DOTW:Would you have criticized Rama if....

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he hadn't exiled Sita, hadn't asked for Agni praveshna or her shapat?

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 16 years ago

#11

Originally posted by: Kal El
I would probably have criticized him a bit for not doing something when people were doubting his wife's honour. As a husband, he had to protect her dignity too (besides his raj dharm) and to simply ignore the accusations and let people go on saying that stuff about Sita would be...uncomfortable. Maybe he should have devised an Agni Pariksha for the people: all subjects who doubted Sita would have to walk through fire. If they burned their suspicions were wrong. If they remained untouched they were correct. 😆

👏

Originally posted by: Kal El
How about this: what if Rama had abdicated the throne in Bharata's favour and left with Sita? This way he wouldn't have had to abandon his (pregnant) wife and he wouldn't be "forcibly" keeping Sita as the Queen when people suspect her. As it is Bharat was doing an excellent job ruling Ayodhya. This would have taught quite a lesson to the people of Ayodhya since they would have lost both Rama and Sita due to their stupid suspicions. 😉

Only conundrum here - reason Rama was doing any of this in the first place vis a vis Sita was to satisfy his subjects. If he stepped down, then the subjects who were satisfied by Sita's removal would now be dissatisfied due to Rama's stepping down. So given what Rama's utopian goal was, this wasn't an option.

In my scenario, I could have included an option where Rama would have tried to convince his people w/o Sita taking any tests; for simplicity, I didn't, since at the end of the day, if Rama failed, it would have been back to the real scenario. Incidentally, the part they showed in the serials of Rama upbraiding the people of Ayodhya for demonstrating against Dasharath when Kaikeyi exiled him - was that actually there in the original? If it was, that was one more thing he could have done here as well, no?

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Khalrika

@Khalrika

Voyager

Posted: 16 years ago

#12

I personally think that Sitaji should have stayed in Ayodhya after the people of Ayodhya witnessed the rising up of earth devi. But then this would have made it another Bollywood movie with a happy ending and not the great epic that it is.

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 16 years ago

#13

Originally posted by: Vibhishna

Even if Ram had given the throne to Bharat (as he planned to when he heard the rumours), the blame would still follow him. The people would have talked that Ram preferred Sita to his duty. By excusing himself from his duty just because he wanted to be with Sita would have made the people think that their suspicions are true and that Ram accepts it by stepping down from the throne. Though we know that Devi Sita was pure, those people could not have understood it all.

Not a very sound argument - as demonstrated in the case of Lakshman. There, after Lakshman passed on, Rama announced that he was going to follow him and would install Bharat as the ruler (who declined it in favor of K-L) We touched on this before, - Rama's decision to follow Lakshman wasn't liked by his subjects, unless they could come w/ him.* Rama could have done just that w/ Sita, and a wife is closer to a person than even a sibling.

As for the latter argument, it defies sense - if Rama suspected Sita, he'd have disowned her as a husband, not followed her to the forest. So how would such a decision have made people think that he endorses their suspicions? In fact, his critics are on more solid ground when they argue that by exiling Sita, Rama seemed to be endorsing their suspicions, which is one of the reasons this move of his was so controversial in the first place.

*Incidentally, since all this is supposed to have been done for a salutary effect, how is the people following their king to heaven an ideal? So whenever a ruler of any kingdom died/dies, should all his people have followed him? 😕 This decision to allow them to come w/ him just to make them happy was assinine! Rama's reign is over, just accept his successor and die whenever your time comes. That's what all rulers did/do - they go to heaven themselves when their time comes, and their successors inherit their populaces. Only argument in this case was that Rama didn't want K-L to inherit populaces who dissed their mom, and so he agreed to their puerile request.

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Khalrika

@Khalrika

Voyager

Posted: 16 years ago

#14

U guys are constantly forgetting one thing. Sita was their Queen who sat on the throne along with Ramji to rule. So the praja had every right to question her. Ramji could not have abdicated at this time because as a King he cannot run away from his duty by abdicating the throne.

Lakshman, on their other hand was not their king or yuva raj or anything like that. He was just Ramji's brother, a prince maybe, but just a family member living in the palace doing Ramji's commands. Lakshman's actions did not affect the praja in any way.

Sitaji's actions did. Her children would have become the rulers of Ayodhya one day. So, Vibs reasoning is very valid and spot on.

Even if Ramji had followed Sita to the forest the praja would not have accepted L-K as their kings without Sita's pariksha. The only way Ramji could have made his sons kings, even if he were abdicating, was by asking for the oath from Sita.

