As I mentioned the very first time I started writing the blog on Valmiki Ramayana, I am following the suggestion by Samskrita Bharati that every home should have a reading of two sargas of Valmiki Ramayana daily for one year.
Since we are approaching the end of Ayodhya Kanda, a special session was organised in which Dr. Ganesh spoke about the speciality of Ayodhya Kanda.
Dr. Ganesh is an extraordinary scholar and polyglot and perhaps there is nobody as scholarly or as thorough as Dr. Ganesh, on Indian classics. One simply needs to search in Google to discover the several treasures of his talks.
I have embedded his talk given today in Sanskrit. He made several points and I am thrilled that many of them have been made by me too in this blog.
- The Ayodhya Kanda mirrors Ramayana in its predominant rasa - Karuna Rasa.
- The characters of Sri Rama, Sita and Lakshmana are introduced to us unambiguously and the author shows why they are universally acclaimed. Sri Rama's equanimity, adherence to Dharma, astuteness, friendliness, magnanimity, and far-sightedness, are all on full display.
- Sri Rama is the ideal man as depicted in Bhagavadgita.
- Valmiki has a wonderful skill of narration bestowed on him by Brahma himself.
- There are many wonderful passages describing nature, for example, the Ganga.
- Sri Rama shows his grand nature of generosity and selflessness when he, along with Sita, gifts away his every belonging, before leaving Ayodhya.
- The citizens of Ayodhya hold the world's first dharna and demonstrate the power of democracy.
- The language of Ramayana is the greatest example of the fluidity and grace that the Sanskrit language is capable of.
॥ श्रीरामजयम् ॥
