Indeed, вЂњtrue understandingвЂќ, when вЂњthe little self perishes and God becomes all in allвЂќ, required one to disavow all the common associations conjured by the name of Rama: вЂњRama, then, is not the son of Dasharatha, the husband of Sita, the brother of Bharata and Lakshmana and yet is God, the unborn and eternalвЂќ ( Harijan, 22 September 1946). Gandhi gave it as his opinion, in an article published in Young India on 22 January 1925, that вЂњRama, Allah and God are to me convertible termsвЂќ, and on subsequent occasions he came to affirm the idea that the Rama of which he spoke had no correspondence to вЂњthe historical RamaвЂќ, the ruler of Ayodhya and the son of King Dasharatha ( Harijan, 28 April 1946). Gandhi himself came to venerate the text, even if he was critical of some of its passages, but it is equally certain that his idea of Rama, often described in textbooks as an incarnation of Vishnu but held up by his devotees as the supreme God, an ideal ruler, and a perfectly realized being, was not derived only from the Ramcaritmanas. Much of north India is also Ramcaritmanas country, where the 15 th century poet-saint TulsidasвЂ™s majestic retelling of the Rama katha (story) holds sway. In the Gangetic Plains, the terrain that Gandhi made his own as he came to assume the leadership of the movement for Indian independence, villagers have for centuries commonly greeted each other and strangers with the words, вЂRam-RamвЂ™ and вЂJai Siya RamвЂ™.

Set of 4 Articles on Vivekananda & the American Legacy.Return to the Womb: The NRI in the Motherland.Jindal and America: A Marriage in Heaven.Indo-Mauritians and the Innocents: A Photo Gallery.Diaspora Purana: The Indic Presence in World Culture.Gulf Indians and the Hierarchies of NRIs.From Masjid to Mandir: Across the Corentyne, Into Suriname.Contemporary Electoral Politics in Trinidad.

Satyagraha raghupati raghav song