The King Who Was Forgotten

The sages told the Pandavas of King Indradyumna, who dwelt in heaven for his good deeds but was cast out when his fame was forgotten on earth - and of his strange search among the oldest beings of the world to find one who still remembered him. It is a tale of the fleetingness of fame and the lasting power of good deeds.

King Indradyumna had been a great and righteous king, famous in his day for his charity and his sacrifices, and for these merits he had gone, after his life on earth, to dwell in heaven among the blessed, enjoying the reward of his good deeds for a vast span of years. But one day the king was suddenly cast out from heaven and sent back down to earth. For it was said to him that the merit which had earned him his place was now exhausted, because his fame had faded from the world below: no one upon the earth any longer remembered him or spoke of his good deeds, and where a man's fame has wholly died, his place in heaven cannot endure.