Life of Shrimad Rajchandra

Author(s): Manu Doshi
Publisher: Manu Doshi

Page 37

Playing cards: After throwing the dice at Chopät, he took his turn at a card-game with three other persons. At the end he had exactly described his 13 cards, which were taken away from him after he had viewed them only once.
Playing chess: He was simultaneously playing chess. He exactly indicated the positions of kings, queens, rooks, bishops, knights and pawns, when the game was taken over.
Counting the bell-rings: That time one person was ringing a small bell while standing outside. At the end Shrimad had correctly shown the number of rings.
Counting Chanothis: One person was dropping Chanothis on his back and Shrimad had indicated how many Chanothis were dropped.
6 to 9) Calculations: He was asked to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of the given numbers. He mentally calculated the same while attending to other activities and the correct replies were given at the end
Counting of beads: One person was turning the beads and Shrimad had indicated the number of beads turned.
11 to 26) Deciphering and composing: Words of 16 languages, viz. Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Sindhi, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Jädeji, Märwädi, Kannad, Dravidian, Arabic, Persian, English and Latin were allotted to 16 persons, who presented the letters of those words at random while other activities were going on. For instance, first was given the 3rd letter of Arabic language, then was given the 17th of Latin, then 2nd of Sanskrit, then 41st of Urdu and so on. Without resorting to writing, Shrimad took note of that in his mind and arranging them in order, he had spoken out the relevant sentences or the poems at the end. For instance, there were 44 letters in Sanskrit and they were given in the following order:
44, 16, 35, 31, 38, 39, 25, 22, 34, 36, 1, 3, 6, 5, 14, 13, 4, 7, 9, 21, 27, 12, 26, 8, 23, 15, 18, 11, 30, 10, 24, 17, 40, 43, 42, 37, 41, 2, 19, 20, 28, 33, 29 and 32.
Those letters consisted of the following verse, which Shrimad recited at the end.
Baddho Hi Ko Yo Vishayanurägi, Ko Vä Vimukto Vishaye Viraktah Ko Västi Ghoro Narakah Swadehah, Trushnäkshayah Swargapadam Kimasti
It means: Who is bound except one, who is attached to the sense objects? Who is liberated except one, who is freed from the objects of senses? Which is the horrible infernal abode except the body? What is the heavenly abode except uprooting of desire?
Similarly he narrated the sentences or verses of fifteen other languages on the basis of the letters received at random.
27 & 28) Two persons called for letters of two poems on two different subjects as per serial numbers given at random. One of them consisted of 48 letters and Shrimad accurately gave the letters corresponding to the numbers.
29 to 36) Eight puzzles were put forth to him by keeping some blanks. Shrimad provided the missing lines and at the end he recited all the eight of them.
37 to 52) 16 persons had called for poems on different subjects in different rhymes. For instance, one of them related to the reason for yoking the deer to the moon, another to criticizing the tradition of mismatching couples, still another to a prayer which would include the name of the poet together with his father's name and so on.