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World's first Shloka It was a long long time ago. More than eight thousand years ago. The time was Treata Yuga. River Ganga was flowing in all splendour . The forests off the banks of the river were lush and beautiful with all kinds of birds and flowers. Sage Valmiki had come to the river along with his disciple Bharadwaja to have his bath and offer prayers to Surya Bhagavan. Sage Valmiki pointed out to Bharadwaja, that the waters were calm and beautiful like the mind of a good person. Sage Valmiki glanced up and admired two white water birds called the Krouncha which were soaring around in the skies. Suddenly a hunter shot an arrow at one of the birds, which fell down dead. The other bird which was the female bird wailed in agony and flew down to the sides of its mate. Sage Valmiki’s heart melted looking at this. He was sad and angry at the same time. He looked at the hunter and cursed him with the following words. Oh you person who have killed the bird without reason May you die immediately as a result of the sin committed by you.
Something strange had happened here. The words uttered were not in the form of prose. It was in the form of poetry. Sage Valmiki was surprised. He looked at Bharadwaja who was equally surprised at the flow of words. These could be played to music - to a beat. How strange he thought. Sage Valmiki thought about what had occurred. He declared – “ May these words which have stemmed out of my sorrow or shoka , which have come out in a poetic manner be known as SHLOKA”. Thus the first shloka in the world made its appearance. Do you know Sage Valmiki later wrote the Ramayana. The Ramayana has 24,000 shlokas. It is one of the Mahakavyas ( EPICS) of India. It talks about the story of Shree Ramachandra the king of Ayodhya. Isn’t it amazing that something which happened more than eight thousand years ago is still with us today. This is so because the story of Shree Rama offers us lessons of life even today. We will discover them one by one as the weeks pass by.
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