The Hindu : Miscellaneous / Religion : Ungratefulness is a sin

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - Religion

Ungratefulness is a sin

CHENNAI, SEPT. 15. Any help received from others should be remembered with gratitude. It may be true that a benefactor may not need or even expect anything in return; however, it behoves of a beneficiary to express in one form or the other due thanks for services rendered. It is imperative to feel indebted to him who stretched a helping hand at the time of need. Any lapse from such form cannot be atoned. Such a sinful error will be further compounded if the timely help received is deliberately ignored.

It is a human failing that too often memory is short, specially in the light of temptation to the senses, said Sri. M.R. Nagasubramaniam in his discourse. Lord Rama extended His hand in friendship to Sugriva, forging a mutually beneficial alliance, and fulfilled his end of the bargain by vanquishing Vali and crowning Sugriva as the king of Kishkinda. As desired, Rama granted the incumbent time till the end of the monsoon to embark on the search mission for Sita. However, Sugriva, who blissfully sunk in pursuit of sensory pleasures, failed to honour his commitment. Angered by such want of conduct Rama dispatched Lakshmana to remind Sugriva, ``he who has raised hopes in the minds of those who seek his aid, who have done him a good turn, and are quite capable of enforcing what is due to them, and then disappoints them is the vilest of creatures.'' In keeping with his noble nature, Rama advised Lakshmana to eschew harshness while admonishing Sugriva for failing to abide by the terms of the alliance. However, the anger of the messenger to the court of the apes smouldered at the unjust delay and it fell to the lot of the diplomatic Tara to assuage his feelings.Her superb argument that did a mere ape not deserve sympathy for indulging in worldly pleasures a little more, as a result of which he failed to organise the search party within the stipulated time, found favour with Lakshmana who agreed to her point of view. However, it did not prevent him from pointing out to Sugriva that the sin of being ungrateful is far worse than that of a murder. The indefatigable Tara counselled Lakshmana to be true to his sattvic nature and refrain from losing his temper, for if the infallible Visvamitra, charmed by a woman could lose all sense of time, assuming the passage of 10 years to be but one night, what could an ape do but indulge in passionate bouts long denied due to force of circumstances. The fair-minded Lakshmana succumbed to the argument and gracefully accepted Sugriva's apology and the fact that the search mission was already underway.

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