Sri Raama Navami wishes!

On this auspicious day, the birthday of the Purushottama SriRaama, here are two interesting anecdotes related to Him, one of them which happened even before His birth!

Dasaratha kills Shravana:
Once, the childless king Dasaratha goes to a forest to hunt, and uses his Shabdavedi, a weapon that strikes the destination based on the sound emitted by the object to be attacked. He launches this after listening to what sounded like an animal drinking water. Unfortunately, it was a young boy who was collecting water in his pot for his aged blind parents, who became the victim of the weapon. Dasaratha is then shocked to see that he has killed the only son of helpless parents, who curse him that he would also suffer separation from his son, just like they had been deprived of theirs.
While Dasaratha was profoundly grief-struck by the incident, he also felt immensely happy that he had been "cursed". Since he had no children, he was satisfied that for the curse to be fulfilled, a son would first be born to him!Later, he got not one but four illustrious sons. Of course, the first one is the Hero Sri Raama!

Raama Sethu Bridge:
The building of the Sethu bridge to Lanka is very well known to all (except for those who don't want to know for some reasons :-)).
It is said that the Vaanara Sena built the bridge by throwing stones with Raama's name inscribed on them, and these floated to form the bridge.However, SriRaama Himself did the same-He picked a small stone and threw it into the sea, only to find that it sank immediately. Why?
Hanuman asks Raama, "They took your name and the stones are floating, whose name will you take?"
The stones used for the Lord became the bridge and the stone which the Lord discarded was useless!!!
Jai Sri Raam!

Thrisanku Swargam

I once heard my grandmother, who was in a dilemma, complaining about being in a "Thrisanku Swargam". On analysing this, I found a very interesting piece of information related to our
Itihasas and astronomy.
This is from the Valmiki Ramayana:
Once, there was a king called Thrisanku who wanted to go to Swargam (Indra's abode) in his bodily form itself, without dying. He approached Sage Vasishta who promptly refused to help him. Now, Sage Vishwamitra tested his powers by sending Thrisanku to heaven (Swargam). As Thrisanku was ascending, the Devas kept pushing him below, as a mere mortal was forbidden to enter Swarga.Enraged, Vishwamitra used his powers to create a parallel heaven, called Thrisanku Swarga where Thrisanku could live. Since this is neither here (on earth) nor there (heaven), "Thrisanku Swarga" is used as a metaphor to describe a situation where a person is finding it difficult to choose some alternative and is stuck in between.
What's amazing is that this Thrisanku Swargam refers to a constellation in the sky, commonly
known as the Crux/Southern Cross, seen from the southern hemisphere. Shaped like a cross, it
is the smallest of the 88 constellations we can see from here. What's more, "sanku" is also
an astronomical unit used by our ancestors, and thrisanku means thrice that amount-
Thrisankhu MahaYojanas is equal to 205 light years, which is the distance of this
constellation from the earth, as found out by modern astronomers!
Our forefathers were truly very intelligent!

Let noble thoughts come to all from all sides!

Aano bhadra krtavo yantu vishwatah
This means "Let noble thoughts come to all from all sides".
This verse is from the Rig Veda, and has also been adopted by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
as its motto.Hindu scriptures are full of such gems-simple statements driving home a profound truth.It is obvious that we must gather noble thoughts, so what's so great about this verse?

Here's my interpretation:
Let's take our epics for example.In the Mahabharata, the heroes are the Pandavas and the Kauravas are the villains. Similarly, in the Ramayana, Rama is the hero and Ravana, the villain.
Both these historical accounts describe the victory of good over evil-nothing seemingly special about this as there are countless stories across the world which talk about the victory of good over evil.

However, the standards of "good" and "evil" in the Ramayana and Mahabharata are not so simple. If we take SOME mortal characters in these epics, we can see that they had both good and bad sides to their personalities.

In the Ramayana, Ravana kidnapped mother Sita and also kept a lot of people as captives in Lanka, and thus became a sinner. Hence, he got what he deserved.
However, there is another side to him. He was a very devout Siva Bhakta. Indeed, the ShivataandavaStotram composed by him is one of the most moving hymns to Lord Siva.
Here, we need to appreciate his Bhakti while rejecting his anti-Dharmic activities.

In the Mahabharata, Yudhistira is described as the virtuous son of Yama, the Dharmaraja,
and an icon of rightousness.However, even he committed a grave mistake-he had no business to gamble his wife with the Kauravas after he lost everything else.
What we need to learn from his character is only his positive side.

Now, we can relate this with the Rig Vedic verse mentioned above-
We need to accept good thoughts-no matter where they come from.
It is interesting to note that in the magnum-opus Arthashastra, the great Chanakya
starts with salutations to both Dakshinaamoorthy (The Guru of the Devas) and Sukrachaarya (The Guru of the Asuras)- implying that one must imbibe good ideas from everywhere.