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Wonderful Feats of Memory
the first round, he would come again to scribe No. 1 and dictate to him the second verse of the work on Grammar, without losing the thread of the plan of the work, following this system; he would compose forty works on forty different subjects in a few days.
The voluminous works, some published, others in manuscript only, of this scholarly monk leave no doubt as to his capacities and the wonderful memory he possessed, in-days when there were no printed books, no system of spreading information and knowledge through the Press and no convenient mode of transportation.
Coming back to our own times, instances are not wanting of the marvellous feats of memory. There is a Jaina gentleman in Bombay, Mr. Raichand Ravji,* about 35 years old, noted for the wonderful powers of his memory. At the request of his friends, once he gave a public demonstration of his feats, in a public hall before a large number of people. He was taken to the platform and blindfolded. Some thirty or forty books of various sizes were one by one placed in his hands and their titles mentioned. He was asked to remember them. Then a number of about ten figures were given to him, of which he was to find the cube root without using pencil or paper.
He was further asked, with his eyes open, to play a game of cards with three gentlemen on the platform. He was also asked to compose, while playing the game, a small poem of about thirty lines, giving description of a certain place in India, the condition being that he should bring in the poem in certain stated lines the names of certain foreigners and foreign places that had nothing to do with the subject of the poem. Then a person who stood at the back of this gentleman at a distance of some twenty feet was to throw pebbles on his back, which he was to count while the game of cards was being played. Lastly, another person was to ring a bell while all this was going on and Mr. Raichand Ravji was
This man died 2 years ago.
*
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