#Ancient Culture ( Samskaram ) of Bharatham-5.7 : Swami Krishnananda.
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#OPINION : Saturday, June 26 , 2021. 7:00. AM. 2430..
#Chapter- 5. Introduction to the Epics - 7.
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1.
Now, if you want to know how a curse could be construed as a prayer or a glorification of God in the words of this verse, you must know something of Sanskrit; otherwise, my attempt to explain this intricacy is a waste of time because it is a grammatical peculiarity, due to which a curse has become a blessing and a prayer. There is a grammatical peculiarity in the words of the verse which suddenly converts the curse, internally, into a prayer to God Almighty, especially in the form of Rama. This is about the origin of the Ramayana, and on the order received from Brahma the Creator, Valmiki wrote the poem during the time of Rama himself, not after the passing away of Rama. He was a contemporary of Rama. As events took place, he wrote. Some people say that he wrote it even before the events took place on account of his omniscience. So this is the beginning of the Ramayana in Sanskrit poetry.
2.
How did the Mahabharata start? Vyasa Krishna Dvaipayana, as he is called, one of the avataras of Vishnu, wrote the Mahabharata. He prayed to Brahma: “I require a clerical assistant to take down the verses of the great epic that I am thinking of in my mind. Can you think of somebody?”
3.
“Why, no problem. Ganesha is there,” Brahma said. “Ganesha will be your clerk. He will take down whatever you say. Let the epic Mahabharata come. I bless you with success.” So Brahma requested Ganesha, “You please help. He will dictate, and you take it down.”
4.
Ganesha came and sat before the great Vyasa and said, “I shall do your work, but on one condition: My pen should not stop. If you start thinking in the middle and scratching your head, and making me wait for the next word that you speak, I will get up and go away from this place. So you must continuously speak so that my pen should not stop. On that condition I will do this work of writing.”
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Vyasa thought, “This is a very great condition you are putting on me.” So he also thought of a peculiar tactic of putting Ganesha to a little difficulty. He said, “I put also one condition, that without understanding what I say, you should not write.” So purposely, to make Ganesha think a little while as to what he is saying, here and there he put such hard-nut verses that it is not easy to make out the meaning. If Ganesha, the Lord of Wisdom, requires time to think of the meaning of some of the verses, you can imagine what they could be. In the whole of the Mahabharata, one lakh of verses, there are eight thousand verses of this kind. They are called knots of Vyasa, eight thousand, and when he uttered those words, Ganesha would think about them. By that time Vyasa would go to the next verse. This is an interesting relationship between the wondrous Vyasa and the more wonderful Ganesha.
6.
The Mahabharata was written as the story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas, as the Ramayana was written by Valmiki as the story of Rama on the one hand and Ravana on the other. A great wonder is this set of epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata; and if you want to read a shortened form, or the abridged form of the great epic, you can read the beautiful English rendering of it by Sri Rajagopalachari. Sri Rajagopalachari’s rendering of the Ramayana and Mahabharata are published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, and he brings the true spirit of the whole epic, though in a very abridged form, about two hundred and fifty pages each. You will know what these great epics are. Rajagopalachari thought our modern youth do not know what is Ramayana, what is Mahabharata. Even the name of these epics they have not heard. Knowing that even modern youth who are so-called educated ones, IAS officers and so on, are not acquainted even with the basic knowledge of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, Rajagopalachari took them up. He originally wrote it in Tamil, and then he put it in English. So you can read these two books, Rajagopalachari’s rendering of Ramayana and Mahabharata. I am not asking you to read bigger volumes as they are very confusing, so these two are good enough. Today we close with this brief consideration.
END.
NEXT-6.Quandaries in the Ramayana and Mahabharata
To be continued ......
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