Lord Sri Ram is Lord Krishna. The Lord performed Avatar as Ram, Mother Sita as Radharani and Laxman as Balaram. Satrughna and Bharat are Sankha and Chakra respectively. Mahaprabhu was born as Ram in the traditional Raghubansha family. The administration of Maharaj Dasharatha was of high standard. He married 360 girls at that time, called as his Ranis. Among them Koushalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra were most important. He organised a ‘Parastya Yajna’ for having sons and the three queens became pregnant and gave birth to four sons. Ram was born to Koushalya.
 
Lord Ram performed his noble deed from childhood, recovering Ahalya from a stone and killing demons who were tormenting Sadhus in their ashrams. When the four Rajkumaras grew young, Guru Basistha, taking permission from Dasharatha, took them to participate in a Soyamber festival of Sita, the daughter of King Janak. The King had kept a condition that he would marry off his daughter to only that person who could break the Shiva Dhanu in the Soyamber festival. Except Ram, nobody was able to break the Dhanu. Accordingly Ram married Devi Sita.
 
Maharaj Dasharatha proposed to Kulaguru Basishtha to perform Abhisekh of Jubaraj Ram. All became very happy and Kulaguru Basistha suggested the auspicious day for it. Queen Kaikei’s maid Manthara, however, colluded with the queen to make her son Bharat the Yubaraj instead of Ram. Dasharatha had promised Kaikei to fulfil her three wishes over a past incident when she had impressed him by her act. Manthara instigated her to make Dasharatha fulfil her wishes now and demand her son to be the Yabaraj as one of her wishes. And she did so.
 
It was a bolt from the blue for King Dasharatha who had no other way than to concede to the demand of Kaikeyi to coronate Bharat in place of Ram and send Ram to 14 years of exile to forests. When Bharat got the news, he was awestruck and came rushing into the palace and made every effort to bring back Ram from forests. In the meantime, Ram, Sita and Laxman had already gone inside forests respecting the words of father Dasharatha. Ram, however, did not return. He stuck to the ‘Pitrusatya.’
 
Lord Ram killed many demons who had wreaked havoc in the forests and made the lives of the saints and seers miserable. Demon king Ravan came to the hut of Lord Ram and Sita when Lord Ram was lured into poaching a golden deer who was actually a demon in disguise. Ravan too came in the disguise of a seer and approached Maa Sita for a morsel of food. He managed to abduct Sita who was alone and kept her in captivity in the Ashok Van in his kingdom Lanka and kept insisting her to marry him. But Maa Sita was a devout wife, rock-solid and unyielding.
 
Later, Lord Ram with help of an army of monkeys, especially His supreme Bhakt Hanuman, fought with Ravan. Before that He built a bridge over the sea to reach Lanka. One after another, all the army generals of Ravan were killed and finally, the 10-headed Ravan was killed and Lanka was conquered. Maa Sita was freed and Bibhisan, a brother of Ravan and an ally of Lord Ram was made the king of Lanka. After completion of 14 years, the trio returned back to Ayodhya and the same tithi is observed as Vijaya Dasharni.
 
Here a question arises is why various opera parties perform Ram Leela and people observe Ram Navami with so much pomp? The answer is Mahaprabhu Sri Ram Chandra is the Marjyada Purusha. He performed his best of duties as a son, as a father, as a brother, as a husband and as a king. If people toe His line and follow His noble ideals, they will create a healthy and prosperous society.
 
(Das is State PRO, ISKOCN, Bhubaneswar; Mob No. 91320901990)