THE LEGEND OF RANI PADMAVATI

Heyy everybody!!! Rohan tis side, I hope you all are doing absolutely great!🤍 So, today we have a really interesting topic to discuss i.e. THE LEGEND OF RANI PADMAVATI. So, keep reading!

RANI PADMINI a.k.a. Rani Padmavati, we all know her by the tales narrated to us by our Grandmothers, through different folklores and also through the Blockbuster Movie : PADMAVAT by Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor as the star cast. But did you know, Padmavat shows a fabricated and a more dramatized story, which differs from the actual tale. So, here we are, discussing : THE LEGEND OF RANI PADMAVATI.

Queen of The land of Rajputs,people with indomitable courage, A land which has seen numerous immortal tales of warriors who sacrificed their lives to protect their motherland : CHITTOR. The life story of Rani Padmini has been penned down by numerous poets in the form of poetry, folk tales, etc: from centuries. The birth of Rani Padmavati is often debated by the historians, but popularly her birthplace is considered to be Sri Lanka in the Sinhalese kingdom as described by Jayasi texts. She was the Daughter of King Gandharv Sen and was taught by the best of the scholars of that era to teach her The Vedas, Upanishads, etc. She went on to be known as one of the most knowledgeable and powerful princess the kingdom had ever seen. Considered to be the m ost beautiful women, who lived in that era, was most of the times lonely and spent her time in the company of a talking parrot named Hiraman. She and the parrot together studied the Vedas — the Hindu scriptures. But, her father resented the parrot’s closeness to his daughter, and ordered the bird to be killed. The panicked parrot bade goodbye to the princess and flew away to save its life. It was trapped by a bird catcher, and sold to a Brahmin. The Brahmin bought it to Chittor, where the local king Ratan Sen purchased it, impressed by its ability to talk.

The parrot greatly praised the beauty of Rani Padmini, talking about her fierce eyes, warrior mindset and magnanimous beauty. Ratan Sen became determined to marry Padmavati. He leaves his kingdom as a Nath yogi. Guided by the parrot and accompanied by his 16,000 followers, Ratan Sen reached Singhal after crossing the seven seas. There, he commenced austerities in a temple to seek Padmavati. Meanwhile, Padmavati came to the temple, informed by the parrot, but quickly returned to her palace without meeting Ratan Sen. Once she reached the palace, she started longing for Ratan Sen. Meanwhile, Ratan Sen realized that he had missed a chance to meet Padmavati and was devastated that he couldn’t meet the love of his life. In desolation, he decided to immolate himself, but was interrupted by the deities Shiva and Parvati. Lord Shiva adviced Ratan Sen and his followers to attack the royal fortress of Singhal kingdom. Dresses as ascetics, he and his army waged a war against the Singhalis. But unfortunately, they lost the war and were imprisoned by the King. Orders were given to execute Ratan Sen. Just as he was about to be executed his royal beard revealed to the captors that he was the king of Chittor. Gandharv Sen then married Padmavati to Ratan Sen, and also arranged 16,000 padmini women of Singhal for the 16,000 men accompanying Ratan Sen. Sometime later, Ratan Sen learned from a messenger bird that his first wife — Nagmati — is longing for him back in Chittor. Ratan Sen decided to return to Chittor, with his new wife Padmavati, his 16,000 followers and their 16,000 companions. During the journey, the Ocean god punished Ratan Sen for having excessive pride in winning over the world’s most beautiful woman: everyone except Ratan Sen and Padmavati was killed in a storm. Padmavati was marooned on the island of Lacchmi, the daughter of the Ocean God. Ratan Sen was rescued by the Ocean God. Lacchmi decided to test Ratan Sen’s love for Padmavati. She disguised herself as Padmavati, and appeared before Ratan Sen, but the king was not fooled. The Ocean god and Lacchmi then reunited Ratan Sen with Padmavati, and rewarded them with gifts. With these gifts, Ratan Sen arranged a new retinue at Puri, and returned to Chittor with Padmavati.

