Ravana : was one of the two chief dwara-pālas of Lord Vishnu who were cursed by Rishi Durvāsā to be born in Mrityuloka (the world of Death, our evolutionary earth) as they had stopped him from disturbing the Lord in his bedroom. They chose to be the Lord’s enemies on earth to be able remember Him constantly & gain mukti by being killed by Him. Rāvana, Kumbhakarṇa & Vibhīshaṇa were the sons of Rishi Vishravas by his second wife Kekasi, daughter of the Rākshasa who tricked him into marrying her. Vishravas’ first wife Ilavida’s only child was Kubera. Vishravas was the son of Rishi Pulastya, one of the first ten Prajāpatis. Rāvana’s intense tapasyā brought him great boons from Lord Brahma. Through his father Rāvana mastered all the Vedas & scriptures & through his mother & her brother the ambition & cunning of the Asura adept in all types of warfare & the hater of Vishnu – at the same time he became the second greatest devotee of Lord Shiva after Parashurāma. Rāvana married Mandōdari the daughter of Māyasūra. Her love & loyalty to her husband earned her the eternal place as one of the Pañcakanyāḥ (see Ahalyā).
... dialogue with Sita in Ashok Vatika, the garden in Lanka which is the abode of Sita during her captivity after her abduction by Ravana. (The dialogue is a sequel to a long story of the years spent by Sri Rama, Lakshmana and Sita in the forest, towards the end of which Ravana, by means of deception, abducts Sita and carries her to Lanka and the subsequent search by Sri Rama and Lakshmana in the course... Ravana's palace.) 4. Sri Rama vanquishes and kills Ravana. (Having received Hanuman's report of his meeting with Sita in Lanka, Sri Rama prepares for invasion of Lanka with a huge army ofSugriva's kingdom, has a bridge built between Ramesh- waram, the southern tip of India and Lanka, and engages in a fierce battle with the huge army of Ravana. The episode described here is centred on the last lap... lap of the battle, in which Sri Rama and Ravana confront each other, and it ends in the epical victory of Sri Rama when he succeeds in vanquishing and killing Ravana.) 5. Sita's ordeal and the departure of Sri Rama, Sita and others to Ayodhya in an aerial vehicle called Pushpak. (After the victory in Lanka, Sita is brought by Vibhishana to the presence of Sri Rama. Instead of being accepted ...
... her consort would shortly come and rescue her after disposing of the tyrannical Ravana), Hanuman demolished the outer gate of the orchard. (74) Having made short work of five army commanders (Pingalanetra and others) as also seven sons of ministers (Jambumalī and so on), and crushed the gallant Aksa (a son of Ravana), he allowed himself to be bound (under the spell of a Brahmastra or missile presided... bondage for about a couple of hours, the missile associated with his name being infallible, he would be rid of it) the hero (Hanuman, who was keen to meet Ravana) deliberately bore with those rakshasas who carried him in bondage (to Ravana ). (76) Having set on fire the city of Lanka barring (the abode of) Sīta, the princess of Mithila, alone, the great monkey (Hanuman) then came back (by the... Jatāyu (who tried to intercept him). Now tormented with grief to perceive the vulture mortally wounded and to hear (from it) of Sītā (the princess of Mithila), having been forcibly carried off (by Ravana), Srī Rama (a scion of Raghu) tormented with grief, loudly wailed. Then, having cremated the vulture Jatayu and hunting for Sīta in the forest in that very state of grief, Srī Rama descried a rakshasa ...
... warning you all this time but you just haven't paid heed? A queer girl you are really!' Then turning towards Ravana he said: 'Ravana, here, take this girl away!' The village milkman's boy was acting as Sita. On being slapped he started howling. The village haircutter was playing Ravana and he got so terrified of being slapped by the zamindar that he slipped away from the stage! The 'jatra'... You had better obey!' Sita wanted to give him alms without moving out of the circle but Ravana answered: 'If you give me alms without coming out I cannot accept.' Then go away if you can't!' the zamindar intervened. As soon as Sita stepped out of the circle to give him alms, Ravana seized her. The zamindar lost all control now. Leaving his seat and pushing his way through... try and remember this much, young lass. Otherwise you have only sorrow in your fate!' The 'jatra' was now becoming really gripping. The violin was playing a melody full of pathos. Just then Ravana appeared before Sita in the guise of an ascetic seeking alms. The zamindar could not control his rage anymore. He had forgotten that it was but a play. For him it was all so very real. He waved ...
... successive stages towards the Divine. It was not at all Rama's business to establish the spiritual stage of that evolution — so he did not at all concern himself with that. His business was to destroy Ravana and to establish the Rama rajya — in other words, to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattwic civilised human being who governs his life by the reason, the finer emotions... individual in order to make the world safe for the spirit of social order. Finally, it was Rama's business to make the world safe for the ideal of the sattwic human being by destroying the sovereignty of Ravana, the Rakshasa menace. All this he did with such a divine afflatus in his personality and action that his figure has been stamped for more than two millenniums on the mind of Indian culture, and what... impulse was strong in Valmiki. The very dimensions of his poetical canvas, the audacity and occasional recklessness of his conceptions, the gust with which he fills in the gigantic outlines of his Ravana are the essence of Titanism; his genius was so universal and Protean that no single element of it can be said to predominate, yet this tendency towards the enormous enters perhaps as largely into it ...
