Lakshmana was the brother and close companion of
RamaRama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
, and himself a hero in the famous epic
RamayanaThe Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
. Within a number of
HinduHinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
traditions Lakshmana is considered to be an
avatarIn Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
, in a secondary form to
RamaRama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
's main appearance. In some Hindu traditions he is worshiped as an avatar of
SheshaIn Hindu tradition, Shesha or Sheshanaag is the king of all nagas, one of the primal beings of creation, and according to the Bhagavata Purana, an Avatar of the Supreme God known as Sankarshan. In the Puranas, Shesha is said to hold all the planets of the Universe on his hoods and to constantly...
. The name may also be written as
Lakshman or
Laxman.
Birth and family
Lakshmana is the twin brother of
ShatrughnaShatrughna was the youngest brother of Lord Rama in the Hindu epic Ramayana . He is the twin brother of Lakshmana.-Birth and family:...
, born in
Ayodhya to
SumitraSumitra in the Indian Ramayana epic, was the third of King Dasaratha's three wives and a queen of Ayodhyā. She was the mother of twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna. She came from the ancient kingdom of Kashi. She was supposed to be the wisest of the wives of Dasaratha. She was the one to first...
, the second wife of Dasharatha, king of
KosalaKosala was an ancient Indian region, corresponding roughly in area with the region of Awadh in present day Uttar Pradesh. According to the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya and the Jaina text, the Bhagavati Sutra, Kosala was one of the Solasa Mahajanapadas in 6th century BCE and its cultural and...
. Thus,
RamaRama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
is the eldest,
BharataIn the Hindu epic Ramayana, Bharata was the second brother of the main protagonist Rama, and the son of Dasaratha and Kaikeyi. Dasaratha was the Emperor of Ayodhya and belonged to the Suryavansha or Solar Dynasty...
is the second, Lakshmana is the third, and
ShatrughnaShatrughna was the youngest brother of Lord Rama in the Hindu epic Ramayana . He is the twin brother of Lakshmana.-Birth and family:...
is the youngest of the four brothers. Despite being the twin of Shatrughna, Lakshmana is specially attached to Rama, and the duo are inseparable. When Rama marries
SitaSITA is a multinational information technology company specialising in providing IT and telecommunication services to the air transport industry...
, Lakshmana married the younger sister of Sita named Urmila.
With Rama
In
PuranicThe Puranas are a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.Puranas...
scripture Lakshmana is described as the incarnation of
Ananta SheshaIn Hindu tradition, Shesha or Sheshanaag is the king of all nagas, one of the primal beings of creation, and according to the Bhagavata Purana, an Avatar of the Supreme God known as Sankarshan. In the Puranas, Shesha is said to hold all the planets of the Universe on his hoods and to constantly...
, the thousand-headed Naga upon whom rests Lord
VishnuVishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
in the primordial ocean of milk (Kshirasagara). The Lord of Serpents, Sheshanaga was incarnated to the earth in the form of Lakshmana and during the
Dvapara YugaDvapara Yuga or Dwapara Yuga is the third out of four yugas, or ages, described in the scriptures of Hinduism. This yuga comes after Treta Yuga and is followed by Kali Yuga...
, he incarnated as
BalaramaBalarama , also known as Baladeva, Balabhadra and Halayudha, is the elder brother of the divine being, Krishna in Hinduism. Within Vaishnavism Hindu traditions Balarama is worshipped as an Avatar of Vishnu, and he is also listed as such in the Bhagavata Purana...
. He is said to be an eternal companion of Vishnu in all incarnations.
Lakshmana is part of the
Mariyada Purshottamm, or
The Perfect Man personified by
RamaRama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
, by his unswerving loyalty, love and commitment to his elder brother through times of joy and adversity alike. He is an invincible
warrior*For the Bollywood film of the same name see Kshatriya Kshatriya or Kashtriya, meaning warrior, is one of the four varnas in Hinduism...
committed to
virtueVirtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
and the
serviceSelfless service is a commonly used term to denote a service which is performed without any expectation of result or award for the person performing it.-Religious significance:...
of his brother. He never covets the throne of
Ayodhya, nor hesitates from joining his brother in exile, even though he does not have to.
During the exile
Early in their exile Bharata enters the forest with the royal encourage to persuade Rama to return to Ayodhya and rule as king. Lakshmana initially mistakes his intentions; he jumps to the conclusion that Bharata was approaching with malicious intent. Rama, however, knows of Bharata's love for him and explains to Lakshmana that Bharata would never try to harm them.
Lakshmana serves Rama and Sita reverently during the exile, building them a home in the forest and devotedly standing guard during the night, and accompanying them on tiring journeys and long passages of lonely forest life without complaint or care for himself.
One day Ravana's sister
SurpanakhaSurpanakha or Shurpanakha is one of the most important characters in the Ramayana. Indeed, Valmiki comes close to claiming that if there had been no Kaikeyi and no Surpanakha, then there would have been no Ramayana and no war with Ravana...
sees Rama's beauty and desires to marry him. She takes on the appearance of an equally beautiful girl and goes towards Rama's hut. There she proposes marriage to him, but he declines, saying that he has vowed to have only one wife. She sees Lakshmana and asks him to marry her, since he is equally as handsome. He also declines, explaining that he cannot take care of her as he is a servant to Rama and has duties to fulfill. She is angered by their rejections, so she insults Sita and threatens to eat her. Lakshmana comes to Sita's defense and cuts off Surpanakha's nose in anger.