Vibs is spot on with her reasoning. 👍🏼

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Khalrika

@Khalrika

Voyager

Posted: 16 years ago

#15

Kal, this is not anything personal and we can agree to disagree but I do not agree with your reasoning. Asking the people of Ayodhya to do the agnipariksha just because they questioned their king and exercised their free speech rights...well...this is what dictators would do and are still doing to this day in some countries. Repressing your subjects is not good government, it is dictatorship.

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Kal El

@Kal El

Rocker

+ 2

Posted: 16 years ago

#16

Originally posted by: Chandraketu

Only conundrum here - reason Rama was doing any of this in the first place vis a vis Sita was to satisfy his subjects. If he stepped down, then the subjects who were satisfied by Sita's removal would now be dissatisfied due to Rama's stepping down. So given what Rama's utopian goal was, this wasn't an option.

In my scenario, I could have included an option where Rama would have tried to convince his people w/o Sita taking any tests; for simplicity, I didn't, since at the end of the day, if Rama failed, it would have been back to the real scenario. Incidentally, the part they showed in the serials of Rama upbraiding the people of Ayodhya for demonstrating against Dasharath when Kaikeyi exiled him - was that actually there in the original? If it was, that was one more thing he could have done here as well, no?

As far as I can see, there is no mention about Rama upbraiding the people. For the sake of consistency though, you are right. Since the Sagars had shown that scene, they should have done something similar here without losing the tragic direction of the story. Then again, consistency is not exactly their forte. 😳

True this probably wasn't an option but then we are discussing hypothetical alternatives so I thought I'd throw this into the discussion and see where it goes. 😉 Rama had truly created an impossible situation for himself with his goal of keeping every single citizen satisfied despite their stupid doubts. Nevertheless, exiling his pregnant wife is something quite disturbing IMO.

Chandra has already addressed Khalrika's first post on my abdication theory and I agree with him so I won't drag that anymore.

[quote=Khalrika]Lakshman, on their other hand was not their king or yuva raj or anything like that. He was just Ramji's brother, a prince maybe, but just a family member living in the palace doing Ramji's commands. Lakshman's actions did not affect the praja in any way. [/quote]

Chandra was referring to Rama's decision to follow Lakshman after the latter had passed away. Technically,he was going against his principle of "satisfying his subjects" by giving up the throne. Rama seemed ok with taking a decision against his subjects' wishes this time whereas he refused to budge earlier. This is an inconsistency. And following the king to heaven was indeed another peculiar turn of events. The ideal would have been to teach them the importance of moving on. It is natural for a king's reign to come to an end and be succeeded by another. I have no problem with the people being promised heaven/moksha when they die eventually. But to literally allow them to follow him to the heavens was...disturbing.

[quote=Khalrika]Sitaji's actions did. Her children would have become the rulers of Ayodhya one day. So, Vibs reasoning is very valid and spot on.

Even if Ramji had followed Sita to the forest the praja would not have accepted L-K as their kings without Sita's pariksha. The only way Ramji could have made his sons kings, even if he were abdicating, was by asking for the oath from Sita.
[/quote]

What if he had made K-L rulers of another kingdom...sorta like how the rest of Raghukul were spread out over the subcontinent? 😆 Besides I don't think the citizens of Ayodhya deserved K-L as their rulers anyway. 😈

[quote=Khalrika]Kal, this is not anything personal and we can agree to disagree but I do not agree with your reasoning. Asking the people of Ayodhya to do the agnipariksha just because they questioned their king and exercised their free speech rights...well...this is what dictators would do and are still doing to this day in some countries. Repressing your subjects is not good government, it is dictatorship.[/quote]

You seem to have misunderstood my proposal. Nowhere did I say Rama should have forced his subjects to go through the test. My argument was based on the principle that the burden of proof lies on the person who asserts not the one who denies. No doubt that freedom of speech is vital and allows the subjects to raise doubts. But no action can or should be taken simply based on doubts. The doubts must pass through scrutiny and test. It was the duty of those who made the claims against Sita to prove said claim. Failure to do so would render the claim null and void. This is the logical thing to do. I was suggesting that, as a duty bound king, Rama should have offered a test (and Agni Pariksha seems to have been a sound and acceptable in those days) to those who made the claim to substantiate their statements. I am not saying he should have arrested them and forced them to walk through fire. It would be entirely the choice of the claimant to subject his accusations to the test. Only when the claim has been verified beyond reasonable doubt should the king have taken legal action. 😊

And of course I won't take this personally. It's just a healthy debate. The fun is in the varying viewpoints. It would be very boring if we all agreed all the time. 😆

