Valmiki

 

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I have always been fascinated by poets and music composers. What would it take to just create something out of nothing? Today poets have so many guidelines and other poems for references. But the person I am going to talk today was the first ever poet in the entire world. Through his poems he gave a consciousness for this age long civilization of sanatan dharam. So just how did he create this? Let us see…

Unlike Vyasa, Valmiki did not write anything about his own life except for the instances where he appears in Ramayana. However, the story of Valmiki that is popular can be found in the Padma Purana,and the story goes like this.

Ratnakar was a hunter and used to make a living out of hunting. When his earnings weren’t enough to take care of his family, he takes up robbery. One day the Saptarishi were passing through the jungle. There is another version that says it was Narad Muni. However, we are going to stick to the Padma Purana which says it was the Saptarishi. So looking at them pass through the he threatened to kill them if they wouldn’t give up their possessions. When the sages questions him about his cruel behaviour towards them, he answers saying that he was only doing his dharmic duty of taking care of his family. The sages having realized the dacoits ignorance asked him if it was his family who asked him to rob? Ratnakar says “no, but they know that this is what I do and so they support me.” In response they asked, you are committing sins by robbing, would they share your sins as well? And that’s what hits Ratnakar. He runs home and asks everyone in his family “will you share my sins? After all I do this for you”. To his utter shock they all denied, and tell him “it is your duty to serve us but the path you take in order to do that is your own decision and so we cannot share your sins.” Similarly, any action that we perform the consequences may be our and ours alone!

Let us continue with what happened to Ratnakar. Having realized the nature of life Ratnakar runs back to the rishi’s and falls at their feet realizing his mistake. The rishi’s then ask him to chant “mara, mara”. Chanting Ram ram Ratnakar did not even realize and anthill being formed around him. When the saptarishi’s came they were impressed by Ratnakar and saw that just through naam japa, Ratnakar had reached the absolute truth. Since Ratnakar emerged out of this anthill – he came to be known s Valmiki.

Valmiki is also known as Adi-kavi. Meaning the first ever poet. What separates a poem from a mere paragraph is the meter or the rhythm, the number of words and sentences put in place to form a particular style of pattern. This in Sanskrit is what we call shloka translating to song from shr meaning hear. And the first ever shloka to eb written was by Valmiki.

One day as he was noticing two birds making love an arrow shot one of the bird. Extremely saddened by the event, he cursed the hunter. This set of words that came from his mouth surprised him. He was saddened that he had uttered a terrible curse. But later lord brahma asks him to use his discovery to write down the entire life of Lord Rama. Valmiki realized that the first verse that has come out of his mouth if rearranged would give a different meaning. The verse goes

 

मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठां त्वमगमः शाश्वतीः समाः ।

यत्क्रौंचमिथुनादेकमवधी काममोहितम् ।।

Want that so beautiful to hear ….

It initially meant as a curse “Oh! hunter! (nishada), by which reason you killed one of the krauncha birds who were in great love, for the same reason, may you not attain glory for many long years!” however, if you read it differently by switching the exclamations it would mean “He! Maanishaadaa or Shreenivaasa! Attain glory for all time to come since you killed the evil one of the krouncha pair” – the evil one being ravana, this turned into a praise of Lord shri Ram! One must understand that this was the first shloka to be uttered, but about rama and not the first shloka of Ramayana.

However, Valmiki had heard the story about a person called Rama from Narad Muni. So with discovery of “shloka” and Lord Brahmas blessing that the events of Rama’s life would be revealed to him, Valmiki set out to write the first ever poem to be ever written – the story of Rama’s life – Ramayana.

Valmiki himself was a part of the events of Ramayana – When Rama, Lakshmana and Sita visit Valmiki ashram during Vanvasa.

That Ramyana which was written at 12000BCE and sung widely by Valmiki’s disciples, is still being recited today in the homes every Hindu Family. Isnt that fascinating! In fact Brahma himself had said that until the mountains and oceans still remain, until mankind exists – Ramayana will be recited over and over – Making us remember the value of Dharma.  

Through the Ramayana, Valmiki wrote down not just the historical events of Ramayana but also the symbolistic meaning of Rama being our own consciousness! It embodies the values of an ideal character – it is a adventure of our human life through its journey – through mistakes, realizations, rediscovery if ones own self and becoming one with the supreme lord!

Valmiki gave a direction and consciousness to this age-old civilization in through Shri Rama!

Veda Vyasa

 

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The most dreadful part of going to school or college is giving exams. Especially some subjects have got some really complicated concepts. Those need to be understood and memorized and written down. The hardest part was also the multiplicity of subjects and hence vastness of knowledge. And think about it, we hardly seem to remember everything after a matter of 3 days or so. But the person I am going to talk about today documented knowledge that has existed for thousands of years just from his memory and also with a profound understanding of the concepts!

1.  Vyasa means the diameter of a circle. The diameter covers the entire range of the circle, form one end to other. Similarly, ved vyasa is said to have written on a wide range of knowledge which we will talk about in a minute. However, the birth name of ved vyasa was Krishna Dvaipanyana – Krishna because he was of a darker complexion and dvaipanyana meaning island-born since he was born in the island of kalpi on the banks of river Yamuna. The interesting story of Ved Vvyasa's birth can be found in the Vishnu purana – Rishi parashara goes seekings the help of a fisherwoman named Ssatyavati. He immediately realizes that it is her destiny to give birth to a legendary boy. And so he pleads to her. And that is how Krishna Dvaipanyana who is later to be known as VedVyasa is born to satyavathi and rishi parashara. As soon as the boy is born Rishi parashara takes the boy along with him to his paatshala to train and teach him theour scriptures. It is also said that the four Sanat kumaras, Narad muni, and Bramha himself mentored ved vyasa. Vyasa had made a vow to help his mother whenever she needs him. Hence later in the Mahabharata, When the dynasty of kuru was deprived of any heirs his mother satyavati calls vyasa who eventually performs his duty and fathers of Drtharashtra, Pandu and vidura who later became the heir of the kuru dynasty, and thus plays an important role in the Mahabharata.

