gone by (1952) in which we all participated riding a tractor carrying sheaves of printed pamphlets flinging them on the wayside and shouting:

"Nehru Congress Jindabad! Vote for 2 bullocks and a yoke!"

We all trooped into the wedding hall guessing something was afoot not to be missed. The yoke was precisely the same that the farmer used in his field and was about 6 feet long and sturdy and heavy as a pig. 

And in due time, the Pundit asked the newly-wed couple to get up and stand on his either side about 3 feet apart. And then the farmer brought in his heavy yoke and a couple of youngsters helped to lift it up and hold it aloft. And my MD Uncle (the groom) and my resultant auntie (his bride) sidled up underneath the yoke on either side pretending they were the two bullocks that the farmer drove in his field tickling their (I mean his bullocks') genitals with his short stick....het...het...hey...hey...dhut!

Of course the young volunteers holding the yoke were careful enough not to drop the damn thing on the necks of the couple but just about touch their heads while the Pundit chanted his mantra that went on for what seemed to the couple a couple of hours...they were blushing pink.

At last they were allowed to crawl out and the farmer took back his yoke along with sumptuous sweets and five odd rupees. 

And I nudged my father, who was rather enjoying the show, asking what was going on.

And he explained that the Pundit was admonishing the newlyweds that they should always remember this ritual whenever they tend to fight and pull in different directions...that they should plow in unison like the pair of bullocks tied to the marital yoke.

I thought it rather funny...but those were the symbols of a life tied down to agriculture as in the rural Nellore of my time...pretty soon it is going to be a smart city and I don't know what would replace our yoke...maybe a pair of Google Glasses.

By when my own marriage arrived in 1979, I asked our Pundit riding beside me on the Nellore-Tirpuati bus for the wedding at my wife's place if he had arranged for a farmer and his yoke. He laughed and opened his heavy-duty bag underneath our seat and brought forth a mini-yoke made of teak wood about a foot long and weighing a couple of kilos. He of course assured me that he would recite the same mantra that my uncle's chap did.

A few years ago, in 2008, I was a mute witness to my son's marriage in Nellore, again. And I asked our new Pundit (who charged me all of Rs 10,000) if he had arranged for the yoke. And he smiled and brought out his own from his sling-bag...it was made of stainless steel and was less than 6 inches long and weighed nothing. 

I asked him how such a tiny yoke would be placed across the necks of the couple whose size didn't change much for all of six generations.

And he said the mantra remained the same and the stainless steel yoke would just be held by him in the air in front of the couple who would be admonished to look at it and bow down to it and say:

"OK...ok...ooookaaay!"


...Posted by Ishani   

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Simplified Rituals - 1

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My father was a fairly orthodox South Indian brahmin although he never wore a tuft (shikha) on a tonsured head which was de rigueur for brahmins of olden times.

My Shakespeare Uncle, the eldest of Father's four brothers (Father was the youngest), used to sport a pigtail hidden in his otherwise well-cropped fashioned hair as a lame excuse for the original thing.

Whenever Father used to sit down for his thrice-daily sandhyavandanam, he would fetch a used LG Hing box and recover from it a spherical object which he used to call Vibhuti Pandu (vibhuti fruit). Well, it was not a fruit, by no means. It was a whitish grayish hard ball of sacred ashes.

And Father would start his ritual by rubbing this vibhuti pandu on his forefingers and smear the resulting ash on his forehead and chest and bare upper arms, and chant the verse:

tryambakam yajamahe sugandhim pushti vardhanam

urvarukamiva bandhanat mrityor mrikshiya maamritaat

When I was 8, I made bold and asked him one day what this ritual is meant for. And he explained: 

He was supposed to take bath every time he sat for his sandhyavandanam and other rituals. But he was either too lazy or there wasn't enough water in the backyard well. So smearing the sacred ashes is equivalent to (and superior to) taking bath by the dirty water in the buckets. 

And it is called the Vibhuti Snanam.

And the mantra chanted is known as the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra appealing to Lord Shivjee to release the chanter from the grip of mortal coils, like a ripe cucumber is released from its parent creeper, but never from immortality. 

During Shivjee's times, the vibhuti used to be made from the ashes of cremated bodies at midnight in the cremation ground which was his favorite haunt. By Father's time, folks selling vibhuti fruit got too busy and scared and, as a simplified version of the original thing, used to make it from the burnt ashes of cow dung. I guess nowadays Hyderabadi stalls that sell the vibhuti fruit by its innumerable temples make it from solidified talcum powder since I find it comes in various scents.

