pachai maamalai pol mene

Friday, May 27, 2011

embodiment of spontaneous love

अनुचरति शशाङ्गं राहुदोषेपि ताराः
पतति च वनवृक्षे याति भूमिं लता च।
त्यजति न च करेणुः पङ्कलग्नम् गजेन्द्रम्
व्रजतु चरतु धर्मं भर्तृनाथाः बि भार्याः॥ 
भासप्राणीते  प्रतिमानाटके 

anucarati śaśāṅgaṁ rāhudoṣepi tārāḥ
patati ca vanavṛkṣe yāti bhūmiṁ latā ca|
tyajati na ca kareṇuḥ paṅkalagnam gajendram
vrajatu caratu dharmaṁ bhartṛnāthāḥ bi bhāryāḥ||

from Pratimaanaatakam of Bhasa  

The   question pondered over  with  Bhasa in his celebrated drama  Pratimaanatakam  is whether Sita should accompany Rama during Rama's  sojourn in forest.
The poet deems it as the duty of the wife to follow her husband either is happiness or in agony to the end.
"The stars, who are the faithful wives of the moon, keep company with him and  remains around him even when an eclipse occurs and the snake demon Rahu gobbles up the lunar disc.
 When the big tree over which the tendrils of the jasmine plant have grown for a long time is felled by a tempest or the axe of a woodcutter, the jasmine plant also come down and never thinks of abandoning the tree. 
When a bull elephant is unfortunately caught in a quagmire and is sinking, his lifetime companions, the mare elephants, never abandon him but rally around him and try to pull him  out of the situation...
So this is the duty of a chaste woman..
Let Sita fulfill the dictates of Dharma and accompany her husband.


Of course the Lokamataa Sita would not think of a separation from Rama in any situation.
She is the epitome of dharma and her love for Rama is divine. 
The poet tries to generalize this dharma for all females.  He attributes the duty to even non-human couples, for  whom  fidelity comes spontaneously.

We cannot for a moment forget the Dharma of the husband to protect and ensure welfare for his wife.  The life of a woman is created for love and sacrifice...and she always follows her natural instincts. 
When in full beauty and attractiveness, she takes upon herself the duty of bearing a child in her womb for a man, faith alone forming the precondition.
 In this process her beauty is sacrificed to a substantial extent.
She worries, fasts , prays and control all her passions for the sake of the embryo that is growing inside her.
 The delivery is often painful and her body is cut by a surgeon in many  cases.
Then she enacts a long saga of love and sacrifice for the sake of the child born to her and remains so till her last breath. 
The existence of all animate things including humans would have been very cruel but for the limb or the species which is female.
 Sree maathre namaH
  Pranams to the Mother
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