Ithihasas (people friendly compilations)
Compiled by
P.R.Ramachander
The Sruthi and Smrithi
that I explained till now were essentially
for the very intelligent intellectual
.Though extremely difficult to
comprehend , stories were used to
illustatre the principles of Upanishads. It is very clear
that majority followers of
Hinduism did not comprehend the meaning
of Sruthis and Smrithis. Even in very great Vedic schools , what is taught is to remember and recite the Vedas and not the meaning of what they were reciting .Few Vedic
scholars who understood what they
meant only were there.
So as a next step
to take our religion to the
masses our sages used Ithihasas first and later
Puranas . Ithihasas are supposed
to be a narration of legends known to
the saint and are usually
in the story form.,They are the
essence of Vedas as well as vehicles to
teach the common man –Dharma –the just life,
Ithihasas(friendly
narration)
There are four
ithihasas in sanathana Dharma
viz -Ramayana , Maha Bharatha ,
Yoga Vasishta andHarivamsa.Evenamong the
four , the first two are
more popular
Ramayana the story
of ideal man
This is the
first book ever composed
by a human being and was done
by Sage Valmiki .It is interesting to know
that he was one of those persons
who was living when the story took
place and he did not write it but
taught to two disciples . It teaches
us the ideal life through
the story of Dasaratha , Rama,
Sugreeva and Ravana . Though most incidents of the book euologises good
deeds , here and there , the characters are being shown as doing acts which can be considered as wrong. The story of Lord Subrahmanya and the river ganges is a part
of the book. No where any person
is shown as going to the temple and
praying there. The one great and long
prayer is addressed to Lord Sun God. There
is a small prayer addressed to river
Ganges by Sita and another small prayer
addressed to Rama, the man by Hanuman.
The characters do THapas to Lord Brahma od Lord Shiva to get what they want and in an emergency try to do Yagas
(fire scraifices) . There is an indication in Sundara kanda where
Lord Hanuman thinks that Sita
would come to the river at dusk to
pray the Goddess SAndhya.
The book deals
with ideal character of Rama . It also
illustrates the angry outbursts of Lakshmna, Sita, Vali as well as Ravana , The charecterisation of various persons in the story is simply
great.
Mahabharatha The story
of the normal man
It is the largest
Ithihasa that we have and was written by sage Vyasa. Vyasa
again not only lived during the time of
the story but is the biokogical father of
the kings Dritharashtra and
Pandu .Unlike Ramayana where Dharma is the prime subject, Mahabharatha deals with our normal life(and not ideal
life) along with our normal reactions.
Mahabharatha deals extensively with diplomacy, love, war and so
on and on. WE see bad winning there some times and it does not
insist on pure dharma . The most religious part of Mahabharatha is
the BHagwad gita and the teachings of
BHishma to Yudhishtra on his death bed. Unlike
Ramayana, temple worship, prayers as
well as fire sacrifices are described there.
Yoga Vasishta
Unlike the
above two , this is a book of philosophy
written by Valmiki It is about the philosophy
and way of ideal life taught by sage Vasishta to Lord
Rama. Unlike Vedas , it is more friendly and with little effort can be understood
Hari Vamsa
This is an
appendix to Mahabharatha written by
sage Vyasa himself ,It has three chapters Adhi
Parva , Vishnu Parva and Bhavishya Parva.Adhi Parva deals with creation of
universe, Vishnu Parva deals about stories and incarnation of Vishnu and BHavishya Parva deals about what was going to happen (at that
time)
I would continue
with Puranas next
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