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Srimate Srivan Satakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

 

            "Oh! I Forgot!"

 

       How many times have you and I kept something "safely", forgotten all 
about where we kept it and searched high and low for the same, some time later? 
How many times have we left behind at home some important thing or the other, 
which we ought to have taken to office and have had to rush back to collect the 
same? And few indeed would be the people who have not forgotten their reading 
glasses and kept searching for the same every now and then. More than we 
prosaic people, scientists and philosophers are reported to be extremely 
forgetful persons, their genius perhaps making them so focussed on their 
research, leaving little space in their "hard discs" for anything else. We thus 
hear of "Absent-minded Professors" and of scientists like Archimedes who rushed 
out from his bathroom, excited over a discovery, but clad only in his birthday 
suit. And there are persons who develop selective and convenient amnesia, in 
respect of things or sums they have borrowed from gullible others. Yet others, 
suffering from the same malady, remember only the favours they have done 
others, but not those received.

 

 It is interesting to note that even Sri Rama was credited with 
forgetfulness--of course of the right sort. Sri Valmiki says that He never 
remembered any number of insults or injuries caused by others, while 
recollecting vividly and for a long time, the favours done to Him by others-

 

"na smarati apakArANAm satamapi Atmavattaya" 

 

 Forgetfulness increases with age, with one's memory playing tricks on one. As 
we grow older, we are unable to recollect names, to match names to faces and to 
remember events and places. It is as if the grey cells are slowly losing their 
bytes. 

 

Of course, you can't call forgetfulness an unmitigated curse. It also serves to 
many as a healing agent, making them gradually unremember (to coin a word) 
tragedies and catastrophes, which have all but destroyed them. The passing away 
of a near one, the loss of a fortune in business or speculation, the words of 
venom hurled at one by a close friend or relative in anger, an ignominy 
suffered in full sight of one's peers-all these cease to trouble us after a few 
months or years, only because of forgetfulness, which is indeed God's kindest 
gift to mankind.

 

 Here are a few instances from our Scriptural lore, where forgetfulness has 
often played a crucial role.

 

If you want to read of a classic case of considerable hurt being caused by lack 
of memory, you need not look beyond the story of Shakuntala. Emperor Dushyanta, 
while on a hunting expedition, chances across Shakuntala, the foster-daughter 
of KaNva Maharshi, losing his heart to her at once. The Sovereign's feelings 
are heartily reciprocated by the damsel and the couple decide to enter into 
wedlock immediately and consummate their marriage too. Dushyanta presents 
Shakuntala with his signet ring and returns to his capital, intending very much 
to return and make the lady his queen formally. However, as fate would have it, 
he forgets all about the momentous happening, including the unforgettable 
beauty of Shakuntala and of having made her his wife, with only the five 
elements as witness. In the meanwhile, Shakuntala waits and waits for the 
King's return and finally, in desperation, repairs to the royal court, only to 
be rebuffed by the forgetful King and sent out unceremoniously, all her claims 
of matrimony rejected summarily. The Royal Ring, with which she could have 
proved the truth of her version, is lost in the meanwhile, leaving Shakuntala 
with little proof of what took place. The Ring is swallowed by a fish and finds 
its way to a fisherman who slits open the fish's stomach and is surprised by 
his find. Recognising the Ring for what it is, the fisherman takes it to the 
King, in the hope of being rewarded. It is the sight of the ring that jogs the 
King's recalcitrant memory, filling him with remorse and making him rush 
immediately to bring Shakuntala back to his palace with profuse apologies and 
all due honour. Though the royal couple did live happily ever after, we may say 
with certainty that the trauma and torment caused by the Emperor's 
forgetfulness would never have been forgotten by the poor Shakuntala, who would 
definitely have taken care thenceforth to have at least a hundred witnesses 
present, whenever she said something important to the Emperor.

 

Srimad Ramayanam too portrays how forgetfulness can seize even the greatest of 
souls. We are told of a curse that Dasaratha incurred during his youth, having 
directed an arrow unknowingly at the source of a particular sound, while on a 
hunting expedition. The Chakravartthi finds out to his dismay that what he 
mistook to be a wild animal was in fact a Rishi kumAra, the only son of a 
blind, elderly couple who depended on the former for each and every one of 
their needs. Deprived of their sole source of support and sorrowed beyond 
measure by the untimely demise of their promising progeny, the elderly Rishi 
curses Dasaratha that the latter would die similarly of "Putra shOkham" or the 
pangs of parting from a dear son.

 

Though dismayed at the turn of events, the Emperor forgets the curse in course 
of time, as he engages in statecraft, piloting the fortunes of his vast empire. 
And for sixty thousand years, we are told, the Emperor did not beget any sons 
to carry on the famed IkshvAku dynasty and performed Putra KAmEshti, praying 
for progeny.

