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proteeti

@sambhavami

Stunner

+ 12

Posted: 9 years ago

#521

Originally posted by: ..RamKiJanaki..
Proteeti, your explanation makes sense and is quite interesting!

I never agreed with Yayati's decision to crown Puru over Yadu. In fact, I found Yayati as a character quite selfish. He was so obsessed with his materialistic life that he wanted his sons to sacrifice their youth to keep him young. What kind of father asks his son for such a sacrifice? Yayati was not justified in his request and thus I do not fault Yadu for refusing him. Puru may have been a selfless son, but Yayati was no virtuous father.

The eldest son and heir is only not made King if he behaves unrighteous, but what wrong did Yadu commit? He merely refused to indulge his father's selfish lifestyle. I think it was very wrong of Yayati to dethrone his son. It was not at all justified.

So I always was happy that Krishna chose to be born into Yadu's lineage instead of Puru's. He glorified Yadu's clan and yes, in the end, it is Yadu's descendant that regains Yayati's kingdom, as it should have happened eons ago.

Thank you so much Didi!
Yes, even I think he was bordering on selfishness!

This is precisely why I love MB!

Just look at Yayati's character development! From the knight-in-shining-armour turned unwilling groom turned indulging lover turned victim turned selfish!
Isn't it just SO brilliant?! 😳

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Justitia

@Justitia

Rocker

Posted: 8 years ago

#522

This situation is common to both Ramayan & Mahabharat...just occurred to me the other day.

My question -

Why does the Goddess have to undergo suffering on Earth in order for evil to be destroyed? And continue to experience suffering even afterwards?

Sita - Accompanied Ram for vanvaas, kidnapped by Ravan, suffering in Lanka, agnipariksha, character doubted, exiled again...ended up with bhumi pravesh

Draupadi - Divided by MIL amongst sons, staked, attempted disrobing, waited a long while to get justice, lost sons...died in icy mountains

My question is - Why did both have to experience so much suffering to begin with? Why did destroying evil come at a price of both undergoing as much suffering as they did?

Could Ravan not be vanquished if Sita had not been kidnapped? Was Sita's kidnapping Ravan's ONLY sin - hence wait for Sita to be kidnapped and suffer in Lanka, and kill him only after all that? And then, Sita exiled even later.

Similarly, why did it go to the extent of Draupadi's insult for the Kauravas to be destroyed? Not like it was the first sin committed by the Kauravas. And, even after that, there was hesitancy over war and getting her justice. To make things worse, she lost her own sons in the war.

I know that every event has its time and place so things happen only when they are supposed to. I also know about the concept of "paap ka ghadaa bharna".

But letting such big paaps happen before you finally say,"Enough is enough"?

Weren't the previous sins of Ravan & the Kauravas enough to get them punished - so that Sita & Draupadi could be spared of their sufferings?

Why does the Goddess have to suffer like this for evil to be destroyed? Why can't evil be destroyed without this kind of suffering taking place? Why did the sufferings of Sita & Draupadi continue even after evil was vanquished?

Was it really necessary for Sita and Draupadi to suffer so much - especially when the main purpose of their lives was to ensure destruction of evil?

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Janaki

@RamKiSeeta

Achiever

+ 6

Posted: 8 years ago

#523

Hey Lexy! I have an answer for your question, but it's going to be long so give me some time to compose it. :P

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draupadidevi

@draupadidevi

Explorer

Posted: 8 years ago

#524

Your point of argument is very interesting. Actually many of our queries regarding our ancient world and stories require a specific method of interpretation. All of these stories contain a kind of moral message and morality, ethics, social and cultural norms are to a large extent time, person and space specific. In the epic era any kind of physical torture on a woman was regarded as a heinous crime and the person responsible for it was subject to extreme punishment. See you cannot get any incident that even after doing tremendous offence women were generally sentenced to death punishment. So to project Sita and Draupadi's physical harassment in the hands of evil men actually indicate the extreme point of sin a man can do in his lifetime and after that no one can protect those evil persons to survive in this world. It actually gives us the message not to cross the moral and physical boundaries to get an unwilling woman under your control. But it's very sad today we have totally forgot those messages in our social and moral lives.

As per the sufferings are concerned both the sage poets had more confidence and skill to portray the female characters who had the unique qualities to change their misfortunes according to their own ways.Still, yet it is not easy to accept the painful life experiences of Sita and Draupadi , but aren't they sometimes project those unregistered, unexplored pain and sufferings of those numerous women all over the world?

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 8 years ago

#525

Originally posted by: ..RamKiJanaki..
Proteeti, your explanation makes sense and is quite interesting!

I never agreed with Yayati's decision to crown Puru over Yadu. In fact, I found Yayati as a character quite selfish. He was so obsessed with his materialistic life that he wanted his sons to sacrifice their youth to keep him young. What kind of father asks his son for such a sacrifice? Yayati was not justified in his request and thus I do not fault Yadu for refusing him. Puru may have been a selfless son, but Yayati was no virtuous father.

The eldest son and heir is only not made King if he behaves unrighteous, but what wrong did Yadu commit? He merely refused to indulge his father's selfish lifestyle. I think it was very wrong of Yayati to dethrone his son. It was not at all justified.

So I always was happy that Krishna chose to be born into Yadu's lineage instead of Puru's. He glorified Yadu's clan and yes, in the end, it is Yadu's descendant that regains Yayati's kingdom, as it should have happened eons ago.

Your last paragraph - how exactly was Yadu's descendant who regained Yayati's kingdom? Yayati's kingdom was Prathistana - today's Prayag, whereas Vajra was crowned the ruler of Mathura. In that time, completely different lands. Also, from Puru's line, Parikshit was the successor, and since he was the only survivor of Puru, the dynasty from Parikshit onwards was known as the Puru dynasty, since it was the only one that continued the lineage.