... are we both spectator & actor, and yet because we know the whole to be merely the illusion of an action and not action itself, because we know that Rama is not really killing Ravana nor Ravana being killed, for indeed Ravana lives as much after the supposed death as before; so are we neither actor nor spectator but the Self only and all we see only visions of the Self—as indeed the Sruti frequently... for your own amusement, to use a violent metaphor, you have imagined yourself limited by a particular body for the purposes of the play, just as an actor imagines himself to be Dushyanta or Rama or Ravana; and often the actor loses himself in the part and really feels himself to be what he is playing, forgetting that he is really not Dushyanta or Rama, but that Devadatta who plays a hundred parts besides ...
... long against one who is right and just? The monkeys and bears of Hanuman's army fought for Lord Rama and his brother Lakshman against Ravana the ten-headed demon. Weakening under the blows of the warriors who were attacking him from every side, Ravana made use of his magic power. Suddenly, at his side, among the demons, many Ramas and many Lakshmans magically appeared. They were in truth... taking them for real people, halted in confusion: how could they continue the fight and go on throwing trees and rocks against Rama and Lakshman, their beloved leaders? Seeing their dismay, the demon Ravana gave a smile of cruel delight. Rama smiled too: what pleasure he would take in destroying such a falsehood, in exposing the trickery, in gaining victory for the truth! He fitted an arrow to his mighty ...
... and idealised or rather colossalised. He brought these two worlds into warlike collision by the hostile meeting of their champions and utmost evolutions of their peculiar character-types, Rama and Ravana, and so created the Ramayana, the grandest and most paradoxical poem in the world, which becomes unmatchably sublime by disdaining all consistent pursuit of sublimity, supremely artistic by putting... self-contained. Valmiki's characters act from emotional or imaginative enthusiasm, not from intellectual conviction; an enthusiasm of morality actuates Rama, an enthusiasm of immorality tyrannises over Ravana. Like all mainly moral temperaments, he instinctively insisted on one old established code of morals being universally observed as the only basis of ethical stability, avoided Page 158 ...
... Shankara did when he broke the holy law and trampled upon custom and achar to satisfy his dead mother. In our literature they are described as Gods or Siddhas or Titans or Giants. Valmeki depicts Ravana as a ten-headed giant, but it is easy to see that this was only the vision of him in the world of imaginations, the "astral plane", and that in the Page 518 terms of humanity he was a vibhuti... now mixed with other elements. But Napoleon was a Rakshasa of the pure type, colossal in his force and attainment. He came into the world with a tremendous appetite for power and possession and, like Ravana, he tried to swallow the whole earth in order to glut his supernatural hunger. Whatever came in his way he took as his own, ideas, men, women, fame, honours, armies, kingdoms; and he was not scrupulous ...
... figures born of the creative Indian mind which people its literature and its drama. Here too it is difficult to follow him or to accept his measure of values. To an oriental mind at least Rama and Ravana are as vivid and great and real characters as the personalities of Homer and Shakespeare, Sita and Draupadi certainly not less living than Helen or Cleopatra, Damayanti and Shakuntala and other feminine... epic and drama, would either be relegated by it to the second plan or else, if set in large proportions, so brought in in order to bring into relief the greatness of the higher type of personality, as Ravana contrasts with and sets off Rama. The admiration of the one kind of mentality in the aesthetics of life goes to the coloured, that of the other to the luminous personality. Or, to put it in the form ...
... Ramayana. For I have heard different versions. There are different versions, aren't there? Above all, for two very important facts ( Mother turns to Nolini ) concerning the end: the defeat and death of Ravana, and then the death of Sita. I have heard it narrated very differently, with different significances, by different pandits. According to their turn of mind, if I may say so, some who were very very... (Nolini) Valmiki. Yes, and this has not changed so much. (Nolini) Not as much as the other. Not so much as the Mahabharata. But there are differences. There is one tradition which says that Ravana died deliberately, that it was deliberately he chose the role of the Asura and that he died willingly in order to shorten his "stay" outside the Divine. He dissolved into Rama when he died, saying ...
... Only... those who understand do not understand well! because they understand in the old way. Do you remember these aphorisms?... There is one where he says: "If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana..." and he explains why. It is in that series. 1 ( Silence ) There is a practical problem there: it is clear there are some movements which one would like to eliminate, because one finds... and the Giant. "The old writings call the Titans the elder gods. So they still are, nor is any god entirely divine unless there is hidden in him also a Titan. "If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu." Thoughts and Aphorisms , Cent. Vol. 17, pp. 106-07 × "For ...
... right but also tread the path of virtue. Indeed, having heard the dialogue of the two, we long to hear it (again and again)." (3) Then the hosts of Rsis for their part, who longed for the death of Ravana, hastily addressed with one voice the following exhortation to Bharata, a tiger among princes: — (4) "0 prince of high birth, endowed with exceptional intelligence, distinguished by a noble conduct... whose throats were choked with tears through agony, could not even speak to him. Greeting all his mothers, the celebrated Śrī Rāma too re-entered his hut weeping. (31) Page 151 Ravana adducts Sita after sending Marica in the guise of a golden deer to lure Rama Laksmana away Guler, 1775/80, Museum Reitberg, Zurich Sri Rama asking ...
... that is large and deep. And, as you know, Madhusudan was nothing in that respect. NIRODBARAN: And yet he was by his genius able to create sympathy in us for Ravana and not Rama. Isn't this striking? SRI AUROBINDO: But even then his Ravana is insignificant as compared to the tremendous personality in Valmiki's Ramayana. Or see the character of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost. And Rama's character ...
... What about Madhusudan's Bengali work, "The Slaying of Meghnad"? That surely has a lot of creativeness. SRI AUROBINDO: A poor creation. What sort of Ravana has he created? It is an outline of an idealised non Rakshasic Rakshasa, He makes Ravana weep profusely. That is highly amusing. Bengalis at one time were very fond of weeping. I think it was Romesh Dutt who translated the story of Savitri from ...
... Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? Grovelling in filthy discomfort, Caliban equates his Setebos with monumental discomfort and views the world as the projection of his sneezing! Ravana, Lord of Lanka, is less crude but not less self-centred and his conception of God is that of a mighty Rakshasa: O Rakshasa Almighty, look on me, Ravan, the lord of all Thy Rakshasas... able, comes to Vyasa "our great original sage". As directed by the sage, Kuthumi does Hatha Yoga and Raja Yoga, each for three days: not the Yogas of our degenerate Kali Age, but the Hatha Yoga of Ravana, Dhruva and of the old Lemurian Kings, and the Raja Yoga of Chakravarti Bali and of the old Atlantic Kings. Directed now by Vyasa to seek out Krishna, make total surrender to Him and then manifest ...
... endowed with shapely limbs: — (12) "That which ought to be done by a man to wipe out an insult has been accomplished by me by killing Ravana seeking (as I did) to redeem my honour. (13) Though difficult to approach for the world of mortals (for fear of Ravana) you have been won (back) by me (whose mind stands purified by austerity) in the same way as the southern quarter, which was difficult to... the force of the flaming effulgence of her purity, so that Ravana could have never transgressed the limits just as even the immense and vast ocean can never transgress its bounds. (16) Even then I had to bear the agony of the entry of Sīta into the fire, since Truth is my only resort, and I had to convince all the three worlds. (17) Ravana, the embodiment of wickedness, was incapable of even thinking... witnessed, today my exertion has become fruitful, today I have fulfilled my vow and today I am the master of myself once more. (4) You who were left alone were abducted by the demon of vitiated mind (Ravana); this dastardly act, aided by Providence, was avenged by my human prowess. (5) I would have been adjudged petty minded even though possessed of Qreat might, if the force of that might was not used ...
... hero. He braved a danger that was greater than the danger of death: he braved the fury of a king and gave him the wise advice that others dared not voice. The demon-king of Lanka was Ravana of the Ten Heads. Ravana had stolen lady Sita away from her husband and carried her off in his chariot to his palace on the island of Lanka. Sumptuous was the palace and delightful the garden in which he ... noble Lakshman, his brother, and a great army of heroes to the rescue of the prisoner. When the demon Ravana learnt of the arrival of Rama, he trembled with fear. The advice he received was of two kinds. A crowd of courtiers thronged around his throne saying: "All is well; have no fear, O Ravana. Gods and demons you have conquered: you will have no difficulty in conquering Rama and his companions... "Wretch!" cried Ravana. "You too are one of my enemies. Speak no more senseless words to me. Talk to the hermits in the woods but not to one who has been victorious over all the enemies he has fought." And as he shouted he kicked his brave brother Vibhishan. So, with a heavy heart, his brother rose and left the king's house. Knowing no fear, he had spoken frankly to Ravana; and since the ...
... impulse was strong in Valmekie. The very dimensions of his poetical canvas, the audacity and occasional recklessness of his conceptions, the gust with which he fills in the gigantic outlines of his Ravana are the essence of Titanism; his genius was so universal & Protean that no single element of it can be said to predominate, yet this tendency towards the enormous enters perhaps as largely into it... matter-of-fact ogres, but they do not exhale the breath of midnight and terror like Valmekie's demons nor the spirit of world-shaking anarchy like Valmekie's giants. This poet could never have conceived Ravana. He had neither unconscious sympathy nor a sufficient force of abhorrence to inspire him. The passions of Duryodhana though presented with great force of antipathetic insight, are human and limited... his particular work this was a real advantage. Valmekie has drawn for us both the divine and anarchic in extraordinary proportions; an Akbar or a Napoleon might find his spiritual kindred in Rama or Ravana; but with more ordinary beings such figures impress the sense of the sublime principally and do not dwell with them as daily acquaintances. It was left for Vyasa to create epically the human divine ...
... please it. So are we at once spectator and actor; and yet because we know the whole to be merely an illusion of apparent actions, because we know that Rama is not really killing Ravana, nor Ravana being killed, for Ravana lives as much after the supposed death as before, so are we neither spectator nor actor, but the Self only and all we see nothing but visions of the Self. The Karmamargin therefore... and destroyer. You are He; only for your own amusement you have imagined yourself limited to a particular body for the purposes of the play, just as an actor imagines himself to be Dushyanta, Rama or Ravana. The actor has lost himself in the play and for a moment thinks that he is what he is acting; he has forgotten that he is really not Dushyanta or Rama, but Devadatta who has played & will yet play ...
... Then with a dreadful voice, Ravana the king of Lanka cried: "Today, O Rama, this war will come to an end unless you save yourself by running away from the battlefield. Today, wretch, I shall give you over to death. It is with Ravana that you must fight." Rama smiled calmly. He knew that Ravana's doom was near and he said: "Yes, I have heard of all your might, O Ravana, but now I want to see as... feel contempt for vain people who not only admire themselves too much, but boast. No one likes a braggart; even braggarts despise braggarts. Page 256 We are not surprised to learn that Ravana the terrible foe of Rama, whose wife Sita he had stolen away, was a braggart; it was quite natural for such a monster. In the last great battle between Rama and the demons of Lanka, the glorious ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8 Ravana Vanquished TITANS, assembled here, the race supreme on this earthly globe! A city supreme bejewelled in this sea-girt isle On a stony crest they shall set up in their own might, Fearless defying the King of the gods, in disregard of the world. But listen! What is this rumour... his spell of darkness Upon the intelligence of the Rakshasas and stole away The Fair Royal Deity of Lanka. But we are conquered by the arms of Rama, Men have trampled upon the city of Ravana! Smile happily, O vanquished gods now in heaven, There is no fear of punishment for you any more. Smile, O Indra, in happiness, the lord of the gods is now free from slavery. I do... take pride in this victory That should be a shame for you. Luminous is the city of Heaven, eternal Spring is there, Enjoy the garden of Paradise there through the mortal's grace. Ravana, enemy of the gods, is vanquished at the hands of a human being. Page 184 Vanquished! Listen! O listen! on the mighty rock afar, The fierce echo hears and laughs at the word: ...
