Shrimad Rajchandra And Mahatma Gandhi

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Raj Saubhag Satsang Mandal

Page 14

Shrimad Rajchandra's Life Sketch
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A few years later, when visiting the fort at Junagadh, he had a similar experience. This repeated experience reinforced his belief in reincarnation and thus, the eternity of the soul, which contrasted with the transient nature of worldly life.
The awareness of his past lives spurred his spiritual progress. When only thirteen, he started looking after his father's provision shop. He was scrupulously honest in all his dealings. Free time in the shop gave him an opportunity to read and contemplate books in Hindi, Gujarati, Sanskrit and Prakrit languages. When sixteen, he gave a public performance of a mystical act of engaging in twelve tasks simultaneously, in Morbi. This act, termed avdhan demands superhuman intellect, concentration and memory. It involves performing several mental tasks such as playing chess, composing poetry, answering questions, translating texts into various languages, counting drumbeats, solving complicated mathematical problems or puzzles and so on, all at the same time. He gave public performances in Jamnagar, initially with twelve avdhans and then sixteen. This feat won him the title of the Jewel of India'.
At Botad, he performed fifty two avadhans. Finally, at the age of nineteen, on 22nd January 1887, he performed the monumental avadhan of one hundred tasks at the Cowasjee Faramjee Audtorium in Mumbai in front of various national and international dignitaries. His fame reached new heights as various editorial and news teams wrote about this extraordinary feat in all of the leading newspapers of the day. The Chief Justice of the Mumbai High Court, Sir Charles Sargent invited him to travel to Europe where he would gain fame and earn large sums of money but Shrimad declined the invitation.
Along with the incredible power of memory, Shrimad also had a mystical sense of touch. He would be shown a dozen or so books of different thicknesses. He would then be blindfolded and