Oh! I Forgot!

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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