By Sri Chiraan 2009/09/28
Dassehara marks the muhurta Vijaya in which Ravana was killed by Sriram. This muhurta Namely Vijaya is very auspicious and brings only success. No planetary position is to be studied to start any work /venture on this day. The venture [shubh karya] on this day is definitely successful.
Normally Vishwaroopa word is associated with Srikrishna avatara only. But even in Ramaavatara lord has shown Vishwaroopa of different kind astonishing to the entire world of humans devatas and rakshasas.
After the death of Indrajit, Ravan sent his moola bala [the core army] to fight the vanar sena of SriRAMA.
What was moolbala?
Moolbala of Ravan was 36000 akshouhini in number. Each member of this army was as powerful as Ravan himself. These were unassailable by the boon of BRAMHA. These are huge in number Lanka had no space to keep it so Bramha had given another boon to hide hem in a cave.
36000 akshouhini is a huge number [Note: many people feel Ramayana war was simple war with limited warriors! but this is not true, the magnitude of Ramayana war was multitude times more larger and difficult than Mahabharata war. Mahabharta war was fought among only 18 akshouhini soldiers. But imagine 36000 akshouhini soldiers attacking simultaneously]. In few minutes Srirama killed entire moolabala. HOW?
Army like a ocean of elephants with waves of chariots driven by horses like wild amphibians rushed towards a fire of volcano namely SRIRAM.
Like a flames of weapons surrounded by smoke of dust the army moved like the fire [sanvartak agni] during pralaya. Such army like a tornado swirled entire trees and vanar [monkeys] alike in its whirl. The entire kapi sena succumbed in this davagni.
Seeing their army being rooted, fallen and perishing, Sugriva Neel and Angad ran to protect it. But their efforts seemed like a twig struggling in the tsunami. The boon of Bramha to the army of Ravana was making it unstoppable and slowly overpowering the monkeys were proceeding towards the Lord Rama like a patang insect running towards the fire.
The army fought with Rama with shataghni, shakti, parigh shool, gada, khadga, tomar, pattish, bhindipala and arrows and astras.
This scene created various thoughts in the minds of people [according to the quality, nature of the soul, their thoughts varied wrt Sriram faced with 36000 X 108 crore army. It was one man versus 38880000 million soldiers].
Some thought how can one man fight with such a huge army?
While some others thought Perhaps Lord will win over this!
While knowledged thought Sriram will kill all these playfully.
According to the jeevas and their intrinsic nature, tamas souls doubted Ram’s ability. Rajas souls were confused as regards to Ram, and Satvik souls had complete faith in Ram. As Ram took his arrows onto his golden bow it brought happiness to suras and unhappiness to asuras.
In single instance Ram delivered infinite arrows, it hit some of the elephants in the head, some in the trunk and some in the legs and finished the army section by section even before it approached the Lord.
The soldiers on the Horses and chariots who never faced defeats earlier fell from their horses and chariots like the souls falling from swarga after the exhausting punya. Like terrific waves calming at the shores the waves of the soldiers emanating from the Ravana ‘s army silenced at the footsteps of RAMA. Just as the heavy rains settles the dust on the earth the infinite arrays of arrows from Ram settled the rows of soldiers with swords running towards him. THE HEADS OF senapatis who could vanquish the Devatas in previous wars rolled due to the use of Javelins by Ram.
But the onlookers could never see Ram taking the arrow, pulling the string or releasing the arrows towards the army, they could only see the Ram in a static position. At times they could see various positions of Ram.
Note: here author of Mool Ramayana is explaining the existence of persistence of vision in humans. When killing crores of people the arrows have to be shot in multitudes and at a pace faster than the 1/10 th of a second. That means Ram was shooting arrows in less than the 1/10th of seconds and he was shooting thousands in seconds, as human eyes cannot distinguish any events taking place within 1/10 th of the second, the events of RAMA taking arrows and releasing it through his bow were not witnessed by the onlooker's, they could only see the army vanishing and dying but Rama was still to their eyes.
[For example when a wheel with spokes is rotated with speed , the spoke becomes invisible]
Suddenly SRIRAM took in a single moment 100, 1000, lakh, crore, kharva, mahaougha number of arrows and released them without missing the aim.
sa yougapadyen shatam sahasram laksham cha saakshad vilaksha eiva |
kotim cha kharvam cha mahaugham munchannishonesha ripun jhaghaan ||
This shloka of Ramayana shows that there were more than mahougha i.e. 1000 crore soldiers which Rama killed in single attempt.
Then even if he could kill these soldiers with his single roopa, Lord to show his prowess showed Vishwaroopa. This was different than the vishwaroopa of Srikrishna avatara. Srikrishna showed in one single roopa showed entire universe, but here ShriRAm showed many infinite roopas at a single instance.
Rama suddenly multiplied in his roopa.
Rama on the earth, Rama in space far away Rama, near by Rama, Rama among the shatru sena. Rama among the monkeys, every where there was Rama. There was no space left where he could not be seen.
Ramah purastat partopi ramo ramah param dikshu vidikshu ramah |
ramairanatairiti vishvarupo nighnannaratin virraj ramah ||
Looking at anant Rama and looking at infinite qualities in each of the infinite Rama devatas were happy and remained in a meditative pose. Rooting the enemies Rama with lotus like eyes and bluish hue of Indraneelamani was prayed by the people gathered to witness this astonishing event.
Some Ram roopa were holding the arrows and bow, some were destroying enemies, some were observing the war themselves. This scene was very illusive to the three worlds [it was akin to Krishna seen simultaneously with all 16108 wives].
Some Rakshas who had opened mouth to eat monkeys, Rama had already shut them with arrows. Seeing the enemies perishing some Rama roopas were clapping and enjoying. Some were smiling. The presence of monkeys and their army was really of no use to Sri Ram to fight Ravan. This astonishing act of Rama established it.
As one lamp can lit the many lamps and all these lamps will alight alike, so did Rama emanate from one roopa to infinite vishwaroopa. They were all equal and Rama only and no different from him. As larger wick gave larger light and smaller wick made smaller light, so did the various roopas differed in size but yet they were all Rama, and were no different from Lord Rama the supreme. They were deathless, beautiful and complete with infinite qualities.
Rama also merged all the roopas into one again. Just as all the wicks when brought together merge as single large lamp. Thus Lord proved he was special and different from others.
Ravan after hearing the destruction of his moolabala, prepared himself for his death. He was totally devastated. He proceeded to war. Ravan hit by the arrows of Rama fell unconscious for 48 minutes. In the meanwhile agastya muni came near Rama and asked him to recite aditya hrudaya [Sriman Narayana as present in Surya] Aditya hrudaya is vyakhyana for dheya sada… dhyan shloka of Gayatri dhyana..
To show to the world that Aditya hrudaya is best shatru mardan mantra Rama recited it, and not that Rama could not kill Ravan without it. Rama himself is the light in the Sun.
Ravan got up and used various astras on Rama, Ram cut all the ten heads of Ravan. But they sprang back by the boon of Bramha. Earlier such a incident had never taken place, i.e. heads of Ravana had never been cut earlier by any devata or manav. So only to show that Bramha had given such a boon to Ravan, Rama made scope for such event. Finally when all the devatas prayed, SHRIRAM used Ram bana and RAVAN fell to this very special arrow greater than bramhstra. The mukhyaprana is the abhimani devata of Ram bana. Thus After killing RAVANA it went into the earth and then came back to the Ram. Thus Ram showed he uses only Vayu to punish the evil in this world.
Happy Dussehra!
Krishnarpanamastu