In the later part of his life he is said to have lived along the banks of river saraswati as a teacher where he gathers disciples. Vyasa also fathers a son with the pious woman, Pinjala. This son, Shuka Maharishi, goes on to become the greatest narrator of Srimad Bhagvatham. Later Vyasahe ventures into the deep caves of Himalayas where he first writes the Vedas and compiles them into four, he later goes on to write the 18 major puranas and eventually he writes the Mahabharata,also containing the bhagawat gita,  with Lord Ganesha as his scribe. He is also known as badarayan as it was, he who wrote down the profound knowledge in of the Brahmasutra. Ved Vyasa is considered as one of the 7 Chiranjeevi’s or immortals and said to still be residing in the Himalayas near Badrinath. Across the Hindu population his birthday is celebrated as Gurupoornima every year.

 

2.  Now ved vyasa wrote the vedas, Upanishads, puranas, and the itihasas. But why did he have to write the knowledge in so many texts. Why just not make it one textbook? Well that is the flexibility of our culture and the flexibility that vyasa gave for us to understand the highest truth of our very existence. For one with the high level of intellectual knowledge – the brahmasutras were written which are 555 in number lets call in an advanced course. Then we have the basic course which are the Upanishads which is a part of the vedas, then we have the practical subjects which are a the Vedas. The vedas are profound knowledge that deals with Creation, Self and all of existence. It also includes the various sections on science, warfare, music and other fine arts, rituals, and mantras that have existed since time immemorial. Ved vyasa performed the greatest feat of dividing and compiling the veda into 4 categories namely the Rig, yajur, sama and atharva Veda. The Vedas were written in Sanskrit, also containing the Upanishads that form the essence of all Hindu knowledge. Even if that were complicated for us, then to even simplify it ved vyasa writes the puranas which are in the form of stories.

There are many puranas but the 18 major puranas are said to have been written by Ved vyas. In total, the entire puranas add up to 4 lakh verses. These are all in the form of stories. The greatness of the puranas lies in the fact that it shows that a person can choose different paths to attain the same brahman. The Vishnu puran – if you are a devotee of Vishnu, shiva puran if you are shiva devotee and so on!

Next vyasa narrateds the Mahabharata or Jaya as it was originally called, whose scribe  was lord ganesha himself. As we all know it is the epic story of kauravas and pandavas and the triumph of dharma over adharama! It also contains the Bhagawat Gita that contains practical solutions to every single problem that we encounter in our daily lives. MahabharataIt is also the longest poem that the world has ever seen and the text is so absolutely precise that it contains even the planetary positions, comets, eclipses of various evenets which is still used in research today by various indic scholars. Now let us not forget the core ideals in all these texts are the same but narrated in different ways according to the understanding of different people. SO have you chosen your scripture yet?

ved vyasa did not just leave it there. He preached and trained his disciples to further this knowledge and take it to the people of this world with a hope to make sure that this knowledge is reaches and is sustained for generations. It is said that the descendants of these discipes still do exist and follow the scriptures.

3.  Ved vyasa wrote these scriptures around 5000 years ago, the events of Ramayan and the Mahabharata were over and these profound knowledge were being codified. But do you know what was the then scenario around the rest of the worlds? When ved vyasa was writing these scriptures the African were nomadic tribes wandering forom place to place! The Australian aboriginals lived in caves and drew pictures on the walls! There were no American, British or European civilization as such. The only other developed civilization was Egypt and Chinese to a minimal extent. However, at the same time we were here raging wars, playing politics, a structured civilization and kings and queens leading us! And most of all this profound knowledge was being written in the caves of damauli where vyasa resided and wrote his scriptures.

4.  SO where are the original texts that ved vyasa wrote? It is said that this original text existed in the universities of Nalanda and takshashila and were destroyed along with  The present available book on Mahabharata is the one compiled by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute based on available manuscripts and other commentaries by other saints which was released in the year 1966.

5.  Understanding Ved Vyasa and especially his writings are to understand Sanatan dharma itself. Let us not misunderstand that our Vedas originated with Ved Vyasa. Ved Vyasa was performing the greatest feat of writing down the immense knowledge that had already been existing in our culture since time immemorial, of course with a little bit of his improvisation and personal touch. Our scriptures were not written by one person as a mere set of rules and guidelines that would bind a person into a certain value system or way of living. Rather our scriptures were a reflection of the existing civilization and way of living at the time in which that particular text was written. Now, this civilization worked and existed with the guidance of great rishis, saints and some great kings who existed at various different points of time. So our scriptures are a guide to a way of living and not a mere cult. Thus, by following our scriptures we are not just following a book but also a way of living that was based on the pursuit and understanding of the Truth

6.  Now the question arises – if these texts were a reflection of the society of that time, is it still valid today? That is the greatness of our culture, the values, knowledge and way of living are universal and eternal in nature. This is because the guidelines were given by great seers, persons with futuristic visions. Let me give you an example to prove that.

 

7.   In the Bhagwat Puran, Ved Vyasa describes Kalyug absolutely precisely. Greed and anger take over the world, humans would die at an early age, there would be fake godmen, no one would read the scriptures, dharma would lose its value in people's minds, people would eat without following ethics, only the powerful would win, he even talks about dowry. Can you not relate to these? But can you believe this was written 3000 years ago? If that was the kind of foresight that Ved Vyas and other saints had then, they would have created the guidelines and rules accordingly to the needs of every era! That means all of us too, in Kalyug.