BEAUTIES OF RAMAYANAM : 2.1

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16/03/2018

 BEAUTIES OF RAMAYANAM : 2.1

2. FEATURES OF THE RAMAYANAM-1

The Ramayana of Valmiki is a didactic poem which has the avowed purpose of glorifying Dharma and inculcating the truths which open up for man the way to supreme perfection.
It is one of the two great epics of India.

It represents the true Hindu spirit of unconditional adherence to the law of righteousness and the performance of one’s prescribed duty.
To assert the greatness of a life of activity based on the righteousness underlying the law of the Divine Being is one of the main aims of the Ramayana.
The life of the ‘ideal man’ described in the Ramayana is an incentive to all men to strive to become embodiments of Dharma.

Dharma is the soul of life and a life bereft of Dharma is not worth its name. Sri Rama, the incarnation of God, represents in himself the ideal son, the ideal brother, the ideal husband, the ideal king and the emblem of Divinity on earth.
Man is expected to root his virtue in the Divine.
Virtue is necessarily grounded in a consciousness of the principle of Divinity; else, it would become a mechanical routine of external acts.

The Ramayana sounds the eternal spirit of Bharatavarsha, the spirit of heroically facing the realities of existence, without fighting shy of them, and at the same time blending action with devotion and loyalty to law.
Law is eternal, for it is the expression of the system of the universe governed by God.
To follow this law is the duty of man.

The Ramayana teaches man, by way of examples, how he can fulfil the demands of law.
To be continued ...

                                                                     Swami Sivananda

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