[Advaita-l] bharata or lakshmaNa who is elder ??

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> Y'day I was listening to Sri Bannanje GovindAchArya's pravachana on 
> rAmAyaNa..He makes one important observation against popular belief that 
> bharata is elder to lakshmaNa...He says bharata is infact younger to 
> lakshmaNa and there is not even a single sentence that proves that bharata 
> is elder to lakshmaNa in mUla vAlmeeki rAmAyaNa. OTOH, when rAma & 
> lakshmaNa both return after rAvaNa vadha to ayOdhya bharata offers praNAms 
> to 'both' rAma & lakshmaNa addressing them as 'arya'. He also says that 
> lakshmaNa and shatrugna are not twins & there is 9 to 10 months gap 
> between their birth :-)) and there is no mention of 'lakshmaNa rekha' 
> episode as such in mUla rAmAyaNa...Would appreciate any valid inputs with 
> regard to this.

Did Sri Bannanje Govindacharya say mUla rAmAyaNa or vAlmIki rAmAyaNa or
mUla vAlmIki rAmAyaNa? The last seems impossible to me, given the fact that
Sri Govindacharya is a very staunch mAdhva scholar and could not have made
such a rudimentary mistake (by mAdhva standards) of equating mUla rAmAyaNa
with vAlmIki's kAvya. Please note also that the mUla rAmAyaNa of the mAdhva
school is not available to anyone. It is impossible either to verify or to dispute
what is said to be in that text. You have to take it on trust and whatever truth
value you attach to such statements is completely dependent upon the trust you
place upon those who make such statements, nothing else.
 
Vidyasankar