Ramayana Simplified: Part 4: Maharishi Vishwamitra visits Ayodhya

King Dasharatha’s three wives gave birth to four beautiful sons who grew up to be very skilled and talented. They were trained in different fields, were taught the Vedas, and also became skilled at archery. The Princes gradually grew up to be young men who had become experts in Vedas, Archery, and other skills.

At this point, Maharishi Vishwamitra visited Ayodhya. Maharishi Vishwamitra was initially a king, he was a Kshatriya. King Vishwamitra aspired to become a Maharishi due to some specific reasons. He thus took training and got vehemently involved in tapas (or meditation). Through arduous tapas, Vishwamitra became a Maharishi.

Everyone, including King Dasharatha, respected Maharishi Vishwamitra and welcomed him wholeheartedly. King Dasharatha asked the reason for his arrival. Maharishi Vishwamitra replied that some evil asuras like Thadaka, Maareecha, Subahu, etc. were disturbing the yaga that the Maharishi and his group were conducting. The Maharishi said that he had heard of Rama’s skills and that he needed Rama’s service to get rid of these asuras and run the yaga smoothly.

King Dasharatha got shocked on hearing this as Rama didn’t have any experience in going to wars. The king said that he and his entire army will come to kill the asuras and that he could not send Rama to kill these dreadful asuras. Maharishi Viswamithra got angry on hearing this.

The Raja Guru Maharishi Vasishta advised the king to send Rama as Maharishi Vishwamitra demanded. He said that Maharishi Vishwamitra would not have demanded the service of Rama if he was not confident with Rama’s skills. Maharishi Vasishta was already aware of Maharishi Vishwamitra’s power and told the king that it was better not to stand against Maharishi’s Vishwamitra’s demands as the Maharishi can do anything with his power if he gets angry.

King Dasharatha agreed to send Rama along with Maharishi Vishwamitra and Lakshmana also joins them.

Few Insights…

• What is so special about Maharishi Vishwamitra? We see that the king gives a warm welcome to him and treats him with respect in spite of being a monk

Maharishis are always treasure houses of knowledge and they gather immense strength through their tapas. So, Indian culture has always respected Maharishis and Sannyasins. Everyone in society has great respect for maharishis and Sannyasins. This can also be seen from Swami Vivekananda’s opening lines of his famous Chicago speech: “I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world”.

• Maharishi Vishwamitra used to be a king earlier. He was also an expert in all kinds of weapons and in archery then why he couldn’t kill the asuras disturbing the yaga?

Each one has a specific Dharma. We will take an example from the current day. If we see that someone is robbing our house, we don’t have the permission to attack them how much ever strong we are. It is the responsibility of the police, courts, etc. to take action and to give appropriate punishment. Similarly, since the asuras were not allowing the maharishis to perform the yaga, it is the responsibility of the ruling king to take appropriate action. Rama was a prince and he is supposed to be the king after king Dasharatha’s death. Thus maharishi Vishwamitra invites the prince to start taking action against adharma in the country.

• We also see that King Dasharatha was initially very protective of his son, but Maharishi Vishwamitra was well aware of the fact that Rama is a prince and in the future, he will have to participate in several wars and overcome many challenging situations as the future king. Maharishi is giving an opportunity to Rama to expose his skills and improve them further. This is showing us that when we become overprotective of our children, they are losing something and we are not giving enough exposure. So, when it comes to challenging situations in life, they find it very difficult to handle them and often get problems like depression, or they depend on alcohol or drugs, or sometimes they even try to commit suicide.