Ramo Vigrahavan Dharmah

For thousands of years, Sanatanis have believed that Sri Rama is the embodiment of Dharma. He is the very personification of Dharma. Traditional commentaries on the Ramayana have highlighted this fact repeatedly by explaining how every word he uttered and every action he undertook was fully within the realm of Dharma. Be it him giving up the Kingship of Ayodhya to ensure his father’s promise to Kaikeyi was not broken, or killing Vali without facing him directly or even subjecting Sita to an ‘Agni-pariksha’.

It is this outlook of all Hindus towards Rama that automatically invokes a discomfort in our mind whenever we think of any incident in the Ramayana where Rama was in “distress”. We see Rama’s struggles in Ramayana as the struggle of Dharma itself, and hence the dislike towards the incidents.

In the Bhagavata, when Sri Vyasa describes Putana attacking the child Krishna, we enjoy the incident as one that highlights the great Ati-manusha leela of Bhagavan. Whereas when Sri Valmiki describes the incident of Sri Rama heading to his vanavas, our reaction is to spite out our disgust and anger towards Kaikeyi and Manthara.

The moment Krishna was born, he had to be separated from his parents and go live amongst cowherds. However, his early days in Vrundavana are a source of great joy to us devotees, and we never see it as the difficult days of a child who was separated from his mother. However, the mere mention of Sri Rama’s vanavas evokes feelings of restlessness in our minds. We start visualizing the difficult travails Rama and Sita undertook, the thorns Sita mata stepped upon and the rough weather they faced during their journeys.

When we read about Rama not having a chariot just before the final battle with Ravana, we feel a great sense of inappropriateness and rejoice hearing the tale of Indra sending his chariot and charioteer.

Similarly we feel great pain listening to how Rama performed the Ashwamedha with just the idol of Sita by his side.

For centuries, Rama has evoked feelings of compassion and concern in our minds. It is because we see any “trouble” to Rama as an injury to Dharma itself.

It is this collective psyche of Indians towards Rama seeing him as the very embodiment of Dharma that led to the unstoppable battle by Hindus in reclaiming the birthplace of Rama. The snatching away of the Janmabhumi at Ayodhya was denying Rama his home. And that is something Sanatanis could have never ever accepted.

When Rama had to leave Ayodhya for his vanavas, no one dear to him was accepting of that fate. Lakshmana didn’t want to stay back without Rama. Bharata did not want to enter the city of Ayodhya till his brother returned. Guha offered to help Rama get his kingdom back.

When Ravana took away Sita, Jatayu gave up his life fighting the Rakshasa and trying to prevent the kidnap. Hanuman and Sugreeva put their entire lives and armies at Rama’s feet to help him get back his consort. Vibhishana ditched his own brothers and sided with Rama.

An attack on Rama is an attack on Dharma. Hence the non-stop fight against such attacks. It is this attitude that resulted in the nearly 500 year long battle to reclaim the Janmasthan.

May the re-establishment of Sri Rama in his Janmasthan rekindle the vigor in Sanatanis in the battle to restore Dharma to its pristine glory.

Ramo Vigrahavan Dharmah