Individual verses with meanings
Hari Om.
Let us begin the seventy fifth sarga of the bAlakAnDam with offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
The princes of ayOdhya rAma, lakshmaNa, bharata and Satrughna along with their newly-wed wives and the royal party were returning to ayOdhya from the grand wedding in mithila. And then, as both evil and good portents sent mixed signals and the dreadful looking paraSurAma appeared on the scene challenging rAma! Why? To know that… Onwards…
After receiving the worship from the sages paraSurAma trained his guns on rAma and said “O daSaratha rAma I have heard in entirety of your prowess and valor with which you have broken the bow of Siva. Having heard of this unimaginable accomplishment of yours I hastened at once to meet you with another sacred bow. You may prove your mettle by stringing this bow which was obtained by jamadagni. If you succeed in that and prove your prowess, I will engage in a duel combat with you”. King daSaratha went pale hearing these words of challenge thrown at his darling son rAma by the dreaded wielder of axe paraSurAma!
He folded his hands and beseeched – “O brAhmin, born in the clan of bhRgu, stickler to righterous vows, scholar engaged in the study of vEdas, you have promised to indra that you are renouncing your arms and that your ire at the kashtriyas has subsided. You retired to the mahEndra mountain having given away the land you won by vanquishing kshatriya kings to kaSyapa. Now, why do you choose to challenge my young son rAma with arms. He deserves to be blessed in a reassuring manner by you. If rAma’s life is harmed by you, none among us will survive. In fact you seem to have descended upon us for our complete destruction”.
ब्रुवत्येवं दशरथे जामदग्न्य: प्रतापवान्।
अनादृत्यैव तद्वाक्यं राममेवाभ्यभाषत।।1.75.10।।
The valiant paraSurAma almost didn’t pay attention to daSaratha’s beseeching appeal and continued to address rAma and said –
“O best among men, kakutstha, listen, there are two strong, stout and famous bows in the world built by viSwakarma. One among them was given by the gods to the lord Siva for conquering the demon tripurAsura. That has been stringed and broken by you. Now, here is a second one, given to lord vishNu by the best of gods. This elegant bow is equal in its ability to the one of Siva.
Once the gods, desirous of assessing the strengths of lord vishNu and Siva, approached lord grandsire brahma and submitted their prayer. Lord brahma agreed and triggered a conflict between lord vishNu and lord Siva and a horripilating battle ensued with each desirous of outdoing the other. As the battle went on Siva was rendered immobile by the twang produced by the bow of vishNu. The gods were alarmed by the way the battle was going on and hurried to the scene and pleaded with both Siva and vishNu to cease the battle and resume peace.
Since Siva’s bow was rendered to immobile by vishNu, the gods and Rshis considered vishNu to be more powerful and enraged by this Siva gave away his bow and arrow to king dEvarAta of the vidEha kingdom. vishNu gave away his bow to RchIka of the bhArgava clan. RchIka gave away the bow to his son jamadagni, my father who was a peerless warrior. My father renounced arms and embraced penance. Finding him unarmed the wicked kArtavIryArjuna killed my father in a brutal manner.
I was enraged to learn about the barbaric killing of my father and went out in vengeance to cleanse this earth of the kshatriya clan time and again. After almost wiping them out, I performed a sacrifice and gave away the earth which I had won by the killing wicked kshatriya kings in charity to the great kaSyapa. Then I retreated to the mount mahEndra and living the life of an ascetic.
Today, when I heard that you have broken the bow of Siva with your prowess, I came here at once desirous of seeing your prowess in stringing this bow of vishNu. Come O rAma, respect the kshatriya code of conduct and rise up to the challenge and show if you can handle and string this bow. If you can do so, I shall engage in a duel with you”.
Saying so paraSurAma challenged the young and just married rAma, much to the chargin of everyone around!
Here we conclude the seventy fifth sarga of the bAla kAnDam of SrImath vAlmiKi rAmAyaNam and humbly offer it at the lotus feet of SrIrAma. Hari: Om!
jAi SrIrAma.
Next: 1.76. Conqueror conquered!
Previous: 1.74. paraSurAma has an axe to grind!
rAmabhaktisAmrAjyam 