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| By Copilot Designer |
Today is Ram Navami, the birth anniversary of Lord Rama. I have heard, read, and studied about Rama right from my childhood. Our Malayalam lessons, throughout the ten years of school, were full of stories from the Ramayana, both in prose and poetry forms. The children’s magazines that I read voraciously as a boy carried countless stories from the epic. Later I read the epic as translated by C Rajagopalachari (Rajaji, as he was known), freedom fighter and the last Governor-General of India. Recently, I have been reading — and continue to read — several books on the Ramayana to deepen my understanding of the epic, since I chose it as my theme for this year’s A-to-Z Challenge. I have a copy of the Valmiki Ramayana translated by Ralph T H Griffith for reference too.
Lord Rama caught my fancy when India’s
Prime Minister personally conducted the religious rituals for the consecration
of a resplendent temple for Lord Rama on a 70-acre complex in Ayodhya, the
birthplace of the deity. An enormous sum of over INR 2000 crore (20 billion)
was spent on the temple complex.
Just to put the sum in perspective:
·
It costs ₹15–20 crore to build and run a Kendriya Vidyalaya
for a year. ₹2000 crore could fund 100–130 fully functional schools
across India.
·
The average cost of a midday meal per child is around ₹5–6.
₹2000 crore could provide over 3 billion meals, feeding 1 crore
children for an entire school year.
·
Setting up a PHC (Primary Health Centre) costs around
₹1–2 crore. ₹2000 crore could build 1000–2000 PHCs, significantly
improving rural healthcare infrastructure.
·
Under PMGSY (rural road scheme), building 1 km of road costs
₹50–80 lakh. ₹2000 crore could build around 2500–4000 km of roads,
improving connectivity in remote areas.
·
At around ₹5 lakh per unit, ₹2000 crore could construct 40,000
affordable homes for the economically weaker sections.
·
At ₹500 per user per year for basic mobile data, ₹2000 crore
could provide free internet for 4 crore users for a year—transformative
for digital education and governance.
·
Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, providing piped water to a
rural household costs about ₹5000–₹8000. ₹2000 crore could give clean water
access to around 25–40 lakh households.
By ChatGPT
When my country spends such a sum on one temple alone
and promises to construct a lot more like it, it’s only natural for me or
anyone to be curious about the gods. The result of my curiosity is the
above-mentioned A-to-Z series that’s happening on my blog now. [Sunday is the
weekly ‘off’ there; so this post is not a part of that Challenge.] I’m
happy to mention that the series is drawing immense attention: over 12,000
views in the last five days; i.e., 2400 readers per day on an average.
The response to the series has been positive
though my interpretations are not quite religious or spiritual. My quest is to
understand Rama better, both as a human being and an incarnation of the divine.
The difficulty is that I don’t believe in anthropomorphic gods at all. Divinity,
for me, is the sanctity of existence. I might say that divinity for me is what beauty
was for John Keats or nature was for Wordsworth.
My view of divinity is very much in
tune with the Advaita philosophy of Hinduism. There is only one reality and
everything that exists is a part of that reality. And that reality is God or
Brahman in the Advaita view. I don’t believe in God. I believe in the sanctity
of existence.
So, I don’t attach any importance to
religions and religious places. A Ram Mandir won’t make any difference to me in
any way whatsoever, except that I was amused to see my Prime Minister doing what
a priest should have been doing. The resplendence of the temple made me gape in
awe too.
What made me take much interest in
the deity of that temple was what followed the consecration of His temple by
the PM of India. The prayerful chant, Jai Sri Ram, became a murderous
scowl in north India. Why did Lord Ram – who in my imagination was a gentle
person, Maryada Purushottam – incite people to brutal violence? What did Rama
Rajya, which the PM of India claims to be making, mean? 
One of the comments on my blog
That’s how my new interest in Rama began.
As I study more and deeper, I see more similarities between Rama and Jesus than
between Rama and his devotees in his present kingdom. Suffering for the sake of
righteousness is what Rama was doing, even to the extent of forsaking his wife.
