Cākshusha Jātismara

A child was born into a royal line with jātismaraṇa, the memory of past lives kept from the moment of birth. He laughed when his mother embraced him, and he spoke plain words about the self-interest in a parent’s love. His mother left him. A Jāta-hāriṇī, a kind of rākshasī that steals newborn children, took him through a chain of households. At the end King Vikrānta found him and raised him as Ānanda. In an earlier birth this being had come out of Brahmā’s eyes, and he became the sixth Manu, Cākshusha Manu.

The infant who remembered

The child was born with a rare gift. Other newborns come into the world knowing nothing. This child came with all his past lives present in his mind. He saw the world as it was, the wishes of the people around him, and the nature of attachment and suffering.

When his mother held him with great tenderness at his birth, he did not cry and he did not settle into her arms. He laughed.

The infant’s words

The surprised mother asked him why a newborn laughed at such a moment. He answered at once. He said she held him not for his sake but because of her own attachment and her hope of pleasure from a son. Her love, however real it felt to her, was driven by self-interest. He gave two examples: a cat looks at an infant for its own ends, and a Jāta-hāriṇī looks at a newborn as prey. The tenderness of a mother’s embrace, he said, comes from the mother’s need and not from any selfless care for the child.

The mother was stung by the truth of his words and left the child.

The Jāta-hāriṇī’s chain

A Jāta-hāriṇī found the abandoned child. The Jāta-hāriṇīs are a class of rākshasīs who steal newborn infants and put others in their place. They go from house to house. They leave a stolen infant in one home and eat the infant already there. Each exchange draws them further into a chain of substitution and killing.

The child with the memory of past lives was carried through this chain and passed through many households as the Jāta-hāriṇī moved from home to home. He lived, where other children died.

King Vikrānta and the name Ānanda

At last King Vikrānta met the child. He saw that the child was no ordinary one, took him in and raised him. The boy was named Ānanda.

Cākshusha Manu

The Purāṇa explains how Ānanda became a Manu through his origin. In an earlier birth this being had come out of Brahmā’s eyes. The word cakshu means eye. Because of the great puṇya (merit) of that divine origin, and of the jātismaraṇa he carried from life to life, he was fated to rise. He became the sixth Manu, Cākshusha Manu, who rules the Cākshusha Manvantara. His name holds both his origin, born of Brahmā’s eyes, and his nature, one who sees clearly across lives.

Sources

• Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Chapter 73