In recent years, it is seen that we are burning the effigy of Ravana with great pomp and show. If we ask why we are burning Ravana, the answer is simple. Ravana is a demon and abducted lord Rama’s wife Maa Sita and kept her in captivity. So, burning and the tearing off his image justified.
lord Rama came to earth for peace and prosperity and made different lilas by killing Ravana, but we are burning the effigy of Ravana in the name of religious practice. lord Rama means an ideal living being. The moot point is if we are so spiteful of Ravana, are we following the path of lord RamaIJ
We know that Ravana has both good and bad qualities but as we are a fault finding person, we are only trying to find out the devil qualities of him. lord Rama symbolizes ideal and Sita truth and Ravana both devil and divine. After all, he is Brahmin by caste, burning the effigy of him amounts to committing the sin of ‘brahma hatya.’
This is the most vice of modern human beings because we are not Rama or we are not following the art and life of him; so we have no morality to burn Ravana’s effigy. Ravana possessed 10 good qualities. He had at his finger’s tip all the six Puranas and four Vedas. The demon that was well known for his evil power had great faith in almighty. He was a believer of the super natural beings. Ravana was a faithful devotee of lord Shiva, one of the incarnations of lord Bishnu.
Dussehra might be a festival to celebrate the victory of good over evil, but it’s only a minor part of Hindu mythology. Ravan was one of the most important characters ever in the scheme of things. He’s seen mostly as a villain, but surely he’s more sinned against than sinning. Ravan’s father was the famous seer Visravas, who himself was a son of Prajapati Pulastya, one of Brahma’s ten ‘mind-born’ sons.
In one of the many versions of the Ramayana, it is said that once Ram’s army had created the bridge to lanka, they needed to get Shiva’s blessing for which they set up a yagnya. But the biggest devotee of Shiva in the entire region was Ravan, and since he was half-brahman, he was also the best qualified to perform the yagnya. Displaying honour, Ravan actually showed up, performed the yagnya and gave Ram his blessing.
Since Ravan was one of the most learned scholars to have ever lived, Ram asked his brother lakshman to sit beside the dying demon-king and learn from him important lessons in statecraft and diplomacy. In many depictions of Ravan, he can be seen carrying a veena. It is believed that he had a keen interest in music and was a highly accomplished veena player.
During the birth of his son Meghnad, Ravan ‘instructed’ the planets to stay in the 11th house of the child, which would grant him immortality. Saturn, or Shani, refused to do so and stood in the 12th house instead. It irked Ravan so much that he attacked Shani Dev with his mace and even imprisoned him.
Most powerful Asuras (demons) knew that they were sent to earth to perform a particular role. Ravan knew that it was his fate to die by the hands of an avatar of Vishnu, something that would help him attain moksha (salvation) and give up his demon form.
Some versions of the Ramayan say that Ravan did not in fact have ten heads, but it appeared so because his mother gave him a necklace of nine pearls that caused an optical illusion for any observer. In another version, it is said that to please Shiva, Ravan hacked his own head into pieces, but his devotion made each piece grown into another head.
Ravan wanted Shiva to relocate from Kailash to lanka, and to make this possible, he tried to lift the mountain. But Shiva, being who he is, put down his foot onto the mountain, thus crushing Ravan’s finger with his one toe. Ravan let out a huge roar of pain, but at the same time, he was so enamoured by Shiva’s power, he performed the Shiva tandav stotram. It is believed that Ravan plucked out nerves from his own hand to provide accompanying music. Shiva, thus impressed, named him Ravan (the one who roars loud).
When Ram’s army was slowly defeating Ravan’s, and he was the only one left alive, Ravan decided to perform a powerful yagnya to turn the tide. But it required him to stay put and not leave his spot. Seeing this, Ram sent Angad, Bali’s son and his vaanar sena to disrupt the yagnya. After they failed to do so, Angad dragged Ravan’s wife Mandodari. Ravan still didn’t move. Then she screamed at him and shamed him by telling how Ram was fighting a war to get his wife back while Ravan wasn’t moving from his spot to save his wife. Ravan finally moved, leaving his yagnya incomplete.
Ravan and his brother Kumbhkaran were actually Jaya and Vijaya, the gatekeepers of Vishnu, which made them a little arrogant. So much so that once when the four Kumaras, mind-born sons of Brahma, showed up at the gates of Vaikunth (Vishnu’s abode), Jaya-Vijaya mistook them for naked children (a result of their tapasya). This enraged the sages so much that they cursed Jaya-Vijaya saying that they would be parted from their lord. When they asked for forgiveness, the sages said that they could either spent seven lifetimes on earth as Vishnu avatars’ allies or three lifetimes as their enemies. They naturally chose the latter. In one of those three lifetimes, Jaya and Vijaya were born as Ravan and Kumbhkaran.
It is the high time to think and act in a proper way with our better understanding that we must hate the sin and not the sinner. We have to find out the good qualities among the bad.
(The writer is a research scholar in Jagannath cult and culture. M-9438097732)