 

It is thus Dasaratha's forgetfulness that makes him yearn for offspring, for, 
had he remembered that he would die of pangs of separation from his son, he 
would perhaps not have prayed for one at all. We may therefore say that the 
entire epic would not have been born at all, but for the Chakraavartthi's lack 
of memory-there would have been no Rama, no Sharanagata Rakshanam and the world 
would have been denied of an eternal guidebook of good conduct. This is no mere 
canard, as can be seen from the following couplet of Sri Valmiki, which tells 
us that  Dasaratha forgot all about the curse for sixty-thousand-and-odd long 
years and recollected the same only when he was almost on his deathbed, 
tearfully recounting the details thereof to Kousalya-

 

"tasya chintayamAnasya pratyapAt karma dushkritam

yat anEna kritam poorvam agyyanAt shabda vEdinA"

 

Another key character in the Epic too suffers from amnesia, we are told by Sri 
Valmiki. You would be surprised to learn the identity of this glorious 
character, who is renowned for his sharp intellect ("buddhimatAm varishttam") 
and unmatched valour. It is none other than Sri Hanuman, who is credited with 
forgetfulness. As a child, Sri Maruti was so extremely super active and 
mischievous, that Rishis had trouble carrying on their activities, when he was 
around. Unconscious of his superhuman strength, Hanuman used to visit the 
hermitages and wreak havoc with his innumerable pranks. We must understand here 
that it was no enmity or hatred that caused Tiruvadi to do all this, but mere 
boyish exuberance. However, whatever be the reason, the "monkey business" was 
indeed a nuisance to the Rishis, who threw a curse on Hanuman, in self-defence. 
The effect of the curse was that the Vanara Veera totally forgot his own 
prodigious strength and recollected it only when someone reminded him about it.

 

It is thus that we see that when one brave monkey after another recounts his 
prowess in terms of the distance he could jump and clear, Sri Hanuman sits 
silent, listening to everybody but not contributing to the conversation at all, 
when it ought to have been he who should have been at the forefront, telling 
all that he could easily cross the ocean and reach Lanka, with his 
indefatigable energy quite undiminished. It is only after Jambavan reminds 
Hanuman of the dimensions and depth of his strength, that Maruti recollects and 
gears himself up to the task.

 

Would you be surprised to learn that all of us, even those with the sharpest of 
memories, do suffer from the most debilitating form of forgetfulness? It is 
this forgetfulness that makes us go round and round in unending circles in the 
maze of SamsAra, knowing not the way out. It is this lapse of memory that is 
responsible for all our suffering, for our descent from the exalted pedestal 
that is rightfully ours, to the unspeakable mundane morass. It is the inability 
to remember our own original splendour, the magnificence and glory of the Lord, 
the inalienable relationship that we enjoy with Him, our roles as eternal 
servitors to the Supreme Being, etc.-it is our lack of recollection of these 
vital statistics that makes us wallow in the quagmire of SamsAra. If only we 
manage to remember all these, we would never have occasion to be born in this 
miserable world and would be as happy as the permanent residents of Sri 
Vaikuntam, who never forget their relationship with the Lord and are hence 
never called upon to undergo the rigorous imprisonment in the physical bodies 
prone to destruction. 

 

If this is the experience of mundane mortals like us, what could exalted beings 
like Azhwars feel on the subject? Does this lack of memory apply to them as 
well?

 

 Sri Nammazhwar tells us that the Lord tries His best to banish the bane of 
forgetfulness from us. Knowing full well that we mortals would forget Him in a 
jiffy and at the slightest provocation, He appears before us, looking extremely 
beautiful with His long, red-lined and lotus-like eyes, imprinting them on our 
soul in such a way that we are unable to forget Him, even if we fervently wish 
to. And once we become the subject matter of those famed broad and black eyes, 
there is no forgetting them-He just wouldn't let us forget Him, try as we 
might, says Sri Nammazhwar in the following pAsuram, which portrays eloquently 
the boundless love and affection Emperuman has for us, which prompt Him to cure 
us of our deplorable lack of memory for all the proper things-

 

"Marappum gnAnamum nAn ondru uNarndilan

marakkum endru sentAmarai kaNNodu

marapppara en uLLE manninAn tannai

marappanO ini yAn en maNiyayE?"

 

 

Once we manage to recollect our real roles as the servants of the Lord, there 
is no going back to the old days of forgetfulness, for, He doesn't let us 
forget, says Sri Tirumazhisai Azhwar too-

 

"andru nAn pirandilEn, pirandapin marandilEn"

 

Forgetfulness is thus both a virtue and a curse. When it is about the injuries 
or insults meted out by others to us, it is a virtue. When it comes to 
forgetting good turns done by others or the eternal relationship we have with 
Emperuman, it is a curse. 

 

The trick, therefore, is to develop selective amnesia. 

 

Srimate Sri LakshmINrisimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana 
Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

dasan, sadagopan

 

 

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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