... successive stages towards the Divine. It was not at all Rama's business to establish the spiritual stage of that evolution—so he did not at all concern himself with that. His business was to destroy Ravana and to establish the Ramarajya—in other words, to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattwic civilised human being who governs his life by the reason, the finer emotions,... individual in order to make the world safe for the spirit of social order. Finally/ it was Rama's business to make the world safe for the ideal of the sattwic human being by destroying the sovereignty of Ravana, the Rāksasa menace. All this he did with such a divine afflatus in his personality and action that his figure has been stamped for more than two millenniums on the mind of Indian culture, and what... dites-vous ? [What do you say?] Well, I thought I had finished with Rama who after all belong to the past. The māyāmrga was an absolute necessity for removing Rama from the Ashram, otherwise Ravana could not have been able to carry Sita off, so the Divine or Valmiki (to whichever you like to give the credit of the incident) arranged it in that way (a very poetic way, you must admit) and the ...
... intellectual Aham, but the subordination is at Page 1331 first only a self-disciplining for a more intelligently victorious selfindulgence, like the tapasya of Ravana. This type evolved is fixed in the character of Ravana and takes possession of its field in the Manwantara of the seventh Manu, Vaivasvata. In that Manwantara it evolves into the Asuro-Rakshasa in which the intellectual ego &... & the emotional, sensational ego enter into an equal copartnership for the grand enthronement & fulfilment of the human ahankara. As the type of the sensational & emotional Rakshasa-Asura is Ravana, so the type of the more mightily balanced Asura Rakshasa of the Asura type is Hiranyakashipu. In the eighth Manwantara this Asura Rakshasa evolves into the pure Asura who serves his intellectual ego & ...
... ng?—Disappear where? You know the story of the Ramayana. What did Ravana choose? You know that? Very well, this is what is called choosing to disappear: that is to say, he has no longer any individuality. What happened to Ravana after his death we are not told. We are not told? To me it has been told. It is said that Ravana chose to disappear into the Supreme, and that he was completely dissolved ...
... Titans the elder gods. So they still are; nor is any god entirely divine unless there is hidden in him also a Titan." 223—"If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu." (Rama is a divine incarnation, whereas Ravana is the incarnation of a demon.) Mother gave this comment on the last of these Aphorisms: "It means that gentleness without strength and goodness without power... to intelligence. Only... those who understand don't understand right! Because they understand below. Do you remember those Aphorisms ?... In one he says, "If I can't be Rama, then I want to be Ravana..." and he explains why It's that series. 1 ( silence ) I have the name of A.R.'s "master." I told you he has a guru .... ( Mother looks for a scrap of paper ) "Sitaram Omkarnath." ...
... without a reference to her the Rāmāyana cannot even be conceived of. As is evident from the poet's description in Canto XIII, Rama's romanticism is manifested after the battle with his great foe, Ravana, is over, and he is on his way back to Ayodhyā in Puspaka (the aerial car) along with Sītā. We find, in Kālidāsa's description, Rāma, as being endowed with an aesthetic and poetic appreciation of harmony... before which Rāvana must have been flabbergasted in his encounter with her, which Kālidāsa has referred to in Raghuvamśam XIII.78, with great dexterity only in half a stanza in his inimitable style. Ravana tries to exert pressure on her in different ways. He even goes to the extent of speaking about svadharma (the principle of the Rāksasas) in justification of his most heinous crime of abduction as... conduct) and is therefore not worthy of being practised. Mark her words: Sādhu dharmamaveksasva sādhu sādhuvratam cara, Yathā tava tathānyesām raksya dāra niśācara. 33 You, 0 Ravana, should follow the principles of good conduct, by protecting women of other races too as much as you are protective of women of your race. What is most important for Sītā is dharma that respects ...
... humbled. What is your standing? You must have read in history what happened to Ravana. What lesson have you learnt from his character? Or did you read through it casually? Simply passing an examination is nothing, the main thing is the development of your brains. You must understand the significance of what you read. Ravana was the lord of the earth. An empire such as his is called chakravarty. These... These days the British have a vast empire. But we cannot call it chakravarty. Several nations of the world refuse to acknowledge the supremacy of the British. They are absolutely independent. But Ravana was a chakravarty raja. All the kings of the world paid him tribute. The greatest among the gods were like his slaves. The gods of fire and water were also his servants. But what was his end? His ...
... successive stages towards the Divine. It was not at all Rama's business to establish the spiritual stage of that evolution—so he did not at all concern himself with that. His business was to destroy Ravana and to establish the Ramarajya—in other words, to fix for the future the possibility of an order proper to the sattwic civilised human being who governs his life by the reason, the finer emotions,... individual in order to make the world safe for the spirit of social order. Finally it was Rama's business to make the world safe for the ideal of the sattwic human being by destroying the sovereignty of Ravana, the Rakshasa menace. All this he did with such a divine afflatus in his personality and action that his figure has been stamped for more than two millenniums on the mind of Indian culture and what ...
