Hi there… Day 3 of the usual vomiting of thoughts on this little rented laptop… hahaha… I pity on the owner of this laptop who’ll chase me for my blood, when he reads this…
On a serious note, I am sorry for writing only about Jainism nowadays. No hard feelings or no special reasons or vested interests behind it… Its just because this topic creates much more interest nowadays among the readers of this not-so-famous blog….
By the way, its the 6th day of the festival. Looking at the Mahavir Jayanti festival in my area was sure a visual treat for me… While the devotional songs and dances were an icing on the cake, what shocked me most was a truth that was hidden beneath the heaps of time… Did you know that Ravana is going to be one of the next 24 Tirthankars of Jainism?
Now the one who reads this may find it rubbish, but contrary, I am feeling amazed by this revelation. The story goes like this that Ravana was not a bad guy at heart. As a king, he took care of his subjects. He handled his kingdom quite well. He was well versed with the knowledge in religious books. In fact, he was a person who liked peace. He was the one of the biggest bhakts of Lord Munisuvrath Swami and Lord Shantinath. He would religiously follow the principles of Jainism and sing and dance in the name of the God…
One such day, he was playing veena and his wife Mandodari was dancing on his devotional songs to please the Lord. Ravana was so engrossed in his bhakti that one of the strings of his veena broke… At once, Ravana tore his thigh and pulled out one of his nerves and attached it to the broken string of his veena. The pain was immense but it seemed to be smaller against the happiness that he was getting from sings the praises of his Lord….
Impressed by Ravana’s devotion, Lord descended and blessed him with a boon that he was going to be one of the 24 Tirthankars of Jainism…
So why did Ravana commit the biggest crime of the history by kidnapping Mother Sita? Why did he choose to become a villain in the eyes of the people of the future? Well… The story goes like this…
Ravana had asked a Rishi (sage) about the cause of his death. The sage replied that he shall die at the hands of a God who was also known as one of the masters of this universe, for kidnapping His wife. Ravana was pained by this and prayed to God to stop him from committing this sin. But what was written… was written… It was written and the rest is history. Hardly anybody knows that God himself had come to free Ravana in his that birth…
It’s said that Ravana is somewhere around us.. Nobody knows in which avatar is he, but one thing is sure, he is washing his past karmas so that he could be good and free himself from the cycle of birth and death…
What I found interesting was, if a person like Ravana can be so great in his devotions then why can’t we? It’s necessary for the present generation to stop the wayward people from stranding away from the path of virtue, religion and God…
Peace, Poetry and Power
Bhavin Shah (Beeba)