Talking of shloks like the one quoted above (which I chant daily in the morning since I like its meaning and sound), Readers' Digest was not the originator of Condensed Books...we had Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare in our school texts.

For those folks who don't have time to read their daily Ramayan since they had watched the football matches past midnight (and started dozing in Lok Sabha), there is this Eka Shloki Ramayan (Ramayan condensed into just one single shlok):

aaadau raama tapovanadi gamanam, hatva mrigam kanchanam,

vaidehi haranam, jatayu maranam, sugriva sambhashanam,

vaalee nigrahanam, samudra taranam, lankapuri dahanam,

paschat raavana kumbhakarna hananam, etad hi ramayanam.

And Adi Sankara did one better...he compressed the entire Advaita Vedanata into half a shlok:

shlokaardhena pravakshyaami yad-uktam granthakotibhi: |

brahma satyam jagan-mithyaa jivo brahmaiva naapara: ||

Very like the Abstracts of my guru SDM's papers...



...Posted by Ishani

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Rules of Teaching - 16

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In our households during our times daughters used to learn a lot from their mothers. This was more by watching and imitating rather than formal coaching. Girls used to participate in household chores like cooking, cleaning, sewing, knitting, grinding, praying, minding infants, and taming husbands.

But not formal studies except puja paths, rituals, superstitions, songs, and telling tall tales.

Generation after generation, daughters used to get more qualified in schools than their moms and so they didn't go to their moms for their homework in subjects like maths and English and cheating. For these they had to depend on their fathers.

This was not always true of sons and fathers. Celebrity fathers in general had little-known sons alright. There is a saying that goes:

"pandita putra: shuntha:"

which means: 

"The son of a pundit is a moron"  

As they grew up, daughters of our times too used to revolt against their moms in matters of heart and selection of husbands. As a rule, more girls rejected prospective suitors in their interviews than the other way round. My mom did it, her mom did it, my wife did it, and my daughter-in-law did it...

An unusual teacher-student relation in modern history is between Nehruji and Indiraji. Indiraji learned her lessons in history from her father, not her mother. And in regular letters that her dad used to write to her from his sundry prisons. These are compiled in wonderful books like 'Discovery of India' and 'Glimpses of World History' both of which are eminently readable.

But of course Indiraji never heeded her parents in the matter of her marriage and its aftermath. She followed her own heart and then head.

But she could have taught her father a lesson or two in realpolitik like how to throw an entire opposition in jails.

Nehruji lost his war but never an election, and died a natural death. Indiraji won her war but lost an election, and her life brutally.

Daughters-in-law too can learn from their fathers-in-law if they wish to and if both happen to live under the same roof as me and Sailaja. 

And vice versa.

Sailaja often declares in public rather proudly that all the driving she learned was from her father-in-law. The old man is much more patient than her young husband or her driving instructor.

Maybe there is some truth in it.

When she first attempted to learn driving our matchbox Maruti, she naturally went to her new husband. And soon found that it was affecting their marital relations...there were quarrels right from the clutch and gears. And rebukes from one side and rebuttals from the other:

"You are no good!"

"You are the worst teacher I ever saw!"

And then, in one of her spells in her Nellore home town, she joined a Driving School and eventually got her learning (and then learned) licenses, for a consideration.

And then started driving in Hyderabad with me in the front seat by her side.

And discovered that I was getting heart attacks in the lanes and bylanes of our locality.

And I discovered that she learned pretty little from her Nellore driving instructor.

She knew how to go ahead but not to reverse...rather like Abhimayu. Nor how to park and retrieve. Nor that there is a thing called side-mirror. Nor parking brake which I told her is 'God's gift to drivers'. Nor flashing lights asking for way. Nor any rules of right of the way. Nor to change gears on bumps and gradients. Nor the innards of engines like brake fluid and coolants whose existence was a discovery for her. Nor how to get gas filled in a petrol pump. Nor how to change tires (even I can't do it nowadays). Nor the existence of a toolkit in the boot. And so on and so forth...

Nowadays however she wants to teach me how to drive fast, faster, and faster...faster than light...

Sigh!

http://4maze.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/cartoon2.jpeg

...Posted by Ishani  

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Rules of Teaching - 15

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I was talking about the possible cordial intellectual relations between a father-in-law and his son-in-law.

Let me get personal a bit.

I had very little interaction with my organic father-in-law since he died soon after my marriage....not my fault. We had met only a couple of times and that too in the crowded presence of a dozen other relatives. For the record, he didn't actually rebuke me (unlike his wife).

