Page:Life and Teachings of Sri Ramanujacharya.djvu/25

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GOLDEN LIVES OF THE EAST.

[PART I. Lord Adinatha and had him named ‘ Mara’;® after which, they laid him in a cradle under the Sacred Tamarind. They could not bring themselves to believe that theirs was an ordinary child, but regarded him as some Great Being, who had taken human form for some grand purpose. Sixteen revolving years still found the boy seated in the same place, in deep Samadhi, silent, motionless, and entirely oblivious of the throbbing world around him. May be, he revelled in the glorious bliss of the Divine Presence that gave him no eyes for objects material. May be, his silence proceeded from his utter inability to express in human speech the Great Mystery—a task from which the Vedas themselves had recoiled in despair. May be, he could find no qualified hearer. Be it as it may, his parents misconstrued this extraordinary^ behaviour on their child’s part as a punishment visited on themselves by the Lord, for some unknown sins of theirs. For, are not the sins of parents visited upon their children, even to the seventh generation?

Month— Vaie4kha.

Date — 12.

Day of the week— Friday,

The day of the fortnight — The fnll-moon.

Con stellation— Vie&kha.

La gna— Karkataka.

Y ear— Bahudh^tny a. — (PaL )

^ The names of M4ran or gatl^kdpa : —

(a) His life had so little in common with that of thereat of

the world that he was named

(b) An infant, when in the womb, can see far into its past

and fntnre; bnt at the moment of its birth, it is touched by the psychic current gatha, and a veil of oblivion is thrown over its consciousness. Then it begins to cry and behave like mortals. But M&ran defied its power, and by pronouncing the mystic syl- lable— Anxn,— put it to flight. Hence the name gat^akdpa.