Jul 31, 2009, 12.00am IST
“Please recite Gajendra Moksham for me." We get occasional SOS calls from our daughter software professional in the US whenever she is faced with a persistent illness or an intractable situation at the workplace.
My wife and I sit down in prayer and recite the celebrated Bhagavatam story of the Elephant King. We believe in the efficacy of this prayer, for it has seen us through many a crisis in our nearly four decades of family life.
The story is well known: King Indradhyumna is a devout Vishnu Bhakta. Vanity over his devotion to God brings upon him Saint Agastya's curse and he is born as Gajendra, the proud elephant king. In order to redeem His devotee entangled in mundane pleasures, divine play is enacted by way of Gajendra getting caught by a crocodile while playing with members of his royal household in a forest lake. He fights the crocodile with all his might but in vain. Weary, anguished and helpless after struggling to free himself for long, the elephant laments why no one has come forward to save him. He prays to God, in the context of his past sanskaras :
"God is the Universal Self which is eternal and has no beginning or end. He is the cause as well as the effect for the universe that is but His illusory play with Himself playing all the roles like actors on a stage. He is omnipresent, omniscient and Almighty. He is beyond speech and thought and can be realised only by the yogis who have exhausted all vasanas and steadfastly see Him in their mind's eye..." But there is no Divine response.
Gajendra is distressed why the omnipresent and Almighty God who is said to come to the rescue of the destitute is not answering his prayers and has not granted darshan or given him relief. He now begins to doubt His existence. As he deeply contemplates over this, realisation occurs within him that God alone is the protector for the universe; all his doubts vanish like mist before the Sun and he entreats Him for ending his agony in a spirit of total surrender. The Supreme Lord soon appears, kills the crocodile with His Sudarshana Chakra and releases Gajendra.
Similarly, man, egoistic and proud of his power and pelf, struts about the world unmindful of God until defeat and dejection make him realise his limitations. He turns to God for instant solution to his problems and when it does not happen, he loses faith in Him. Instead of surrendering to His will and praying for relief, he specifies solutions and action plans without realising that God being Almighty and Omniscient will give relief in His chosen way.
Like the Ramayana's Sundarakanda and the Hanuman Chalisa , recitation of Gajendra Moksham is a common ritual among Hindus as it offers solace for the distressed. It is particularly dear to people in Andhra Pradesh because of Bammera Pothana's soulful rendering in Telugu of Vedavyasa's Bhagavata Purana. Pothana was a gifted poet but led a simple farmer's life. His intense devotion to Rama and a divine vision impelled him to undertake this gigantic task. He faced many a hurdle as he declined royal patronage. Legend has it that when he reached an impasse in describing the Vaikuntham scene in Gajendra Moksham and rested for the day, Rama Himself took the form of Pothana and completed the poem.
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