... nature as contrary to it. It is the other way round. 3) Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Shishupala were the greatest devotees of the Divine because they were capable of hostility to the Divine and so were liberated in a few lives—compared with them the great Rishis and Bhaktas were very poor spiritual vessels. I am aware of the paradox about Ravana in the Purana, but let me point out that these Asuras and ...
... tell you, the joyous spirit bubbles up like water from a beautiful spring. The person it tells of had nothing to do with the desire for custom or gain: he was the famed and glorious Rama. Rama slew Ravana the ten-headed and twenty-armed demon-king. I have already told you the beginning of the story. It had been the most terrible of all battles. Thousands of monkeys and bears had been killed in the service... all stood like a great army awaiting orders. Glorious Rama whose manner remained simple and calm after the victory, looked kindly upon his faithful friends. Then Vibhishan, who was to succeed Ravana on the throne, had a chariot-load of jewels and rich robes brought for the warriors who had fought so valiantly. "Listen, friend Vibhishan," said Rama, "rise high in the air and scatter your gifts ...
... Giant. 223—The old writings call the Titans the elder gods. So they still are; nor is any god entirely divine unless there is hidden in him also a Titan. 224—If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu. 1 This means that sweetness without strength and goodness without power are incomplete and cannot totally express the Divine. I could say in keeping... more effective than those of an innocent angel. 11 December 1969 × Rama was an avatar or incarnation of Vishnu; Ravana was a Titan (Asura), mortal enemy of Rama. ...
... school children and greatly appreciated. Archaeologists are trying to make out "Lanka" to have been a small patch of ground loopedc Page 205 round by a stream in Madhya Pradesh, and Ravana a Gond aboriginal who took away the wife of an Aryan princeling. The traditional Lanka - Ceylon - is said to be a late fiction. A crude folk-tale is made out to be the nucleus of the epic. Although... is the animal mind, on the other the titan aberration and in between is the natural man, his line of development threatened - most by the well-equipped titanism represented by the ingenious powerful Ravana, king of a sort of Indian Atlantis in the form of an insular land-mass where now Sri Lanka is situated. Rama Dasarathi is the Avatar of the Dharmic Mind fighting to establish this psychological level ...
... under compulsion, his renunciation of his right to Ayodhya's throne, his love for his wife, Sita, who chose to accompany Sri Rama in exile, her abduction by the demon king Ravana, his (Sri Rama's) war with and destruction of Ravana and eventual rescue of Sita, and his return with Sita to Ayodhya, where he was coronated these are the main events of the major part of the story of Ramayana. Subsequently ...
... done, the fight with Ravana and the rescue of Sita, is all deception in order to set an example? Then the Ramayana and Rama lose all their value. And his lamentation for Sita is also a pretension? Does an Avatar resort to deception in order to teach people? PURANI: What about Sita's Agniparisha? 1 BECHARLAL: That was real, they say. But the Sita that was stolen by Ravana was not the real Sita ...
... nature as contrary to it. It is the other way round. 3)Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Sishupala were the greatest devotees of the Divine because they were capable of hostility to the Divine and so were liberated in a few lives — compared with them the great Rishis and Bhaktas were very poor spiritual vessels. I am aware of the paradox about Ravana in the Purana, Page 155 but let me point out ...
... deals with experiences and realities that exceed the bounds of ordinary earthly life. Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear are the highlights of Shakespearae's creation. Valmiki's heroes and heroine are Rama, Ravana and Sita. The characters depicted by Shakespeare are men as men are or would be. But even the human characters of Valmiki contain something of the super-human, they overflow the bounds of humanity... the character of Rama which is not at all complex can yet hardly be adequately measured. There is a mystic vastness behind the character which can never be classed with human traits. Indeed, Rama and Ravana both are two aspects of the same Infinite. Even the drama of their earthly life is not merely founded on human qualities. The East wants to explore the Infinite, while the West wants to delve into ...
... or rudimentary courage of self-interest, there is the courage of gallantry in rushing to another's help, and there is the moral courage of standing up to arbitrary power, as Vibhishana reprimands Ravana for the evil done to Sita. There are times that ask for cool orderly courage, as when a ship is about to sink, but at other times what is needed may very well be intrepid or reckless courage, or even... in the presence of the Divine. Where that ultimate sovereignty is present, all other persons and potentates must lose their power, and falsehood and hypocrisy lose their occupation. At the behest of Ravana the Rakshasa Lord of Falsehood, a thousand phantom Ramas and Lakshmanas appear on the battlefield to confuse the Vanara hosts led by Hanuman, but the real Rama's mighty arrow attacks the phantoms and ...
... Krishna, delivered the oppressed Pandavas and destroyed the unjust Kauravas. A similar account is given of the descent of the previous Vishnu Avatars, of Rama to destroy the unrighteous oppression of Ravana, of Parashurama to destroy the unrighteous license of the military and princely caste, the Kshatriyas, of the dwarf Vamana to destroy the rule of the Titan Bali. But obviously the purely practical ...
... birth of something new always creates a period of confusion and bewilderment. Krishna was on Earth at the time of the Mahabharata war ; before him, the Avatar Rama had to do battle with the asuric Ravana of Lanka and his legions; around the Mediterranean and especially in the Middle East the time of Christ was a whirlpool of races, cultures, religions and sects. Every Avatar had a worldwide influence ...