But I had a wonderful grandfather-in-law who was my real father-in-law. Let me explain:

My wife was the first born to her parents who were living far away from AP and getting transferred every other year...her father was in the accounts division of the railways. After getting posted in Assam, UP, Bihar and other such remote places, they sort of settled down at Jalgaon in Maharashtra by when my wife got married (to me).

So my wife's grandfather, Sri Patri Hanumanta Rao, took up the responsibility of raising my wife from her infancy along with his other grandchildren who were all brought up in his vast joint family, although he had lost his own wife when he was a mere 36 and his whole family was looked after by his widowed younger sister.

PHR was an engineering graduate from the then famous Guindy Engineering College...I am talking about the 1930s. He was a civil engineer and was for a long while associated with the construction of the Tungabhadra Dam near Hospet, now in Karnataka, as an executive engineer:

  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Tungabhadra_Dam.jpg/220px-Tungabhadra_Dam.jpg

It was he who discovered me as a suitable groom for his fond granddaughter who had just then completed her MD in Microbiology under his care and supervision. He was about the only one among his relatives who had heard of IIT KGP and assured his dubious relatives that gps is ok, sort of.

A few months after our marriage in 1979, he visited KGP, traveling without reservation by the Madras-Howrah Mail...he said he had this sudden urge to see for himself how gps was treating his granddaughter. And he had planned to stay there for a week but was so charmed by gps and IIT that he stayed for over a fortnight.

During this probation period of mine as a husband, PHR and I struck up an unlikely friendship...he was in his 70s and I in my 30s. 

At first he was very curious of what I did at IIT, what I taught and learned, and slowly he probed into the secrets of the quantum world and the wonderland of relativity. I was naturally charmed that an old retired civil engineer was so curious of physics. 

And I in my turn learned from him a lot about dams, tunnels, irrigation canals, hydroelectric projects and such topics which I had read in my high school and forgot. I found in him a great teacher and a great student.

And while I was away at my office, he was taking book after English book from my meager collection in my home library and was reading them on the sly. And when he was leaving KGP he selected half a dozen of my books like RKN's and Jim Corbett's and pleaded with me to let him borrow them promising he would return them when we met next. And said he never had the time to read such great books during his working days. 

I said ok a little dubiously.

But during our next visit to Tirupati where he was staying, the first thing he did was to return all those books with brand new covers...a thing only my senior colleague MS Sikand used to do.

We met again half a dozen times and during his last visit to KGP he stayed for over a month and asked me to take him to the Central Library, Computer Center, Civil Engg Department, Nehru Museum and such places at IIT KGP. And he was of immense help and support to me during my several mundane travails with my extended family.

A couple of years back when my wife was on her deathbed, she looked at me one midnight with a strange gleam in her eyes, and said:

"My grandfather, PHR, always used to talk highly about you and used to often say you are a good man, in front of all our relatives. And I used to envy you then. Now I realize why he said all those good things about you"

And then she left us forever within a week.

A rare tribute I fondly cherish...


...Posted by Ishani 


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Rules of Teaching - 14

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Let us now turn to the relationship between fathers-in-law and their sons-in-law of my generation.

I have noticed that these are much more cordial than the mom-in-law-son-in-law yoke I described yesterday. Part of the reason for this is that the father in general is not so possessive about his daughter as her mother. But in fact he loves his daughter more in an abstract sense. 

In our patriarchal society, as I mentioned earlier, the father is the natural guardian of his kids and in particular daughters. As the breadwinner of the family, he feeds her, clothes her, and educates her. And it is his duty to find a suitable groom for her...his wife being a mere hindrance with the power of veto. And it is he who does the kanya-daan (virgin-donation, strictly speaking) in our marriage rituals. And it is he who grieves the most when his daughter is taken away by the groom (and at times returned back):

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/dpa/lowres/families-parents-parenting-father-fatherhood-son_in_law-dpan2836l.jpg



In our mythology there is indeed the perfect father-in-law-son-in-law combo...it is the most cordial relation between King Janaka and Sri Ramji.

