A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE SAGES OF INDIA. 457Coming down to later times, there have been greatworld-moving sages, great incarnations, of whom therehave been many, and according to Bhagavatam they alsoare infinite in number, of whom those that are worshippedmost in India are Rama and Krishna. Rama, the ancientidol of the Heroic Ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, t& Meal son, the ideal husband, the ideal father andabove all the ideal King, this Rama has been presentedbefore us by the great sage Valmiki. No language can bepurer, none chaster, none more beautiful, and at the sametime simple, than the language in which the great poethas depicted the life of Rama. And what to speak of Sita?You may exhaust the literature of the world that is past,unfl I may assure you will have to exhaust the literatureof the world of the future before finding another Sita. Sitaisunique ; the character was once depicted and once forall. Ramas have been, perhaps, several, but Sitas never.She is the very type of the Indian woman as she shouldbe, for all the Indian ideals of a perfected woman havegot around that one life of Sita ;and here she stands,these thousands of years, commanding the worship of everyman, woman, or child, throughout the length and breadthof the land of Aryavartha., There she will always be,glorious Sita, purer than purity itself, all patience, and allsuffering. She who suffered that life of suffering withouta murmur, she the ever chaste and ever pure wife, she theideal of the peftple, the ideal of the gods, the great Sita, ournational Goddess she must always remain. And every oneof us knows her too well to require much delineation.Allour mythology may vanish, even our Yedas may depart,*and our Sanskrit language may vanish for ever, but as longas there will be five Hindus living here, speaking the mostvulgar patois, there will be the story of Sita present,mark