Edited by Kal El - 16 years ago

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Khalrika

@Khalrika

Voyager

Posted: 16 years ago

#17

Originally posted by: Kal El
 As far as I can see, there is no mention about Rama upbraiding the people. For the sake of consistency though, you are right. Since the Sagars had shown that scene, they should have done something similar here without losing the tragic direction of the story. Then again, consistency is not exactly their forte. 😳 True this probably wasn't an option but then we are discussing hypothetical alternatives so I thought I'd throw this into the discussion and see where it goes. 😉 Rama had truly created an impossible situation for himself with his goal of keeping every single citizen satisfied despite their stupid doubts. Nevertheless, exiling his pregnant wife is something quite disturbing IMO. Chandra has already addressed Khalrika's first post on my abdication theory and I agree with him so I won't drag that anymore. [quote=Khalrika]Lakshman, on their other hand was not their king or yuva
raj or anything like that. He was just Ramji's brother, a prince maybe,
but just a family member living in the palace doing Ramji's commands.
Lakshman's actions did not affect the praja in any way. [/quote] Chandra was referring to Rama's decision to follow Lakshman after the latter had passed away. Technically,he was going against his principle of "satisfying his subjects" by giving up the throne. Rama seemed ok with taking a decision against his subjects' wishes this time whereas he refused to budge earlier. This is an inconsistency. And following the king to heaven was indeed another peculiar turn of events. The ideal would have been to teach them the importance of moving on. It is natural for a king's reign to come to an end and be succeeded by another. I have no problem with the people being promised heaven/moksha when they die eventually. But to literally allow them to follow him to the heavens was...disturbing. [quote=Khalrika]Sitaji's
actions did. Her children would have become the rulers of Ayodhya one
day. So, Vibs reasoning is very valid and spot on. Even if
Ramji had followed Sita to the forest the praja would not have accepted
L-K as their kings without Sita's pariksha. The only way Ramji could
have made his sons kings, even if he were abdicating, was by asking for
the oath from Sita. [/quote] What if he had made K-L rulers of another kingdom...sorta like how the rest of Raghukul were spread out over the subcontinent? 😆 Besides I don't think the citizens of Ayodhya deserved K-L as their rulers anyway. 😈 [quote=Khalrika]Kal, this is not anything personal and we can agree to
disagree but I do not agree with your reasoning. Asking the people of
Ayodhya to do the agnipariksha just because they questioned their king
and exercised their free speech rights...well...this is what dictators
would do and are still doing to this day in some countries. Repressing
your subjects is not good government, it is dictatorship.[/quote] You seem to have misunderstood my proposal. Nowhere did I say Rama should have forced his subjects to go through the test. My argument was based on the principle that the burden of proof lies on the person who asserts not the one who denies. No doubt that freedom of speech is vital and allows the subjects to raise doubts. But no action can or should be taken simply based on doubts. The doubts must pass through scrutiny and test. It was the duty of those who made the claims against Sita to prove said claim. Failure to do so would render the claim null and void. This is the logical thing to do. I was suggesting that, as a duty bound king, Rama should have offered a test (and Agni Pariksha seems to have been a sound and acceptable in those days) to those who made the claim to substantiate their statements. I am not saying he should have arrested them and forced them to walk through fire. It would be entirely the choice of the claimant to subject his accusations to the test. Only when the claim has been verified beyond reasonable doubt should the king have taken legal action. 😊 And of course I won't take this personally. It's just a healthy debate. The fun is in the varying viewpoints. It would be very boring if we all agreed all the time. 😆

Hey Kal, I am glad that you agree to disagree and not take it personally.

Wish to address 2 things:

1. I personally do not find it disturbing about sending away his pregnant wife. Okay, the Sagars used a lot of fringe Ramayan's. I go only with Valmiki because he is authentic. In Valmiki Ramayan he drops her outside Valmiki's ashram and she is well taken care of there. I may not fully agree with it but I don't find it disturbing.

2. There is nothing disturbing about the avadhis wanting to follow Ram. This concept needs to be looked at from the Hindu dharma point of view. According to Valmiki even people who just saw Ramji entering Sarayu went to heaven. This is the concept of Bhakti yoga where you relinquish everthing including the body and go to heaven. This is a religious work and should be seen within the parameters of Hindu religious thought. Taking it out of context and seeing it as a secular work is not gonna gel.

Also, when Rama enters the Sarayu (according to Valmiki) he enters in his Vishnu form. So almost everyone knows that he is an avatar by then. The monkey's and others who enter are actually devas who came down as monkeys to help Ramji. They also return.

What is so disturbing about wanting to follow Ramji? I would if I saw Him tomorrow. This is Bhakti yoga at its purest.

