09/04/2017
Chitrakoot’s spiritual legacy stretches back to legendary ages: It was in these deep forests that Ram, Sita and his brother Lakshman spent a few months of their fourteen years of exile; the great sage Atri, Sati Anusuya, Dattatreya, Maharshi Markandeya, Valmiki and various other sages, seers, devotees and thinkers meditated; and here the principal trinity of the Hindu pantheon, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, took their incarnations.[2]
It is said that all the gods and goddesses came to Chitrakoot when Rama performed the Shraddha ceremony of his father to partake of the shuddhi (i.e. a feast given to all the relatives and friends on the thirteenth day of the death in the family). The first known mention of the place is in the Valmiki Ramayan, which is believed to be the first ever Mahakavya composed by the first ever poet. As Valmiki is said to be contemporaneous with (or even earlier than) Ram and is believed to have composed the Ramayan before the birth of Ram, the antiquity of its fame can well be gauged.
Valmiki speaks of Chitrakoot as an eminently holy place inhabited by the great sages, abounding in monkeys, bears and various other kinds of fauna and flora. Both the sages Bharadwaj and Valmiki speak of Chitrakoot in glowing terms and advise Ram to make it his abode during the period of his exile. Lord Ram himself admits this bewitching impact of this place. In the 'Ramopakhyan' and descriptions of teerths at various places in the Mahabharat, Chitrakoot finds a favoured place. In 'Adhyatma Ramayan' and 'Brihat Ramayan' testify to the throbbing spiritually and natural beauty of Chitrakuta. Various Sanskrit and Hindi poets also have paid similar tributes to Chitrakuta. Mahakavi Kalidas has described this place beautifully in his epic 'Raghuvansh'. He was so much impressed with its charms that he made Chitrakuta (which he calls Ramgiri because of its time-honoured associations with lord Ram) the place of exile of his yaksha in Meghdoot.
Tulsidas, the saint-poet of Hindi has spoken very reverently of this place in all his major works-Ramcharit Manas, Kavitawali, Dohawali and Vinaya Patrika. The last-mentioned work contains many verses which show a deep personal bond between Tulsidas and Chitrakoot. He spent quite some part of his life here worshipping Ram and craving his darshan. It was here that he had what he must have considered the crowning moment of his achievements—i.e. the darshan of his beloved deity Lord Ram at the intercession of Hanumanji. His eminent friend, the noted Hindi poet Rahim (i.e. Abdur Rahim Khankhana, the soldier-statesmen-saint-scholar-poet who was among the Nav-Ratnas of Akbar) also spent some time here, when he had fallen from favour with Akbar's son Emperor Jahangir.[1]
