Festivals of India series - Sri Rama Navami

Festivals on India series – Sri Rama Navami

Last article, we saw the New year Ugadi. Now we shall see the first festival after Ugadi i.e. the Sri Rama Navami. This festival is about the birthday celebrations of Lord Ram. As Navami stands for number 9 in Sanskrit, this festival comes exactly after 9 days of Ugadi. There is a story behind the celebrations. It seems long long ago, King Dasharatha who was ruling the Kosala kingdom had 3 wives – Kausalya, Kaikeyi and Sumithra. He had everything that a king would envy for except children. Those days it was a practice to perform yagnas or rituals with offerings to the Fire God, Agni Deva. So, as suggested by the Gurus, King Dasharatha decided to perform the Putrakameshti Yagna or the ritual which would give him children. As a rich king would do it, Dasharatha performed the yagna with great fervor and Agni, pleased with his offerings came out of fire and blessed him with a pot of a sweet preparation. He also said that the magic pot with the sweet preparation would help him achieve his desired wish. King Dasharatha was very happy to have the pot and he rushed it to his wives who were equally happy to receive it. Now, here Dasharatha had his brains running cleverly and distributed the sweet equally to his wives Kausalya and Kaikeyi only. He intentionally left Sumithra out of the share and left everybody wondering because as they knew Sumithra was his wife dearest.
Kausalya and Kaikeyi on hearing that Sumithra never got a share, offered to share their portion of the share equally. They both did this separately and hence Sumithra got 50% of the sweet – 25% from Kausalya and 25% from Kaikeyi. This is what Dasharatha wanted probably as he was able to secure majority of the sweet for his dearest wife without annoying the elder 2 wives. It was a practice in olden days that kings marry as many as 4 times in order to build a great empire and a great successor. Now that his wives consumed the sweet, accordingly in due course of time (the day when the Punarvasu star shined) they gave birth to four children Rama, Bharata, Laxmana and Shatrughna. Now Kausalya gave birth to Rama, Kaikeyi to Bharata, and Sumithra gave birth to Laxmana and Shatrughna because that was the proportion in which they consumed the sweet – Kausalya 25%, Kaikeyi 25% and Sumithra – 25%+25%=50%. And they all lived happily because the king, his wives and his subjects got all what they wanted.

It is believed that Lord Ram is the giver of everything in life.
He is the Maryadaa Purushottam meaning the ideal Man. There is nobody better than him. He is also
Ekabani – meaning with a single sure shot of arrow he is kills the enemy
Ekapatni vratastha – meaning eternally wedded and devoted to a single wife and
Ekavachani – meaning he won’t go back on his words whatever may happen.

Sri Rama Taaraka mantra
Sri Rama Rama Rameti – is the mantra to be uttered or written one crore or 10 million times and it is believed that it will fulfil one’s wish whatever it may be.