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 16 years ago

#18

Khalrika

We were talking here about Rama's subjects, not Sugriv, Guha, Sumantra, and his friends. Rama's subjects were not devas. Rama here was setting an ideal of how a king should behave and his subjects should live. Subjects don't follow kings to heaven, and at any rate, these subjects didn't deserve it - they should have been sent to hell if they wanted to go. Another ideal - kings don't owe it to their subjects to look after their post death well being. So wanting to follow Rama wasn't disturbing, but wasn't appropriate either, regardless of whether or not he was Vishnu. And definitely, these subjects didn't deserve the right to go to swarga w/o dying first. Only downside - K-L would have been stuck w/ them.

Kal answered the point about Lakshman completely right. If Rama was prepared to abandon the throne, install a successor and leave for heaven b'cos Lakshman was gone (even though he was the one who disowned him), why not do the same for Sita? And if abandoning the throne for Sita would have been a dereliction of duty, how come it's not a problem now?

Kal

I think the evidence is split on whether both K-L got Ayodhya. As it is, they didn't get the same subjects - those as🤬les kicked the dust, but both K & L got different cities. It's said that one of them got North Kosala and the other South Kosala. South Kosala is today's Chattisgarh, and was the ancestrial kingdom that Kaushalya was from. I have a theory that that was the kingdom Luv inherited, which could explain why although Kush's history is well documented, nothing is known about Luv's.

Edited by Chandraketu - 16 years ago

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Khalrika

@Khalrika

Voyager

Posted: 16 years ago

#19

Originally posted by: Chandraketu
Khalrika

We were talking here about Rama's subjects, not Sugriv, Guha, Sumantra, and his friends. Rama's subjects were not devas. Rama here was setting an ideal of how a king should behave and his subjects should live. Subjects don't follow kings to heaven, and at any rate, these subjects didn't deserve it - they should have been sent to hell if they wanted to go. Another ideal - kings don't owe it to their subjects to look after their post death well being. So wanting to follow Rama wasn't disturbing, but wasn't appropriate either, regardless of whether or not he was Vishnu. And definitely, these subjects didn't deserve the right to go to swarga w/o dying first. Only downside - K-L would have been stuck w/ them.

Kal answered the point about Lakshman completely right. If Rama was prepared to abandon the throne, install a successor and leave for heaven b'cos Lakshman was gone (even though he was the one who disowned him), why not do the same for Sita? And if abandoning the throne for Sita would have been a dereliction of duty, how come it's not a problem now?

Kal

I think the evidence is split on whether both K-L got Ayodhya. As it is, they didn't get the same subjects - those as🤬les kicked the dust, but both K & L got different cities. It's said that one of them got North Kosala and the other South Kosala. South Kosala is today's Chattisgarh, and was the ancestrial kingdom that Kaushalya was from. I have a theory that that was the kingdom Luv inherited, which could explain why although Kush's history is well documented, nothing is known about Luv's.

I was not talking only of the vanars who went with him. That was only a supplementary comment. There was nothing inappropriate or disturbing about what happened when Ramji went back to Vaikunt.

Sorry but u don't seem to have understand one of the basic facts about the religion. This theme is found not only in Ramayan but also in Shrimad Bhagavatam and other religious texts. Just a glimpse of Vishnu is enough to wash away all the sins and get a person the status to go to heaven. If u got to go before death then it actually means that a person has been doubly blessed. According to Valmiki even the citizens who had just gone to see Ramji going back to Vaikunt got this blessing when they glimpsed Vishnuji. The whole reason for existence is for a human to raise himself/herself spiritually so that they can reach Vaikunt. Great saints like Ramanuja can take Samadhi where they can choose when they go to heaven. They didn't have to wait until they were dead.

For ordinary folks a glimpse of Vishnuji is what washes away the sins and gives the benefits that takes years for a yogi to get there. There is nothing inappropriate for wanting to follow Vishnuji. This is the basic necessity of Bhakti yoga. Ramayan is a religious work. You cannot take events out of context and place it in a secular setting and add all kinds of tags to it. Rama was not just any king. He was Vishnu and according to our way of thinking U don't have to wait for "death" to get to Vaikunt. There are numerous stories in our purans where people have been sent to Vaikunt before they are dead. This way of reaching heaven is considered holier than holy. One dosen't have to wait for "death" to get there.

That is a wholly western and abrahamic way of looking at our philosophy. One cannot take a completely different yardstick to measure a system that is very different in thought. I don't want to upset anyone on the last day but I am getting a sniff of Sharat Rocha here. Criticism for the sake of it. Sorry but that is my IMHO.