Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-3. Part - 1.

Chapter-3. Rama – The Apotheosis of Human Perfection ( Sri Ramanavami )


Part-1.


Let us observe this auspicious occasion of Sri Ramanavami as a moment of contemplation on a special spark of Divinity that made its advent on the earth.

Popularly speaking, in ancient historical times, to emphasise the historical advent of this great Divinity on earth has been the exoteric side of the epics as people generally understand it.

This popular emphasis on the incarnations of God on earth has taken the form of epics like the Ramayana.



We are told in the Ramayana of Sage Valmiki, in the earliest of these documents, that it was a history par excellence, a history of a chronological procession of divine exploits which is what we generally mean by a divine epic.

It is believed that the earliest record of the history of Rama, the Ramayana of Valmiki, was written during the lifetime of Rama Himself.

It was not a biography written later on, after several years.

It was composed then and there by a contemporary of Rama, Sage Valmiki, and so it is but proper that devotees take it as the most authentic of documents pertaining to the history or life story of Rama.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...