There is this story about the wisdom of King Janaka:

Apparently, Sage Narada grew jealous of King Janaka. The reason is as follows:

Narada stands a mere second in the Abu Ben Adham's merit list of those who love God most (meaning the great Bhaktas of yore):

prahlada naarada paraashara pundarika vyaasa ambarisha suka shounaka bheeshma

rukmaangada vasistha vibheeshana

Pandava gita

But Janaka, being an accomplished jnani and a joint doctoral student of the great Yajnavalkya as well as Ashtavakra, stands first in the merit list of Abu Ben Adham of those whom God loves most (notice the profound difference: it is like the mighty difference between those who were promoted to the IAS from ranks below and those who boast to have cleared the toughest exam in the world...according to them):

teshaaam jnani nitya yukta: eka bhaktir vissishtya ye

priyohi jnaninotyardham ahamsa cha mama priya:

bahoonaam janamanaam ante jnanavan maam prapadyante
vaasudava: sarvamiti sa mahaatmaa sudurlabha:

Gita: Chapter 7

So, as I was saying, Narada grows jealous of King Janaka and decides to make a trip to Mithila and find out for himself and if possible confront Janaka and defeat him. As he was walking in the midday sun, he gets tired on the outskirts of Mithila and decides to take a brief rest. And finds a banyan tree and lies down on the ground in its cool shade. And, as was his custom and incurable habit, his right arm goes below his head as a soothing headrest. 

And in a few minutes he notices a couple of buxom belles from Mithila walk by the tree with their pots on their heads to fetch water from the nearby stream. And he closes his devout eyes pretending to be fast asleep.

It is a known fact that when a kingdom is blessed with a king who is wise (like ours of today), his wisdom seeps deep down into the heads and hearts of his most humble subjects. So the maidens of Mithila were the epitomes of not only virtue but also wisdom. And the two girls see Narada and laugh at the sage in saffron clothes commenting between themselves:

"This sage appears to be too much devoted to his bodily comforts...he needs a makeshift pillow without which he can't sleep"

And they pass on...

Narada overhears their snide comment and removes his arm from underneath his head to show the citizens of Mithila that he can as well sleep without any pillow whatsoever.

In a few minutes the belles with their pots filled with water on their heads are on their way back to the city and seeing the sleeping sage pass the hilarious comment:

"This fake sage not only looks after his bodily comforts but also has a huge abhiman (ego-sense)...he can't take criticism in his stride"

The girls walk back to Mithila; and so does Narada to his heavenly abode, thinking:

"If ordinary girls of Mithila are so wise in their observations, what chance do I stand with their king?"

Sri Ramjee is no less of a wise man (he assumes the shape of a mere man and acts accordingly in Ramayan). While in his early teens he gets vexed with the woes of humans and their travails and gets depressed and his father advises him to visit their family guru, Vasistha, to clear his doubts. So right away in the midnight when all of Ayodhya was fast asleep Sri Ramjee walks to the abode of Vasistha and knocks on his door. And Vasistha asks:

"Who is it knocking on my door at this ungodly hour?'

And Sri Ramjee replies:

"That is precisely the question whose answer I want from you...who am I?"

And Vasistha opens the door knowing it can only be Sri Ramjee testing his wisdom and asks him to enter and sit down and teaches him the profoundest Advaita Vedanta. His teaching, as is usual with India where everything happens in superlatives, is contained in a mere 32,000 shlokas penned by no other than Rishi Valmiki, and is titled: "Yoga Vasistha".

You can order copies of it from Amazon...there is the whole thing as big as a whale as well as the most condensed version, called 'Laghu Vasistha', with many books of intermediate size varying from Rs 350 to Rs 3500...choice is yours...I don't make a single rupee either way in this deal.

So this sambandh of King Janaka and Sri Ramjee is between two wise men and as far as I know it is unique and ideal. Sri Ramjee is also blessed that he doesn't have a proper mother-in-law like the rest of us, Sita being the foundling daughter of Mother Earth...sorry Mother-in-law Earth.

The verses uttered by King Janaka during the marriage ceremony of his fond daughter as he gives her away to Sri Ramjee in kanya-daan are the most charming of all the wedding mantras of our South Indian Brahmin families:      

iyam sItaa mama sutaa saha dharma chaareer tava 

pratIccha chainaam bhadram te paanim grihneesva paaninaa 

pativrataa mahaabhaagaa chaayaiva anugataa sadaa 

iti uktvaa praakshipat raaja mantrapootam jalam tadaa 

Meaning: “This is SIta, my daughter; she will acquit herself well in your path of righteousness. Take her hand in yours. She is blessed and will be devoted. She will walk with you forever like your own shadow”. Saying so, Janaka poured water, sanctified with holy hymns, into the palm of Rama. 

http://www.svtemplenc.org/stories/StoryOfSriRamaNavami.pdf 


...Posted by Ishani

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