Friday 8 November 2013

99. Rama explains his point of view.

          On hearing the unusually long speech by his dear wife, Vaidehi, Rama stopped and looked at her in wonderment. He then smilingly replied "Vaidehi! You waxed eloquence! I have not seen this side of you earlier! Oh, lady, now you proved to the hilt that you are the daughter of the most virtuous Janaka. 
          "Now let me explain my side. What more shall I say, oh, lady, since it is said that 'a kshathria handles a bow so that misery's tears cease to flow...' and this saying is iterated even by you. Oh! Seetha, those sages of Dandaka forest approached me on their own sought protection from the rakshashas, and thereby they came into my refuge. Subsisting on fruits and tubers, living at all the time in forests those sages are not getting quietude, as they are scared by the acts of the rakshashas.
           "Many of the sages dwelling in the Dandaka forest are being eaten away by the fiendish rakshashas who subsist on human flesh, and while being eaten away like that those eminent Brahmans requested me to protect them from those rakshashas.  
            "They told me that many of the guise changing rakshashas are out-rightly torturing them. They added 'Those resistless carnivorous rakshashas would descend exactly at the time of fire oblations, or on such propitious times like full or new moons to persecute us. We the ascetics being assaulted thus are aggrieved, and when we were searching for a recourse you came to us. We by the efficacy of our ascesis are surely capable to eradicate those demons, but we do not wish to dwindle the effect of our long earned merit of ascesis. Many hurdles are always there in our practice of ascesis, and sometimes even the ascesis have become impracticable. Oh, Raghava, thus though being eaten away by the rakshashas, we are not issuing any curse. In view of this, you along with your brother protect us from the rakshashas dwelling in the Dandaka forest, as you alone are the protector of ours in these forests.' 
             "On hearing the earnest submission of the sages, oh, Seetha, I did what a kshathria should do. I am not only a kshathria but the son of the great king Dasharatha, too and as such it is my duty to protect anyone who seeks protection from me. I, therefore promised complete protection to the sages of Dandaka forests. Having promised to the sages, you will agree that it will be impossible for me to revoke it. You know that truth is dearer to me than anything else.
              "I can forfeit my life, forgo Lakshmana, or even forsake you but not a promise, that too especially made to Brahmans, and having promised I can never go back. By that reason, oh, Seetha, safeguarding the sages is definitely my responsibility. Don't you agree, now?"
              Seetha smiled and nodded in the affirmative.
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