RAMAYANA: STORY OF RSAYASRNGA (Part 3)

He would never read such parts. In this way, he was kept brainwashed to be a brahmacari. He looked at this ashrama, "This is so nice." And then he saw some figures in there. "What kind of rishis are these? This is a different type of rishi." He became very eager. "Anyway, if they are in the area, they must visit my father's ashrama." And they did come. They just made sure that Vibondaka was not around, and then three of the great saintly people walked out of the boat. And then they came, raising their hands and calling "Rsayasrnga! Rsayasrnga!" Usually, when the rishis came they called for Vibondaka. So he saw these rishis coming, and he went and addressed them. And after addressing them he was asking, "Where are you coming from? Which planet? What mantras do you chant? How come by the touch of your bodies all my hairs are standing on end? Why am I having such romancha?" They were smiling at each other, and they said, "We are rishis from another place, it is eight yojanas from here. It is an island, and no human beings come there. We are born with perfection. We came to see your father. We know that you are very learned, so in our moving ashrama, we want you to come and stay for a few days." Rsayasrnga said, "I would be very happy to do that, but my father is not here. I don't even brush my teeth unless my father tells me to. So how will I go away from here, and who will perform the yajna three times daily?" One lady said, "I will do it, I am expert in this line." And she sat down. Somehow Rsayasrnga fell pray for this. These were saintly people, so why shouldn't they do yajna? And they looked different, very attractive. He couldn't understand what the tejas was that was coming from that body and attracting him. He didn't know it was lust. This was never explained to him. So he left that lady there doing yajna, and they had a flower ladder from the ashrama up to the bank of the river.

This ashrama was filled with saintly people, so somehow they engaged him in listening to music, dancing and so many other things, and slowly they came to Angadesha. In Angadesha there was big reception arranged for Rsayasrnga, Brahmacari incarnate. There was purna-kumbha and there was mantras and Brahmins. The Brahmins all came to know that Rsayasrnga was coming, and they came and waited there. He was worshipped like anything. He saw more saintly people sitting there in that country, and they were sitting with other saintly people. Then he started realizing that something was wrong in his understanding. He asked the king, "Why have you brought me here?" But as soon as he stepped off the boat, the rain came. And people were all happy, they were showering akshada and touching his feet. All the people came and told him, "You must never leave our country. You must become the son-in-law of our king." He didn't know what son-in-law meant. So then they had to have special classes for him to explain how to become a son-in-law. Then he understood everything and finally he blessed the king by marrying Shanti, Dasaratha's daughter. In the meantime, Vibondaka had returned to his ashrama and saw this lady sitting there offering ghee into the fire.

He grabbed her by the hair and said, "Who are you? What are you doing with my fire? It's been here for six thousand years. You came and contaminated it. What are you doing?" She said, "I am not this body. I am spirit soul." Vibondaka said, "That's very nice, that you're not this body, but you are not supposed to do this." So then she said, "No no, Rsayasrnga told me to do this." So he said, "So come on tell me, where is Rsayasrnga? What did you do to him? There was one man in this world who was pure, and you spoiled him too!" And then the lady said, "What could we do, this was a nationalistic service. We are serving the nation. In the service of our nation, we have done something so we will go to the heavenly planet." So then Vibondaka said, "I'm going to curse that king, that Angadesha Raja! He's getting rain, but I will see that he gets nothing anymore." The lady fell at his feet and said, "At least do the curse there. Then he will know you are cursing him. Don't do the curse from here." "All right," he said. He was so angry, but Romapada was so clever, he was arranging for many Brahmins to chant mantras, glorifying Vibondaka, and showing pictures of Kashyapa Muni just to attract him. But Vibondaka came and said, "Where is the king? Bring him here!" Romapada came and begged, "Please don't curse me! Already there are enough curses! All that I have done is that I have made your son the king of this country." So then something dawned on Vibondaka. "My son has become the king of this country. Now he has become the king, he has to protect the citizens. If I curse, then the blame is on him because he couldn't protect his citizens." So then he called his son,

"Rsayasrnga, come here." Rsayasrnga came, and Vibondaka said, "All right, as soon as one son is born, you must be back in the ashrama. You understand?" This was the time when Dasaratha was told, by Vasistha Muni, the story. And Vasistha said, "If you personally go, then Rsayasrnga may come." So Dasaratha started, with all his paraphernalia, his seven akshauhini-shainyas, and arrived in Angadesha. Romapada was thinking, "What is this?

Suddenly Dasaratha is coming with his army. He is going to fight with me or what?" So he came with a white flag. "There is no question that your army can even stay in my country. Your army is so big that they can only just stand inside my country, not much more. Why are you coming with seven akshauhini-shainyas?" Dasaratha said, "No, I am just coming to request Rsayasrnga to come and perform a yajna for me." Romapada said, "I don't know. I don't know how long the yajna will be. I'm not going to play any more tricks, because already Vibondaka has told him, `One son and you are back in the ashrama'." Dasaratha said, "I will fall at his feet. He has protected your kingdom, why will he not save my country too? Why will he not do it?" So Dasaratha went there, paid his pranams, and he cried and told Rsayasrnga, "I have no hope. I will jump in the fire of asvamedha instead of the horse, if you don't come." So then Rsayasrnga calculated, "How many days are left?"

It was 28 days more before the delivery. "That's all right. In 24 days I will come and do putra-kamesti." So he came, and right next to the asvamedha-yajna he created another fire from that, and he quickly started putra-kamesti. And when he was finishing with the purnahoti, the yajna-purusha came, a dark, black figure which was three miles tall. He had a huge big pot in his hand. He was holding Narayana in it, so it was no small affair. He said to Dasaratha, "Please give this sweet rice to your queens." Dasaratha was looking at the size of the pot, and he was thinking, "If I give this to my queens, then there will be no more queens." It was a huge big pot. Dasaratha asked Vasistha, "How is this possible? How can they eat this much sweet rice?" So then Vasistha said, "You ask Rsayasrnga, he will tell you." Rsayasrnga asked the yajna-purusha, "Why are you giving such a big pot to these human beings that they can't even hold it?" The yajna-purusha said, "The personality who is coming is so powerful, that you can't reduce him smaller than this." Then Rsayasrnga closed his eyes and said, "Ah! Bigger than the biggest, and smaller than the smallest. He is in this pot. You give it to me." So he took the pot, and it became small. By the request of Rsayasrnga the Lord reduced His aishvarya, and the pot became small. He gave it to Dasaratha and said, "All right, I have two days to get to my ashrama. In between, I have to take care of the delivery." So Dasaratha took the sweet rice. He gave half of it to Kausalya. The remainder he split in two, one for Sumitra and one to Kaikeyi. After Kaikeyi drank it, there was still some left, so that was also given to Sumitra. In this way, the Lord came as Lord Ramacandra in Kausalya's womb. He came as Laksmana and Satrughna in Sumitra's womb, and he came as Bharata in Kaikeyi's womb. Vasudeva came as Ramacandra, Sankarsana came as Laksmana. The Sudarshan disc came as Bharata, and the Pancajanya conchshell came as Satrughna.