... times of crisis. The crisis necessitates the coming of the Avatar, as well as his coming causes the crisis. Rama, the Avatar of the rational mind, fought his great battle with the ten-headed asura Ravana, king of Lanka. 17 Krishna incarnated at the time of the Mahabharata war, when the world of the peoples who participated in that war was in peril of perdition because of the Kauravas. The Buddha ...
... On Thoughts and Aphorisms Aphorism - 509, 510, 511, 512 509—Has thy effort succeeded, O thou Titan? Dost thou sit, like Ravana and Hiranyakashipou, 1 served by the gods and the world's master? But that which thy soul was really hunting after, has escaped from thee. 510—Ravana's mind thought it was hungering after universal sovereignty ...
... artificiality in rules meant for technical perfection. The Raghuvarhśa sings of the great solar race of Ikśvāku in which Visnu was pleased to become incarnate as Rāmā, that he may destroy the demon Ravana and free the gods and men from his tyranny. 17 It is worth noting in this connection that "the list of kings given by Kālidāsa is in general agreement with the one found in the Visnupurāna ...
... and the ultimate victory. Since Death is viewed here as Evil, Ignorance and Darkness and Savitri as Light, Love and Goodness, the struggle between them is more in the nature of the struggle between Ravana and Rama in the Ramayana for the rescue of Sita, or between the Kauravas and the Pandavas in the Mahabharata for the righting of a wrong. In the 'legend' Savitri solves her own personal ...
... in the Divine. This truth is to be Page 91 realised in life. To let him reveal himself in his own truth is our sadhana, our way. That is why for us "All life is Yoga." Even Ravana is destroyed not simply to be destroyed but to become an adorer of Rama. To sacrifice does not merely mean to slay but to dedicate. Published August 1981 Page 92 ...
... Parvati, 152, 154 Pondicherry , 11n., 12 Pulastya, 149 RADHA, 307 Ramakrishna, 106 Ramprasad, 159-61 Raoutu,283 Ravana, 148 Reminiscences, 11 Richard, King, 59 Roy, Dilip, 189 Rudras, the, 144-5 SAGAR, 56 St. Helena , 22 Saraha, 273, ...
... all bondage, is that except in the highest condition, many false experiences can also masquerade as true. For instance, such a man gets tremendous power and generally has an ego-centric nature. Even Ravana was a great yogi. One having a great control over the vital plane only is generally known as a Rakshasa, The Asura controls his mind and his vital being. There is a great possibility of committing ...
... that there should be no moral standard. Humanity requires a certain standard. It helps it's progress. But from the spiritual point of view, that may also be necessary. Even the Asuras have a place. Ravana had one. As they say, it takes all sorts to make a world. But again, all this does not mean that one should not recognise other planes. There is the vital plane whose law is force and success. If ...
... popular side more than the philosophic. SRI AUROBINDO: Their Tirthankaras seem to have tremendous powers which even the Avatars don't have. The Avatars have to fight all the way with Rakshasas like Ravana. SATYENDRA: Don't the Avatars come for particular purposes and are they not concerned only with them, so that their field of action is limited? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. SATYENDRA: The Tirthankaras ...
... has assumed the form of Parasurama. Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World! In the ten directions, to the ten godheads you have distributed the ten heads of Ravana, as a happy offering desired by them. Lo, the Lord has assumed the form of the Prince of Raghus. Victory to the Lord! Victory to the Master of the World! On ...
... Morley is a victim to this biparita buddhi, as his predecessors were on the eve of the American Revolution, as Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra were on the eve of the battle of Kurukshetra, as Ravana was before the fall of the mighty Rakshasa kingdom, as the ancient tyrants or the French monarchs were before they made way for the emancipation of their section of humanity.... The biparita buddhi ...
... Taraka Rakshasi, killed Subahu and other Rakshasas, but a wounded Marich escaped. Vishwamitra also taught them the use of sophisticated weapons which came in very useful when later they fought with Ravana and his army in Lanka. Page 216 Sri Aurobindo's situation was no different. Except that in each age the disrupting forces put on a different mask. It had become so bothersome that ...
... interchangeable. The great Parasurama, a Brahmin by birth, had no hesitation in using his axe in an effort to exterminate the Kshatriyas. Rama, a Kshatriya prince of the Solar dynasty, killed in battle Ravana, the king of Lanka, who was a Brahmin by birth. The boys and young men who were brought up in the old ashramas were trained in many things belonging to life, including the use of arms. Knowledge, the ...
... the arch-plotter of revolution and the chief danger to the Empire. The same Bipin Chandra is now a peaceful and unsuspected journalist and lecturer in London acquitted, we hope, of all wish to be the Ravana destined to Page 146 shake the British Kailas. But Anglo-India needs a bogeyman and by a few letters to the Times Mr. Krishnavarma has leaped into that eminent but unenviable position ...
... strength which has no office left but selfishness and self-aggrandisement? How long will it be before it is withdrawn as the strength of Arjuna was withdrawn when Krishna went from him; as the strength of Ravana was withdrawn when Rama beheld the Power of God protecting the Rakshasa in her arms, and prayed to the Mother? ...
... Swarajya. Mind that has mastered its inferior Page 537 principles without obeying the law of a higher Truth, is figured for us in epos and Puran as the victorious Titan, Hiranyakashipu or Ravana,—victorious but doomed in the end to a sudden successful revolt of the lower principles or to direct destruction by Power descending from on high because the mastery it holds is artificial, mechanical ...
... whatever falsehood and stammering, its secret sense that it is the Lord of the universe, yet must it deny & transform itself, if it is to effect its grandiose object. The mighty Asura, Hiranyakashipu or Ravana, Attila, Alexander, Napoleon or Jenghiz, reaching out to possess the whole world physically as the not-self, is the Godhead in man aiming at self-realisation, but a godhead blind and misdirected. The ...
