Q: What was Rama’s Dharma or duty towards his wife? Why do we praise him so much? He abandoned his wife. He asked his wife to jump into the fire. Was that his dharma or duty towards his wife?
Ans:
These are very common questions everybody asks. But not many explore the details. There is a discomfort of speaking about the Kula Dharma in the 1st point about abandoning. The decision Rama made is to display his Kshatriya dharma and we don’t have to assume that it should be for all. Seetha knew this and accepted. It shows how Kshatriya Kula should keep the Country and the people first and then the personal family only next. Sure not for the other Kulas. In the modern context, it is almost for none except the soldiers in the war field. That’s why we don’t take Uthra Kanda seriously.
About the second point, we should understand that there was a necessity at the instant of successfully reclaiming Seetha, and Rama had to ensure that he cleared the sin of an unforgivable slanderous provocation of Lakshmana to reach out for him when Mareecha duped himself in the guise of Rama’s voice for help calling out for Laksmana. When Hanuman offers to kill all the Rakshashi’s s, Seetha stopped him and spoke about the Karma of bad commands from the one up. Here indirectly she refers to her own mistake remorsefully for the wrongful utterance done to get Lakshmana to listen to her. It’s true though, that any woman should go to that extent to save her husband. Rama was aware that Seetha’s remorse would pardon her and bring her back from the fire. This answer is conveyed as a solution to Laksmana’s depressed mind silently by asking him to light the fire. Lakshmana knew the intent of Rama and felt furthermore as the act of Karma in general.
Adhyathma Ramayana has a complete spiritual interpretation which would be too much to explain to the kids, however. Seetha is ‘Videhi’. That means ‘Bodyless’ soul and refers to the soul only. Rama is Paramathma. They must merge. But the human body is allegorized as Ravana with 5 of our senses and 5 of its deeds represented by 10 heads of Ravana. The Human body strongly believes that the soul belongs to it. Actually, it doesn’t. The soul is eternally a part of the Paramathma. God from within and without keeps eliminating those heads which keep popping up as our own desire and vices. The air that we breathe is referred to as Hanuman. It holds the soul in the body till all the senses are killed. Every human life is Ramayana in action.
With this analogy, we must come out from seeing Ramayana as a story and begin to look at it as life. – Jai Shree Ram
–Srirangam Ramesh