I would like to share a write up by my friend Balachandran's old FB post. This is a translated work and the translation is just outstanding and Bala has a way with words as one realized while reading the post.
The following text is from a work by Vallathol Narayana Menon, one of Malayalam's Maha Kavis (Great Poets) who was himself part of the famous Triumvirate of modern Malayalam poetry along with Kumaran Asan and Ulloor Parameswara Iyer.
The whole poem is called Oushadha Apaharanam (Oushadha means medicine and apaharanam means the same as apaharan or stealing)
The reference was to Lord Hanuman's mission in search of a wonder drug to revive Lakshmana who was ‘killed’ by Indrajit, the son of king Ravana, in the epic Ram-Ravana battle.
Hanuman retrieves the rare Mruthasanjeevani (the drug of immortality) from the Himalayas by uprooting a mini-mountain as he couldn’t identify the single herb, and returns to the battlefield to revive Lakshmana.
Lakshmana, then kills Indrajit and his brother Athikaya, much to the grief of the father, Ravana. Unable to bear the grief of losing both his sons, the King of Lanka returns to his palace to seek comfort in his wife Mandodari’s arms.
When a great King returns from battle, so must his army and the whole war machine.
In what could certainly be described as some of the most sublime lines in literature anywhere at any time, ...
In what could certainly be described as some of the most sublime lines in literature anywhere at any time, ...
...Sage Valmiki excels himself here while enunciating on the ephemerality of human life and the transient nature of man’s relationship with his material world including his near and dear ones.
As the king moves from the battlefield towards his palace, he was followed by a whole humanity of his soldiers and attendants, the battle animals and weapons.
As he goes further and further, the massive fallback is seen thinning bit by bit, square by square, and finally by the time he reaches the palace, the retreating procession is reduced to a few top generals and his close bodyguards.
Moving further interiors, he had only his close relatives to accompany him into the inner chambers.
And, finally, as he approaches the royal bedroom where his wife is expecting him, the mighty king finds himself all alone. Eager to embrace his wife and sleep in her arms, Ravana opens the door only to find that even she is missing.
She had killed herself upon her sons’ loss. The moment of ultimate wisdom dawns on the king who is also a great scholar and a devotee of Lord Shiva.
At that great moment of realization, Ravana could see life as a gradual journey towards the Supreme Being, the Brahma, in the course of which everyone, even the king, has to renounce all of his self
– physical and mental, his power and glory, his vices and virtues, and even his pride and self-respect until he is left with the only indestructible, the only permanent entity, the soul that which itself must merge in the very end with Brahma, the Universe.
This is the profundity of a ‘religion’ called Hinduism in English or Hindutva, as it’s known in these times of divisive politics, or just Hindu which is what it ultimately is.
That it refuses to be encased in a few hymns and prayers, tied around a few thousand gods...
That it refuses to be encased in a few hymns and prayers, tied around a few thousand gods...
... and goddesses, patronized by believers and vilified by non-believers alike, interpreted by self-styled scholars and pundits, and swallowed lock stock and barrel by the un-evolved and superstitious.
And yet, this great source of universal wisdom and spiritual enlightenment, this superior literature, in fact, the best any civilization could ever offer to humanity, remains an enigma, a hypothesis that anyone and everyone is allowed to enter its ancient world
...and explore according to his own vision or vicissitudes, his own caprice or confidence.
Very much like our own planet that has endured billions of years of galactic poundings, and yet remained the best in our known universe, this unique belief system, too, has survived thousands of years of civilizational attacks and invasions with its inner core,
its literature, its teachings, and its fables all staying intact. Not by violence and bloodshed, but by being passive and practical.
Tagging few handles:@Mahesh10816 @rspchary @mayfair1958 @NAN_DINI_ @NandiniVenkate3 @Saffronkoffee @almightykarthik @OKarthik82 @wataboutery @mauna_adiga @khanna248 @RomeshNadir @JPulasaria @AnujitKumarMuk1 @SparesofWar @captraj74 @premaswaroopam @lakshmianand96
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