Suffering for the sake of righteousness is what Jesus taught too. Rama Rajya,
in my limited understanding as of now, is just another name for what Jesus
called the Kingdom of God. The last post in my A-to-Z series will explore the
nuances of Rama Rajya in detail.
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| Thanks to Yamini MacLean for being a check on me |
Today is Lord Rama’s
birthday. Wish you a Blessed Rama Navami.
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ReplyDeleteThe government doesn't spend money on religious construction of non-Hindus in India. So the innuendo in your 1st para is misplaced. I'm stating this particularly in the context of the recent RSS article about the Church's property in India, which is mostly used for academic institutions and health care, but will soon be tresspassed into by another Waqf-kinda bill.
DeleteNo, I don't wait for any better system. My idealism died in 2014.
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DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteDhanyavAdah, Tomichan, eshaH advaitin bhavataH avgamanasya prashansa karoti! (My Sanskrit is rusty now, not entirely sure I have the syntax correct...) The connection of Yeshu and Rama is what drives me - and Advaita Vedanta brings out the best of us, if we are prepared to make the deep self-interrogation that equates to solitude and sacrifice... This is ultimately what all scriptures are for.
Not to be taken as some sort of chart for the building of egotistical monuments in the form of temples/mosques/churches at the cost of social care and education. Those who manipulate the scriptures in this way have been the blight of all faith structures since ever the concept arose.
UchpragnyAyAH AshirvAdAH te adya mama sakhe. (Now I'm stretching - I don't have my books in the van to check, but I hope this makes sense - you have made me think on this language properly for the first time in a few years!) YAM xx
You needn't take out the books, I haven't gone beyond the prelims of Sanskrit.
DeleteThere are a Thousand Ramayanas and s Thousand Ramas, embodying the blend of human fragility, ambiguity and divine nobility.
ReplyDeleteSo true, I'm confused too sometimes. The Rama I encounter in one book is different from the one in another. I guess, that's right too: god should suit each people's requirment.
DeleteSita of Valmiki Ramayana, who is taken by the Earth, her Matrix (Mother), in Silence is the Protestor and Feminist, who has come to be herself, freeing herself from the shadows of Rama.
ReplyDeleteHer Silence is comparable with the yet to be answered question of Draupadi of Mahabharatha, who asks the Question, " What right he(Yudhishtira) has to barter/pawn me, when he himself has been pawned or given himself off... "
ReplyDeleteDraupadi was pawned like a commodity by the upholders of Dharma. Rama became the Playboy Krishna. I think we can interpret these myths in Cleopatraesque variety. And the Grand Mondiqisitor will descend on us with a raid and a Draupadiesque rape.
DeleteLiked that you at least found similarities between Jesus and Rama ! Am hopeful, you will find Ram Rajya too.
ReplyDeleteProbably, there is such similarity between any two gods or incarnations. What is religion about in the final analysis, but compassion for fellow creatures?
DeleteOne has to wonder why someone would spend such a fortune on a temple. Perhaps they are compensating for something?
ReplyDeleteI wonder this often. Doesn't matter the faith.
DeleteI'm with you both, Liz and Dora, on this. The answer is: Some people like our PM Modi, don't have strong inner personalities. So they build up their images with the help of this sort of places of worship. The only use of God seems to be that it can be used for any purpose.
DeleteIs Dharma a contract of life? Every action carries an aspect of Dharma, along with its justifications. The complexities of Dharma arise when these aspects merge. My tweet response noted that he abandoned the defenseless Sita in the forest for one Dharma, and then grieved to fulfill another. Considering all their suffering, if Rama and Sita to be reborn, what advice would they offer to humanity!
ReplyDeleteI love this kind of thinking. The whole thing is very confounding. In the end, Krishna's mischief and fraudulence in Mahabharata seem to be the actual option open to us. Our present leaders are proving it too.
Delete