To tell of Ram in words is beyond one. He is to be perceived. Sant Tulsidas puts it aptly:Hari anant, Hari kathaa anantaa – Hari is infinite, infinite is Hari’s tale. Being Vishnu-incarnate, Ram is timeless. Yet, descending to the mortal world as the eldest son of Kaushalya-Dashrath, He did spend a definite period in His mortal coil. Tulsidas thus describes His advent in the royal house of Ayodhya:
Bhaye pragat Kripala Deendyala Kausalya hitkari
Harshit mehtari muni man haari adbhut roop bichari
Lochan abhirama tanu ghanshyama nij ayudh bhuj chari
Bhushan banmala nayan bisala sobhasindhu kharari
Keh dui kar jori astuti tori kehi bidhi karaun Ananta
Maya gun gyanateet amana Bed Puran bhananta
….
….
Mata puni boli so mati doli taj-hu taat yeh rupa
Keejay sisulila ati priyasila yeh sukh param anupa
Suni bachan sujana rodan thana hoi balak Surbhoopa
….
(Then) the One who is compassionate to the poor (and is) Kaushalya’s benefactor, Merciful God, made an appearance. Beholding His marvellous aspect that captivates the heart even of sages, Mother was exhilarated. His eye-delighting body was dark as clouds, He bore singular weapons in all His four arms;bejewelled with divine ornaments, He wore a garland of forest flowers, His eyes were very big. Thus appeared the Ocean of Splendour, the Killer of the rakshas, Khar.
Joining both her hands, Mother said,”O Eternal One! How may I eulogise You! The Vedas and the Puranas say that You are beyond Maya and the three gunas(of sattva, rajas and tamas). You are beyond knowledge and (are) dimensionless….”
Mother (then) said again, “O, my Precious One, I am awestruck. Lay off this Form of Yours and start playing the part of a babe. That would be ecstatic (for me).” Heeding to (Mother’s) words, the Lord of Daivas began to cry (in the form of) a child.
– Ramcharitmanas, Balkand, 191-chhands i-ii and iv
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Early years and Queen Kaikeyi’s coup
One moment, He was in His awesome form of fully armed God; and the next,at the call of His putative mother, He was crying like a new-born babe!That is the paradox of Ram. He is all-powerful; yet amenable to pleas, entreaties and even stinging jibes of those around Him.
Ram as a boy had the best of everything the world could provide. He had had his education under the ablest mentors like Muni Vashisht and Rishi Vishwamitra. He was fond of horse-riding and loved sport. He was affectionate to all the three of his brothers and a delight to his Mother Kaushalya and step-mothers Sumitra and Kaikeyi. The subjects just loved him. To King Dashrath he was the mainstay of life.
But those coddling days did not last long for him. One day, Rishi Vishwamitra descended on the royal palace. The visitation of the sage marked the first turning point of Ram’s life. From a palace-bred prince hardly out of his puberty, he became a mettlesome warrior and a married man (Balmiki Ramayan, Cantos 18-30 and 66-77, please also see Lord Ram: Conventions Epitomised, DE 4 Feb, 2024).Ram faced a much greater change in life when his step-mother Kaikeyi staged a coup of sorts against his anointment as the crown prince of Ayodhya. Balmiki has Kaushalya telling Ram on the day just before the scheduled ceremony, “…seventeen years have elapsed since you took a second birth in the form of your upanayan rite” (Balmiki Ramayan, Ayodhaya Kand, Canto 20-xlv). Ram was a Kshatriya by caste and among the Kshatriyas, the Upanayan Sanskar (that is, the rite of wearing the sacred thread) is performed at the age of 12 (https://www.kamakoti.org/ hindudharma/ part17/ chap6.htm). By that reckoning, Ram would have been in his late twenties when he was banished to the forest for 14 years.
Rishi Balmiki devotes much of the first canto of Ayodhya Kand (6-34 shlokas)recounting the qualities of Ram when he was in the prime of his life. A throne he was denied, albeit temporarily, yet he thought nothing of it. He had before him the prime objective of honouring Dashrath’s word, otherwise he could have easily beat Kaikeyi at her own game. No cajoling, protestations and pathetic entreaties of his parents, Kaushalya and Dashrath,could persuade him to change his mind to proceed on his banishment.A distraught King Dashrath himself offered him an unseemly suggestion. “O, you, scion of the Raghus,” the king said piteously, “I have fallen in confusion because of the boons I promised Kaikeyi. Put me under arrest and declare yourself the king of Ayodhya.” (Balmiki Ramayan, Ayodhya Kand, Canto 34-xxvi). But Ram would have none of it. He politely told his father that he must go to jungle. The consequences that he faced were grave. His father died of shock, his wife, Sita,got abducted, he had to wage a war to rescue his spouse, and his staunchest supporter, Lakshman, nearly died in battle with Ravan’s son, Meghnath, also called Indrajit. But in the end, he let King Dashrath’s word prevail. Dashrath was not only Ram’s father, but the reigning monarch of a mighty kingdom in Bharatvarsha. The promise that the king made to one of his queens even in the privacy of her bedchamber and under the severity of emotional exploitation was still a sovereign promise that had to be fulfilled at any cost. That is what Ram did.
Raja Ram’s predicament
When Ram, after the expiry of his banishment, returned triumphantly to Ayodhya as the conqueror of Lanka and became the ruler of his domain, he still had to deal with the hearsay about his wife, Sita, who hadlived in Ravan’s captivity. Again, Sita was not only his wife, but the queen of Ayodhya. Any slur on her impeccable character would have besmeared the proud name of the Raghus and by implication, the people of Ayodhya. Raja Ram held a conclave with his brothers. Then he gave a hard-hearted command to Lakshman (ibid, Uttar Kand, Canto 45). Sita, even though pregnant at that time, was to be banished from the capital and taken to the forest to live there for the rest of her life. That, after she had come out unscathed of the trial by fire! (ibid, Yuddh Kand, Cantos 115-116).
Raja Ram’s harsh stance against Sita seems irreconcilable with his general demeanour of a dutiful son, a loving brother, a devoted husband and a compassionate ruler. His compulsion about abandonment of Lakshman, his alter ego, is equally mystifying. Lakshman could not prevent Rishi Durvasa’s intrusion when the king was having a private talk in his chamber with Kaal, the god of death. Balmiki narrates this incident at some length in Uttar Kand, Cantos 103-106. The episode about the ascetic Shambuk’s death is similarly bewildering (see Canto 75, Uttar Kand, Balmiki Ramayan). These instances reveal Ram as an agent of destiny rather than Vishnu-incarnate exercising His supreme will. But, then, did not Rishi Narad place a curse on the Lord that He would be born a man and undergo what all that means?
No wonder that while talking of the Deity, our ancestors said, ‘neti, neti’!
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