I agree w/ you that Yayati was selfish. In fact, if you look at Shukracharya's curse, it was pretty justified. Here are all the events that led to it:

Devyani and Sharmishta were childhood friends, Devyani being Shukrachaya's daughter, and Sharmishta being the princess of the asuras.
One day, they had a spat, that resulted in Sharmishta pushing Devyani down a well. Later, after Devyani was rescued, Shukracharya threatened to abandon the asuras, and Sharmista's father, to save his kingdom, agreed that Sharmishta would become Devyani's maid
Note that Devyani was under a curse from Kacha that no brahmin would ever marry her. As a result, when she came upon Yayati, she married him
From that marriage, she got Yadu and another son.
In the meantime, Sharmista, who was her maid, seduced Yayati into marrying him and had 3 sons from him
When Devyani discovered it, she complained to her father, who accordingly cursed Yayati

So Yayati was pretty much a lowlife in this story. In those times, while it was okay for a king to make his maid his concubine and even marry her, he could not do that w/ his wife's maid w/o her permission, but this is what Yayati did here, and what got Devyani so upset.

From a caste point of view, Sharmista's sons were more worthy of becoming kings, since one was a marriage b/w a brahminess and a kshatriya, and the other was a marriage b/w a kshatriya and a (asura) kshatrani. So had all things been equal, Yadu and his own brother might have been passed over.

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A-A-S

@A-A-S

Voyager

Posted: 8 years ago

#526

Hello,

Not sure if anyone here watches the Sony TV show "Sankat Mochan Mahabali Hanuman" but I have a question about the current track and thought I'd post it here as well, since the forum for the show is not very active.

For those who don't watch the show, Ravan has just been killed and Vibhishan is now the king of Lanka. Now Ravan's father-in-law, May Danav, has decided that revenge must be taken for the death of Ravan and others. He tried instigating Mandodari to take revenge but that didn't work out.

So now May Danav has gone to Shatanan Ravan, who is Ravan's twin brother according to this show. Shatanan Ravan has a thousand heads and lives in outer space because he was commanded to do so in childhood by his mother, because he was cruel to Ravan. They showed that his existence was such a secret that even Vibhishan didn't know that he had another brother.

Anyway, Shatanan Ravan attacked Lanka for revenge on Shri Ram, Hanuman and everyone else, and tried to lure them to his Shatanan Lok in outer space. So Hanuman has taken Shri Ram and the army to Shatanan Lok to fight him, and Lakshman has stayed in Lanka to guard Devi Sita and the other ladies (Trijata and Vibhishan's daughter and some other ladies).

Now, I have read as many Ramayan books as I've been able to get my hands on, and have watched plenty of mythological shows but have never ever heard anything of this story at all. But obviously I haven't read and seen everything out there, and there are plenty of stories that I have never heard of. (I haven't seen all of Star Plus's "Siya Ke Ram" yet so if something like this story is shown in it then I just haven't seen it yet!)

Can anyone please enlighten me - is this (some version of) a known story from (some version of) the Ramayan and/or related mythology/literature?

Or is it a completely original storyline invented by the writers of the "Sankat Mochan Mahabali Hanuman" show? ❓

Thanks for your help!

Edited by A-A-S - 8 years ago

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Sanjana

@Siya-Ram

Voyager

Posted: 8 years ago

#527

@AAS in adbhut Ramayan which is more Sita centric. Sita kills sahastra Ravan which is very similar to shatanan Ravan.

Siya ke Ram had shown Sita taking maha Kali roop and killing sahastra Ravan.

I don't know if sankat Mochan Mahabali hanuman will show hanuman killing shatanan Ravan.

But it is not in the original epic. Just a story that has emerged over the years.

Others might provide better answers.

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A-A-S

@A-A-S

Voyager

Posted: 8 years ago

#528

Originally posted by: Cluny13
@AAS in adbhut Ramayan which is more Sita centric. Sita kills sahastra Ravan which is very similar to shatanan Ravan.
Siya ke Ram had shown Sita taking maha Kali roop and killing sahastra Ravan.
I don't know if sankat Mochan Mahabali hanuman will show hanuman killing shatanan Ravan.
But it is not in the original epic. Just a story that has emerged over the years.
Others might provide better answers.

Hello Cluny13,

Thanks for your reply ⭐️ - it is always awesome to learn about things I didn't previously know.

I thought the story shown in SMMH probably had some basis in a known story but I wasn't sure what and how much of it, as they do often make things very Hanuman-centric and do sometimes ignore other parts of stories that we generally expect to be shown (like they didn't show the establishment of the Rameshwaram jyotriling at all!).

Thanks for telling me about the story shown in SKR and the source of it - as I mentioned in my first post, I haven't seen all of the episodes of SKR yet (am catching up very slowly online when time allows) so I hadn't heard of this particular story yet.

Not sure who they will show killing the Shatanan Ravan character in SMMH, although now that you mention that this is usually a Devi Sita-centric story, I think there is a possibility that they will somehow show Sita involved in killing him.

In SMMH, before Shri Ram and everyone left to go to Shatanan Lok, he asked Sita to give him something of hers so that she would be with him even without actually physically being with him. She gave him a piece of material from her clothing and said that the material would help him when the appropriate time came. This makes me think that somehow Sita will be involved in Shatanan Ravan's death, even though they have shown that she is on Earth while others have gone to fight in Shatanan Lok. Let's see what they show!

Anyway, thanks for your reply. It would also be great to hear from anyone else who would be happy to teach me more! 😊