... destroyed by Him. Jaya and Vijaya, in order to return to Vaikunth quickly, chose the latter alternative and opposed the Lord on the earthly battlefields in three incarnations as Hiranyaksha-Hiranyakashipu, Ravana-Kumbhakarna and Shishupala-Dantavaktra. My immature mind with its fertile imagination, often wondered whether the players who opposed the Mother on the tennis court would have a quicker spiritual ...
... anarchic and almost amorphous forces of superhuman egoism and self-will and exultant violence." These two ideals and powers of the mental nature are brought into conflict in the embodiments of Rama and Ravana, and led to a decisive issue of victory of the ideal man over Rakshasa. The Mahabharata proceeds from a "strong and quick intelligence and a great and straight vital force and single-minded ...
... Lover, even Antagonist. When on the battlefield Arjuna witnessed in the Avatar the aspect of the Dreadful Cosmic Spirit, he repented and spoke of the casualness with which he had behaved with him;* Ravana wished to merge into the Supreme by following the Path of Enmity; Kutsa attained such likeness with Indra that he was taken by him to his home; the help of heroic kings as colleagues was sought by ...
... incarnates, yuge yuge , to create the possibility of an evolutionary step forwards and to do battle with the Forces who oppose his action with all their terrific, egoistic powers. Sri Rama had to fight Ravana at the time of the mentalization of humanity; Sri Krishna led the fight of the Mahabharata war, supporting with his physical presence and his spiritual Power the Pandavas against the ill-intentioned ...
... Prashnottor [Questions and Answers]. 45. mayamrga: a magical golden deer which enticed Sita in the Ramayana. Sita requests Rama to catch the deer for her and in his absence, she is abducted by Ravana. 46. Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are the three gunas (qualities or modes) of everything in the nature. Sattva is the mode of Page 393 light and poise and peace. Rajas is the ...
... happen at the moment to be engaged. The actor in moments of great intensity forgets that he is an actor and becomes the part that he is playing on the stage; not that he really thinks himself Rama or Ravana, but that he identifies himself for the time being with the form of character and action which the name represents and so completely as to forget the real man who is playing it. So the poet forgets ...
... himself in indifference and misusing the formal terms of the knowledge to say, "I have no wife, no enemy, no desire; these are illusions of the senses; let me cultivate the Brahman-knowledge and let Ravana do what he will with the daughter of Janaka"? The criterion is within, as the Gita insists. It is to have the soul free from craving and attachment, but free from the attachment to inaction as well ...
... ’s mother; of Draupadi at Virat’s court. मालेयः florist. मालयः relating to garland. माल्यं garland; flower. माल्यवत् wreathed; name of a mountain; maternal uncle of Ravana. मालिन्यं foulness; affliction. मालुः a creeper; woman. मालुधानः a kind of snake. मालूरः bel-tree; kapittha tree. मालेया large cardamom. माल्लः a mixed ...
... Krishna, delivered the oppressed Pandavas and destroyed the unjust Kauravas. A similar account is given of the descent of the previous Vishnu avatars, of Rama to destroy the unrighteous oppression of Ravana, of Parashurama to destroy the unrighteous license of the military and princely caste, the Kshatriyas, of the dwarf Vamana to destroy the rule of the Titan Bali. But obviously the purely practical ...
... 222) The old writings call the Titans the elder gods. So they still are; nor is any god entirely divine unless there is hidden in him also a Titan. 223) If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu. 224) Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice always, but for the sake of God and humanity, not for the sake of sacrifice. 225) Selfishness kills the soul; destroy ...
... themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind those unreal clouds God laughing at us. 508) Has thy effort succeeded, O thou Titan? Dost thou sit, like Ravana and Hiranyakashipou, served by the gods and the Page 494 world's master? But that which thy soul was really hunting after, has escaped from thee. 509) Ravana's mind thought it was hungering ...
... grandeur and nobility are kindred but not interchangeable terms. One can be noble without reaching grandeur—one can be grand without the subtle quality of nobility. Zeus Olympius is grand and noble; Ravana or Briareus with the thousand arms is grand without being noble. Lear going mad in the storm is grand, but too vehement and disordered to be noble. I think the essential difference between the epic ...
... him the realization of mental silence and Nirvana. × Rama, the divine Avatar who killed the demon Ravana with the help of Hanuman and the other monkeys. × A prison; a place where everything is regimented ...
... Haihayas, from which Sagara delivered the land and restored peace... There is no later similar period of calamity that suggests itself as a change of age, but tradition treats Rāma's destruction of Ravana and the Rāksasas of the Dekhan and Ceylon as an epoch of signal vengeance upon evil foes." Pargiter's table of genealogies indicates that the three periods of destruction divide the whole ...
... century A.D.) has stated that out of the archetypal work of Brahma Manu prepared his treatise on Dharma, Brhaspati on Artha and Nandin on Kama. In his Pratima Nātaka at one place (Act V) Bhāsa makes Ravana enumerate the most important works on the various sciences including the Mānava Dharmaśāstra or the Manusmrti which the king of demons had studied. There, on the science of polity reference is ...
... 1993. "Rama's moral grandeur", says Brockington, "comes from his willing submission to the apparently arbitrary requirement of his exile which leads him ultimately to his greatest deed, the killing of Ravana". Also, "Thus, the reason for the story's (Rāmāyana's) continuing popularity is above all the ethical emphasis on the figure of righteous Rama." 27.R.D. Karmarkar, op. cit, Cantos I-V, pp. xxi ...
