स्मरः वाव आकाशात् भूयः तस्मात् यदि अपि बहवः आसीरन् न स्मरन्तः न एव ते कंचन शृणुयुः न मन्वीरन् न विजानीरन् यदा वाव ते स्मरेयुः अथ शृणुयुः अथ मन्वीरन् अथ विजानीरन् स्मरेण वै पुत्रान् विजानाति स्मरेण पशून् स्मरम् उपास्स्व इति
smaraḥ vāva ākāśāt bhūyaḥ tasmāt yadi api bahavaḥ āsīran na smarantaḥ na eva te kaṃcana śṛṇuyuḥ na manvīran na vijānīran yadā vāva te smareyuḥ atha śṛṇuyuḥ atha manvīran atha vijānīran smareṇa vai putrān vijānāti smareṇa paśūn smaram upāssva iti
"Memory is greater than space. Therefore, gather ever so many people, but let them be without memory: they will hear nothing, think nothing, discern nothing. But when they remember, then they hear, then they think, then they discern. By memory a man knows his sons, by memory his cattle. Venerate memory."
63382f019761 · published Jul 26, 2026, 11:45:28 PM UTC
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The thirteenth rung is the turning point of the whole ladder: smara, memory, is greater than space. The argument is irresistible: seat "ever so many" people together and take away memory — they will hear nothing, think nothing, recognise nothing; the whole universe with all its expanses is, for a man, only what he can hold and bind by memory. Space contains things; memory contains the very experience of space; without it the world crumbles into disconnected flashes. "By memory a man knows his sons" — without it a beloved face is a stranger's.
So for the first time an inner faculty is set above the whole outer universe, and from here the ladder will not go outward again. For the path of bhakti this rung is sacred: smaraṇa, remembrance, is the third of the nine forms of devotion, and the whole spiritual life stands upon it: "remember always" is the sum of all instructions (smartavyaḥ satataṁ viṣṇuḥ). Forgetting is the only real separation; memory is already presence. It is no accident that the chapter's final verse (7.26.2) will crown the path with the words dhruvā smṛtiḥ — "firm memory".