Edited bashrc in RHEL5 results in command not found for user

Issue

• problem with PATH in bash:

# /bin/echo $PATH 
/usr/java/jre1.5.0_18/bin:PATH:/root/bin 

• expected results:

  # /bin/echo $PATH
   /usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin
  

• ran the following commands to update the environment variables:

  # cd /root.  
  # echo JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jre1.5.0_18 >> .bashrc
  # echo PATH=/usr/java/jre1.5.0_18/bin:$PATH >> .bashrc
  # echo export JAVA_HOME PATH >> .bashrc.
  

• now nothing is working for commands:

  # ls
  -bash: ls: command not found