Prime Minister Narendra Modi was filmed singing the mellifluous ‘Shri Ram Jai Ram’ bhajan in the precincts of the imposing Veerbhadra temple in Lepakshi, Andhra Pradesh. Lepakshi holds a special place in the Ramayana. It is where the intrepid Jatayu fell after he was grievously wounded by Ravana as the demi-God valiantly tried to thwart Sita’s abduction. Writhing on the ground as the blood of life drained out of him, Jatayu held on long enough for Lord Ram to find him. It was Jatayu’s information that pointed Ram in the direction of Lanka where he would eventually exact retributive justice.
Just as in Lepakshi, Prime Minister Modi also offered prayers to the resident deity of the grand temples in Guruvayur and Thrissur in Kerala. Both these have a connection to the Ramayana. So does, as a matter of fact, the temple in Rameswaram, one of the char dhams, in neighbouring Tamil Nadu where the prime minister is also expected to seek blessings.
Perhaps more than any other temple, the one at Rameswaram will form the most visually arresting backdrop for the prime minister’s bid to connect the South to Ayodhya. It also helps that it was in Rameswaram, an island redoubt connected only by a thin land corridor (Ram Setu) to the mainland, that the epic took a larger-than-life turn.
Valmiki depicted Lord Ram praying to Lord Shiva here to absolve himself of his part in the killing of Brahmin king Ravan. Ram had asked Hanuman to fly to Kailash to bring a Shivalinga for his pooja. However, since it was taking too long, Sita made a Shiva lingam with her own hands and then Ram, Sita and Lakshman prayed to the lingam.
In Ayodhya on January 22, as a Ram Bhakt, Modi will offer the south’s “dakshina”, pun intended, as an oblation to Ram Lalla. For many, the devotion with which the south venerates Lord Ram – the Maryada Purushottam of Sanatana Dharma – will come as a surprise. After all, aren’t we all assailed regularly by bursts of bile spewed against Sanatana Dharma from some quarters in the south, especially Tamil Nadu?
Can we forget that in September last year, Udhayanidhi Stalin, a minister in the DMK government, compared Sanatana Dharma with “dengue, malaria, fever and corona” to make a case for its eradication? But the fact is that just as there is an intrinsic relationship between the Ramayana and temples in Tamil Nadu, there is an insoluble synapse between the Ramayana and ancient Tamil Sangam literature. Literature as we know is the calligraphed embodiment of a region’s culture.
As so it is that Akanaṉūṟu, which is dated between 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE, has a reference to the Ramayana in poem 70. The poem places a triumphant Ram at Dhanushkodi, sitting under a Banyan tree, involved in some secret discussions when the birds are chirping away. This is but one of several other co-relations between the lore of Lord Ram and Tamil culture. The Sengol, for instance, installed in the newly inaugurated Parliament is a symbol of ‘Ram Rajya’ immortalised by the great Chola kings who claimed to be descendants of Lord Ram himself.
These linkages serve as a resounding fact check in the face of an aggressive Dravidianism that seeks to eradicate Sanatana Dharma and distinguish it from the culture of the South.
As author and advocate, J Sai Deepak writes, “Thanks to the shameful copout called the ‘tyranny of distance’…It (Dravidianism) is, at best, crudely misunderstood as a so-called ‘social justice’ movement with the ‘North-South’ and ‘Sanskrit/Hindi-Tamil’ divides as its pillars. This allows the creature to continue to operate and expand unhindered without drawing attention, using manufactured linguistic, ethnic, religious, and territorial fissures as the tools of its secessionist agenda.”
But with the prime minister having traversed the “tyranny of distance” by visiting prominent southern outposts linked to Ramayana, one hopes that Dravidian “separatism” will stand exposed before the people.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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