Raja Ratan Sen and Rani Padmini were living their lives peacefully, with compassion and immense love for each other. On a quiet and tranquil night, they were spending time together and making love, when a Brahmin named Raghav Vyas accidentally interrupted them. Fearing Ratan Sen’s anger, he escaped to Delhi, where he was received honourably at the court of Alauddin Khilji. The beast, fearless, courageous and the gruesome ruler of Delhi Sultanate was made aware of the beauty of Padmini by Raghav Vyas, as he wanted a revenge from THE THRONE OF CHITTOR.

When Alauddin learned about the existence of beautiful padmini women on the island of Singhal, he set out on an expedition to Singhal. However, his soldiers drowned in the sea. Alauddin managed to obtain a tribute from the king of Singhal, but could not obtain any padmini women. Alauddin learned that the only padmini woman on the mainland was Padmavati. So, he gathered an army of 2.7 million soldiers, and besieged Chittor. Alauddin’s lust for Padmavati grew so immensely that He deceitfully captured Ratan Sen, after having caught a glimpse of Padmini through a puzzle of mirrors set up by the women of chittorgarh so that no one would cast an evil eye on their beloved queen. The frightened nobles of Chittor considered surrendering Padmini to Alauddin. But two brave warriors — Goru and Badil (also Gora and Vadil/Badal) — agreed to defend her and rescue their king. The Rajputs pretended to make arrangements to bring Padmavati to Alauddin’s camp, but instead brought warriors concealed in palanquins. The Rajput warriors rescued the king; Gora died fighting Alauddin’s army, his head was seperated from his body and his body was still ion the momentum of using his TALWAR at the enemies, and Badil secretly escorted the king back to the Chittor fort. Gora’s wife committed self-immolation (sati). In heaven, Gora was rewarded with half of Indra’s throne.

But the character that is absent from many of the popular folk tales about Rani Padmini is the character of Devpal, the Rajput king of Chittor’s neighbour Kumbhalner. It is said that Devpal too, was enamoured by the inexplicable beauty of Rani Padmavati. While Ratan Sen was imprisoned in Delhi, Devpal made a marriage proposal to Padmavati through an emissary. When Ratan Sen returned to Chittor, he was infuriated at this insolence by Devpal. He fought a battle with him, to prove his claim on his beloved wife, to win her again, but this great warrior, a loving husband, an honest king wasn’t ready for the deceitful moves of Devpal. Both of them dies in this battle. When, the coward Khilji got to know that his way is now free of every obstacle which came in the way of winning Rani Padmini, are now dead. He marched to the chittorgarh fort with his army, to assert his power and dominance. But, Rani Padmavati, a women of morals and self respect, who lost her dear husband in barttle where he was fighting to win her again. This beauty, which was the talk of the town from the day she was born had become a curse for her and it took away everything she adored. To protect the self respect and morals of Rajput women, she immolated herself with hundreds of other women, so that Alauddin even with hhis all might and power could’nt even touch a single Padmini of Chittor.

For those of you confused between Jauhar and Sati Pratha, you should know that, Jauhar was a practice in ancient India where women in large numbers self immolated themselves in a Jauhar Kund to protect their sanctity and morals. Whereas, Sati Pratha was a choice taken by the widows to sit on the funeral pyre of their husband and give up on their lives too.

This Tale of Chittor which consists of love, sacrifices, bravery, lust, morals, has been narrated in every Indian household by their elders from centuries. Due to this, courageous sacrifice, Rani Padmavati has been worshipped from centuries by the people of Chittor as Ma Padmini.

These are the tales which make people worship their ancestors as Gods , for the sacrifices they have done to leave a feeling of Pride in the generations to come.

To end this discussion of ours,

त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मन: |
काम: क्रोधस्तथा लोभस्तस्मादेतत्त्रयं त्यजेत् || 21||

BG 16.21: There are three gates leading to the hell of self-destruction for the soul — lust, anger, and greed. Therefore, one should abandon all three.

THANKS FOR READING!!!

PEACE OUT!!!