Talk:Sarada Devi Sri

Sāradādevi, Śrī (A. D. 1853-1920)

Introduction

Whether India has produced many great women or great women have made India great, there is no gainsaying the fact that Sāradādevi, the immaculate spouse of the immaculate godman, Rāmakṛṣṇa, was great in her own right. As a daughter, as a sister, as a wife, as a mother and as a spiritual teacher, she has left an indelible mark on the history of not only Indian women, but also on that of the great women of the world. That an unlettered lady, born and brought up in the rural setting of the India of the nineteenth century could rise to the level of a goddess, adored by millions all over the world, speaks volumes of her greatness. An earnest study of her life is as fascinating as it is educative, of the ancient Indian values that have shaped its womanhood.

Angelic Visitations

In the history of the world, the advent of spiritual giants has often been presaged by strange experiences to their parents. It happened to the parents of Kṛṣṇa, Buddha and Jesus in the ancient days. It happened to the parents of Rāmakṛṣṇa and Vivekānanda in the recent past. No wonder then that it happened in the case of Sāradādevī’s parents too. Rāmacandra Mukherji and Śyāmā- sundarī-devī of the village of Jayarāmbāṭī (situated about 100 kms. or 60 miles to the west of Calcutta in West Bengal) were a pious couple living happily within their meagre means of livelihood. Once, when Rāmacandra was dozing off after lunch, he saw an exquisitely beautiful girl of golden complexion replete with ornaments, in his dream. She put her tiny hands round his neck and announced that she was coming to his house. A few days later, Śyāmāsundarī while returning from her native village Sihore on a hot afternoon, rested under a Bilva tree. Suddenly she heard the jingling sound of small bells and saw a dark little girl of great beauty descending from the tree and embracing her. She lost her consciousness. When she awoke, she felt that she had conceived. These two supernatural experiences show that the child that would be born to them later, was a goddess, the former representing Lakṣmī and the latter Kālī, both in one, since they are two aspects of the same Divine Being. This is further confirmed if it is noted that Rāmakṛṣṇa’s parents too had similar experiences, the father, of Viṣṇu and the mother, of Siva!

The Advent

The divine girl-child was ushered into this world on the 22nd December 1853, as the eldest daughter of the family. She was named ‘Sāradāmaṇi,’* the astrological name—as is usual in the Hindu household—chosen to ward off all evil and bring prosperity, being ‘Thākur- maṇi’ (‘Jewel of a goddess’). The child Sāradā with her charming appearance and disarming innocence, was the darling of the parents as also of the villagers. Though she was a little reserved by nature, she liked the dolls of Lakṣmī and Kālī! As she grew, she started helping her parents in the household chores and also caring for the younger brothers. Often, she would act as the judge in cases of quarrels and disputes among the children of the village, because of her sagacity. Collecting the grass for the cattle, helping in cooking were some of the common duties assigned to her. The mother instinct in her, which later on bloomed into universal Mother¬hood, was clearly manifested during a terrible famine that once raged in Jayarāmbāṭī and the surrounding areas. The little Sāradā would often be seen fanning the hot food served to the hungry souls who used to swarm her house where her father had organised a community kitchen.

