Individual verses with meanings
Hari Om.
Let us begin the seventieth sarga of the bAlakAnDam with offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
The wedding party of ayOdhya reached mithila and they received a rousing welcome with due protocol. The wedding beckons. Onwards…
The next morning, king janaka completed his daily ablutions and met with his preceptors led by SatAnanda and said the following words – “My very righteous and resplendent younger brother kuSadhwaja rules over the kingdom of sAnkASi which is on the banks of the sacred river ikshumati. I have decided that he is the protector of this yajna. I want him to be here and share the joy of this moment with me. Please ensure that he is here at the earliest”. Taking the orders of the king, just like indra acting on the command of lord vishNu, emissaries left immediately on swift horses to fetch king kuSadhwaja. Having reached the city of sAnkASi, the emissaries submitted the orders and wish of king janaka. kuSadhwaja immediately acted upon the wish of king janaka and reached mithila immediately. There in the court, after paying his respects to king janaka, he took an exalted place. The resplendent brothers reined over the court and instructed minister sudAma to go and invite the invincible king daSaratha with due courtesy and protocol to come and grace the occasion with his sons as well as near and dear.
Minister sudAma at once went to the camp of daSaratha, bowed to him and humbly submitted the invitation of king janaka to grace the royal court where king janaka along with his brother, preceptors and ministers was present. daSaratha accepted the invite and immediately reached the place where janaka was along with his retinue.
After reaching the venue, daSaratha told janaka, “it is well known to you that vasisTha holds the place of exalted preceptor in the ikshvAku clan. He speaks on our behalf in our ceremonies. He shall tell in detail the lineage of the glorious ikshvAku clan with due permission of sage viSwAmitra” and then he became silent.
[it is a general tradition in the weddings to exchange the information of the three or more generations of the bride and the bride groom. It makes for better understanding of practices and culture of both bride and bridegroom.]
Sage vasisTha then came forward and addressing the king janaka and his priests, began narrating the glorious lineage of the ikshvAkus.
Lord brahma is unmanifest and eternal. To him was born marici whose son was kASyapa. His son was vivasvAn whose son was manu, also known as prajApati. ikshvAku was the son manu.
That ikshvAku was the first king who duly ruled over ayOdhya and his son was the famous king kukshi. He begot vikukshi whose son was the formidable bANa. His son was anaraNya who begot triSanku. pRthu was the son of triSanku. His son was the renowned dundumAra who begot yuvanASwa whose son was king mAndhAta. His son was susandhi who was blessed with dhruvasandhi and prasEnajit as his two sons. dhruvasandhi‘s son was the illustrious bharata who begot asita. King asita was weak and was defeated and exiled in the bhRgu prasravaNa mountains by the enemy kings belonging to the hEhaya, tALajangha and SaSibindu dynasties. The king along with his ministers took shelter in the mountains and he had two wives. They became expectant. Legend says that one of them got jealous of the other and gave poison to to destroy the embryo.
During those times a sage chyavana of the bhRgu clan liked to stay on those pleasant mountains. During one of his stays, asita’s wife kAlindi who was poisoned approached him and sought his blessings. Sage chyavana blessed her and said, grieve not, a glorious son will be born to you and he will be unaffected by the poison tried on him. By the grace of the sage, the chaste lady kAlindi gave birth to a son, in spite of being poisoned by her co-wife. Since the son was born with the poison he was named sagara (sa means with and gara means poison).
sagara‘s son was asamanja whose son was anSumAn. dilIpa was his son and the man of the ganga-fame bhagiratha was the son of dilIpa.
kakuthstha was the son of dilIpa whose son was raghu. His son was pravRdhha (also known as purushAdaka and kalmAshapAda) and he begot SankhaNa. He begot sudarSana whose son was agnivarNa. His son was Sighraga who begot maru. King maru’s son was praSuSRka whose son was the fanous king ambarISa.
[the names kakuthstha and raghu are often used to refer to rAma and his brothers in the epic]
Lord of the land nahusha was the son of ambarISa and he begot yayAti. nAbhAga was the son of yayAti. King aja was the son of nAbhAga and our present king daSaratha was born to aja.
The brothers rAma and lakshmaNa are born of king daSaratha.
vasisTha concluded the narration of the supreme pedigree of the bride groom rAma (and lakshmaNa) and said “O king, rAma and lakshmaNa belong to the pristine race of ikshvAku lineage which is well documented. They are heroic, valorous, truthful and virtuous. They truly deserve your equally virtuous daughters. You may kindly consent to offer your two daughters to these two heroic men”
Here we conclude the seventieth sarga of the bAla kAnDam of SrImath vAlmiKi rAmAyaNam and humbly offer it at the lotus feet of SrIrAma. Hari: Om!
jAi SrIrAma.
Next: 1.71. The equally pristine lineage of janaka
Previous: 1.69. The wedding party reaches mithila
rAmabhaktisAmrAjyam 