The Lakshmana 'Rekha'
When Sita asks Rama to fetch the magical, golden deer for her, Rama asks Lakshmana to guard Sita and their home, and to take special care since he felt bad omens and sensed danger and evil. The golden deer is in fact the demon
MarichaMaricha or Mareecha was a rakshasa who played a small but important part in the Indian Ramayana epic. He was thrown into a remote island by the arrow of Lord Rama when he tried to interrupt Sage Vishwamitra's yagna. After that he became very afraid of the very mention of the name Rama...
, who must distract Rama and Lakshmana away from the hut so as to allow
Ravana' is the primary antagonist character of the Hindu legend, the Ramayana; who is the great king of Lanka. In the classic text, he is mainly depicted negatively, kidnapping Rama's wife Sita, to claim vengeance on Rama and his brother Lakshmana for having cut off the nose of his sister...
to kidnap Sita.
When Rama kills the deer, even as he is dying, Maricha cries out in Rama's own voice, crying for Sita and Lakshmana to help him. Although Lakshmana knows that Rama is invincible and beyond any danger, Sita panics and frantically orders Lakshmana to go to Rama's aid immediately. Unable to disobey the frightened and panicky Sita, and genuinely beginning to fear for Rama's safety, Lakshmana goes out to search for him. He however uses his mystical power to draw the
Lakshmana Rekha or
Lakshmana's Limit, a perimeter line across the hut that Sita must not cross, and no other being save Lakshmana or Rama may enter uninvited. If any intruder enters, it will be instantly killed.
Sita however, out of compulsion of religious duty and compassion for a poor
brahminBrahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
, who is actually the disguised Ravana, crosses the line to give him alms. Thus Ravana was safely able to seize Sita.
The Lakshmana Rekha has become a metaphor in situations where a certain limit must not be transgressed by human beings in any circumstance whatsoever.
RamacharitamanasShri Ramcharitmanas , also spelt Shri Ramcharitamanasa, is an epic poem in Awadhi, composed by the 16th-century Indian poet, Goswami Tulsidas...
, the wildly popular North Indian rendering of story of Rama, does not feature the Lakshmana Rekha story in the Aranya Kanda. Neither does the original, the Valmiki Ramayana. However in Lanka Kanda of the Ramcharitmanas, (35.1)
MandodariMandodari is the Queen Consort of Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, according to the Hindu epic Ramayana. The Ramayana describes Mandodari as beautiful, pious, and righteous...
rebukes Ravana on his boisterous claims of valour by hinting that his claim of strength and valour is shallow for he could not even cross a small line drawn by Shri Rama's younger brother Lakshmana.
Legacy
Lakshmana is revered for his absolute devotion to Rama. His performance of his duties as a younger brother is considered to be a sacrifice and superiority of character as such duties are especially hard to do in adverse conditions. Lakshmana's life symbolizes the duties of a man to his elders and superiors, and how greatly valued is seflessness in a man's character.
While he is generally considered to be rather short-tempered when compared to Rama, Lakshmana is also considered an important element of
Mariyada Purushottama, displaying great courage and presence of mind when Rama becomes distraught, angry and desperate over the loss of Sita — in an uncharacteristic display of desperation, a furious and almost hopeless Rama, not knowing of Sita's fate or whereabouts, is suddenly about to fire a weapon capable of bringing vast devastation of life; Lakshmana stops Rama, calms him down, explains to him that the world is not responsible for their separation from Sita, and consoles and encourages his righteous brother, while giving him support and strength to keep looking for her.
When Sita's jewels were given back by Sugriva to Rama, Rama lamented Sita's absence, remembering the jewels she used to wear. Lakshamana then gave Sita's toe-ring to Rama in order to aid his grief. What was implied is that he has never looked beyond the toe of Sita. As a great respect to the discipline followed by Lakshmana, the great Tamil poet Kamban made the statement on his character that "a great person never looks desiringly upon another's wife."
The city of
LucknowLucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh in India. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of Lucknow District and Lucknow Division....
was the ancient capital of Lakshmana. It was known as Lakshmanapura. After the Islamic invasion, the city along with many others were plundered and devastated. The name as pronounced by the Arabs and the Central Asians changed from Lakshmanapura to Lucknow.
It is sincerely believed by the
VaishnavismVaishnavism is a tradition of Hinduism, distinguished from other schools by its worship of Vishnu, or his associated Avatars such as Rama and Krishna, as the original and supreme God....
a sect of ancient Vedic
HinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
religion, that Aadi Sesha the divine snake over which God Vishnu resides took
incarnationIncarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
as Lakshmana, later as the great Vaishnavaitic saint and philosopher Sri
RamanujaRamanuja ; traditionally 1017–1137, also known as Ramanujacharya, Ethirajar , Emperumannar, Lakshmana Muni, was a theologian, philosopher, and scriptural exegete...
, later once again as Sri
Manavala MamunigalManavala Mamunigal was a Hindu religious leader, who during the 15th century in Tamil Nadu, with the help of his eight disciples helped spread Vaishnavism...
as he is the embodiment of ultimate service to lord Almighty Sriman
NarayanaNarayana or Narayan or Naraina is an important Sanskrit name for Vishnu, and in many contemporary vernaculars a common Indian name. Narayana is also identified as the original man, Purusha. The Puranas present divergent views on Narayana...
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