With the coming of the festive season, there are always questions on why we celebrate Dussehra, Deepavali. Particularly from the younger generation. The answer lands without a punch when you say it is the celebration of the victory of good over evil.
Much of the response is based on cynicism and it is not out of place. It is not easy for the good to win. It is precisely for this reason that the central message of festivals that come year after year is of the triumph of good over evil.
That is also why our epics are replete with stories of people who struggled under the reign of evil and how they still adhered to dharma, righteousness. And most of these stories are told as an answer to a question posed by someone who is suffering, or is trying to understand dharma. It was Valmiki’s question about whether a righteous man could be ever found – that Narad described Ram to him.
It was Yudhishtir who asked Sage Narad why King Harishchandra is extolled as the greatest king. The story is told of how Sage Vishwamitra caused Harishchandra to be deprived of his kingdom and face a debt of one thousand gold coins. Harishchandra had to sell his wife as a slave and himself work in the cremation grounds to repay that debt. When employed in the cremation ground, his wife came with their son who was lifeless. To cremate him, neither the father nor the mother had the money. Harishchandra’s duty was to take money for cremation. He refused to cremate his son, however much agony that caused him. Then gods appear before him, restore his son to life and return his kingdom.
Explaining righteousness is an instance in the Ramayan. The war had been won and Hanuman went to tell Sita so. On going there, he is tempted to ‘finish off ’ all the rakshasis who had troubled Sita in captivity. Sita stops him. “They were only obedient servants,” and she tells him a story. Once, a man being pursued by a tiger quickly climbedup the nearest tree. Once up there, he saw a huge bear sleeping on another branch. This tree was the bear’s house. The tiger called out to the bear and asked to push that man down for his lunch. The bear refused, saying that a guest must be protected by all means and went to sleep, thus ending the conversation.
When the bear started snoring, the tiger asked the man to push the bear down. This man did. The bear was adept in survival. He caught on to another branch and saved himself. The tiger said, “Look at this ungrateful visitor of yours…atleast now you can push him down?”
The bear refused. And he gave us the wisdom to remember at all times. He said, “A wrongdoer or an evil person should not turn the righteous away from his path of rectitude.”
To be righteous is demanding, but its importance cannot be undermined. Truly that which lives after, the stuff that immortality is made of, is righteousness. All festivals and celebrations in every cultural environment are celebrations of this character.
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