Lakshmana - Legacy

Legacy

Lakshmana is revered for his absolute devotion to Rama. His performance of his duties as a younger brother is considered to be a sacrifice and superiority of character as such duties are especially hard to do in adverse conditions. Lakshmana's life symbolizes the duties of a man to his elders and superiors, and how greatly valued is seflessness in a man's character.

While he is generally considered to be rather short-tempered when compared to Rama, Lakshmana is also considered an important element of Mariyada Purushottama, displaying great courage and presence of mind when Rama becomes distraught, angry and desperate over the loss of Sita — in an uncharacteristic display of desperation, a furious and almost hopeless Rama, not knowing of Sita's fate or whereabouts, is suddenly about to fire a weapon capable of bringing vast devastation of life; Lakshmana stops Rama, calms him down, explains to him that the world is not responsible for their separation from Sita, and consoles and encourages his righteous brother, while giving him support and strength to keep looking for her.

When Sita's jewels were given back by Sugriva to Rama, Rama lamented Sita's absence, remembering the jewels she used to wear. Lakshamana then gave Sita's toe-ring to Rama in order to aid his grief. What was implied is that he has never looked beyond the toe of Sita. As a great respect to the discipline followed by Lakshmana, the great Tamil poet Kamban made the statement on his character that "a great person never looks desiringly upon another's wife."

As per Ramanand Sagar's Sampoorna Ramayan it is depicted that: Laxman is also known for slaying 3 of Ravana's sons the mighty warriors Prahast, Atikay and Indrajit all 3 of whom were renowned warriors in their own right especially Indrajit Who had won renowned fame for his battle prowess. He is the only man to have survived the attack of The "Shakti Spear" thrown By Indra.

When Lord Shiva was asked by Devarishi Narad as to why the Lord was not disturbed by the fact that Laxman had been gravely injured by Indrajit, Lord Shiva answered the sage by saying that Shesha had the power to imbibe both Halal(poison) and Amrita(nectar) and as such could not be affected by the Shakti spear, but because the shakti spear was given to Indrajit after he pleased Mata Shakti with his penance. So out of respect for Mata Shakti, Laxman accepted the attack of the "shakt spear" on his chest.

The city of Lucknow was reportedly the ancient capital of Lakshmana and known as Lakshmanapura.

It is sincerely believed by the Vaishnavism a sect of ancient Vedic Hindu religion, that Aadi Sesha the divine snake over which God Vishnu resides took incarnation as Lakshmana, later as the great Vaishnavaitic saint and philosopher Sri Ramanuja, later once again as Sri Manavala Mamunigal as he is the embodiment of ultimate service to lord Almighty Sriman Narayana