... NIRODBARAN: Sometimes it seems that Shiva favours one side and Parvati the opposite one. Madhusudan has depicted it in Meghnad, his epic poem. SRI AUROBINDO: Madhusudan had a sympathy for Ravana Then Purani read out from a Hindi paper an article by some Arya Samajist attacking Ramana Maharshi, and also Agarwal—that is, one of our group—who had held a joint meditation in Gurukul. The Arya ...
... success in fulfilling the difficult mission, as there are no clues available to carry out the search. While all were in a state of despondency Sampati, the elder brother of Jayatu who was killed by Ravana, approaches them for his own reasons. But soon he understands the nature of the task they are engaged in. Seeing their helpless plight Sampati tells them that he could easily see the presence of Sita ...
... experience brief paralysis. The cause of narcolepsy is not understood by conventional science, though world literature has several vivid victims of this disorder, from Kumbhakarna, the giant brother of Ravana in the Ramayana, to Rip Van Winkle. While the narcoleptic cannot stay awake, the insomniac cannot fall asleep. Among the commonest reasons for insomnia are anxiety and depression. Physical ailments ...
... reality and appearances. It relies, therefore, on the power of thought, Page 33 vic ā ra and on the power of discrimination, viveka. Four steps of the method of Jnana yoga are: (i) ś ravana, — listening to the Word which symbolises or indicates the truth that has been discovered by those who have trodden the path, (ii) manana, — reflection, discriminative conceptualisation in which ...
... the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing ...
... Puranas , the, 46 Pyramid, the, 200 Pythagoras, 180 RACINE, 210 Raghus, the, 214 Rakshasas, 46 Rama, 58 Ramakrishna, 116, 128, 141, 160, 243, 247,383 Raphael, 210 Ravana, 58 Ravel, 427 Red Sea, 324 Ribhus, the, 208 Rome, 199,421 Rudra, 160, 163, 208 Russell, Bertrand, 56 Russo-Japanese War, 213 SAHARA,324 St. Augustine, 73 St. Francis ...
... the message of the universal muse and not exclusively its own parochial note. The genius of Bengal secured a place in the wide world overpassing the length and breadth of Bengal. ¹ The son of Ravana. Page 50 And Bengali poetry reached that fourth stage or the highest status. Nevertheless, it may be asked if there has been the acme of literary creation that exceeds even the best ...
... anarchic and almost amorphous forces of superhuman egoism and self-will and exultant violence". These two ideals and powers of the mental nature are brought into conflict in the embodiments of Rama and Ravana, and led to a decisive issue of victory of the ideal man over Rakshasa. Page 37 The Mahābhārata proceeds from a "strong and quick intelligence and a great and straight vital ...
... but in actual play (Lila) it consents to limitations that are self-imposed. It has also to pay the price in the play of forces. Otherwise you can argue that Rama willed that Sita may be taken away by Ravana! Christ knew that he had to be crucified for the work and yet something in him wished it may be otherwise. So, it is not all my "will"; it is the Karma of France and England also that is working ...
... a tells many stories to Prince Yudhishtira, partly to instruct him and largely to console him. One of the tales so narrated covers the story of Rama, his exile, the abduction of his wife, Sita, by Ravana, the expedition against the demon-king, and the final rescue of Sita—all this is also Page 239 the subject of Valmiki's great epic, the Ramayana. Even as Rama had been able ...
... poetry will feel the force, unless he has a prejudice. Disciple : What about Meghnād Vadha of Madhusudan? Has it not creativeness? Sri Aurobindo : Poor creation : what sort of Ravana has he created? It is an outline of an idealised non-rakshasic Rakshasa! Bengalis in those days were very fond of weeping. I think it was Romesh Dutt who translated "Savitri'' from the Mahabharata ...
... the same truth. Disciple : What is then the truth in the Puranic idea of worshipping God through vaira bhava – feeling of "opposition", or hostility? Sri Aurobindo : In the case of Ravana, and also of Hiranya Kashipu, they were human beings who became Asuras and chose the path of opposition to the Divine. It is really a fall and it shows that the course of evolution for man is not to ...
... of the Supermind? Sri Aurobindo : Oh yes. There are Asuric forces that are very calm. Do you think that the Asura is a fool ? Sometimes, Tapasya is his chief weapon. Hiranya Kashipu and Ravana were great Tapaswis. Doing good to humanity is one of the favourite weapons of the Asura. Of course, he seeks to do it in his own Asuric way. The Asuri Maya can take up any garb : even the pursuit ...
... friends erred by imagining themselves in the righteous role of Vibhishana and the other allies of Rama, and erred even more by taking the Tilaks, Bepin Pals and Aurobindos to be of the tribe of Ravana". 16 Like his countrymen, Sri Aurobindo too did not fail to recognise the finer elements in Gokhale's mind and character; he actually described the Poona leader in the Kumartuli speech as ...
... connection. The swarthy woman, Night; the efflorescent damsel, Dawn; and, mediating between them, Savitri, who is human as well as divine. Night is like Lankini, the demoness-deity of Ravana's Lanka. It is next to impossible to detect life in any form or cultivate consciousness of any kind in this unintelligible chaos. This woman clad in funereal robes is the denial of all hopes—or so it ...
... luminaries of the University that Tagore conceptualized in Santiniketan. Meghnad Badh: by Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873). It is an epic poem in Bengali, taken from the Ramayana, on how Ravana's son Meghanad was killed. Here are the lines from Robert Browning's (1812-1889) How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. "\ turned in my saddle and made its ...
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.