The Little Bride and the Great Groom

Hindu religion has placed before man two royal ways of life, each of which, if followed sincerely, can lead to the same ultimate goal of life, viz., mokṣa or liberation. They are the pravṛttimārga (the path of activism, the householder’s life) and the nivṛttimārga (the path of withdrawal, the sarimyāsin’s or the monk’s life). During its long history, India has produced great spiritual leaders who were either householders or monks. The solitary exception to this is Rāmakṛṣṇa who realised God first and then married, of his own accord, and yet led a life of utter renunciation and total dedication to the service of the suffering souls. He was much more than a householder and a monk, an ativarṇāśramin (one who has transcended all varṇas and āśramas), who could be an ideal for both. Sāradā was destined to be the divine consort of such a divine soul. When Candrādevi and Rāmeśvar (mother and elder brother of Rāmakṛṣṇa) heard that their dear ‘Gadāi’ (Gadādhar, the earlier name of Rāmakṛṣṇa) had gone stark mad, they were naturally very much concerned. At their earnest entreaties, Rāmakṛṣṇa returned to Kāmārpukur, his native village. To their pleasant surprise they found him to be perfectly normal, the same old affable self. Even then, not prepared to take any risk, they secretly started searching for a suitable bride, thinking that, that would prevent him from becoming ‘mad’ again. When they were utterly frustrated in their efforts, Rāmakṛṣṇa himself asked them to go to Rāmacandra Mukheijī’s house at Jayarāmbāṭi where there was a bride specially marked for him! [According to an oral tradition, the baby Sāradā, on an earlier occasion, had pointed towards the boy Gadādhar from among the boys who had gathered, as her future husband, when jokingly asked by the village women.] The search did prove to be highly successful. Everything was found to be not only right but also extremely auspi¬cious, except that the bride was hardly six years old whereas the groom was twenty-three! The marriage went off (in May 1859) fairly smoothly. Rāmakṛṣṇa then returned to Dakṣiṇeśvar (a suburb of Calcutta) to plunge once again into further spiritual adventures. The little bride continued her life in the same old fashion at her village house.

In Blissful Company

Rāmakṛṣṇa returned to Kāmārpukur again in A. D. 1867 and stayed there for a few months. At this time, he called Sāradā to live with him, specifically to train her for her future life. Being four¬teen, she was now old enough to under¬stand things. Rāmakṛṣṇa taught her, not only how to call on God (how to pray and meditate) but also about the ephemeral nature of the world and worldly life. However, he also took care to train her in the perform¬ance of all the domestic duties, including the way to behave with various types of persons. In later years, recalling this period of her life, Sāradādevi’ used to say that she had always felt as if a pitcher of ambrosia had been kept in her heart. The bliss and the peace she then experienced were beyond expression. Rāmakṛṣṇa returned to Dakṣiṇeśvar soon after.

Womanhood to Godhood

After the demise of Rāṇi Rāsamaṇi (A. D. 1793-1861) who built the Dakṣiṇeśvar Kālī temple campus, Mathur (Mathurnāth Biśvās [A. D. 1817-1871]), her son-in-law and trusted lieutenant, had taken over the management of the temple as also the guardianship of Rāmakṛṣṇa. At his earnest entreaties, Rāmakṛṣṇa undertook a long pilgrimage along with him. Soon after this, Mathur passed away. Sāradādevi was now eighteen. She was spending her days in the fond expectation of the call from Dakṣiṇeśvar which, however, never came. Unable to put up with the rampant rumour that the village gossips bandied about regarding Rāmakṛṣṇa’s mental condition, she arrived at Dakṣiṇeśvar unannounced, one night, in March 1872, along with her father, trudging all the way. Contrary to her worries and fears, Rāmakṛṣṇa received her with cordiality and warmth and even arranged immedi¬ately for her treatment since she had fallen sick on the way. She was now at peace. Soon after her arrival, Rāmakṛṣṇa asked her one day whether she had come to pull him down from spiritual heights to mundane depths. Pat came the reply that her only purpose in her life was to serve him and be of help in his spiritual endeavours. Another day, while massaging his feet, Sāradā in her turn asked him how he looked upon her. The spontaneous reply was that to him, the Divine Mother in the temple, the earthly mother in the Nahabat (the music tower where Candrādevī was living) and she who was serving him now, were all the same!! Days passed by, with Rāmakṛṣṇa going frequently into his ecstatic moods (called samādhi) and Sāradā serving him and Candrādevī devotedly and meticu¬lously. One day—known as the Phalahāriṇī Kālīpujā day—Rāmakṛṣṇa made all the preparations for the worship of Soḍaśī (an exquisitely beautiful aspect of the Divine Mother), installed Sāradādevi on the consecrated wooden seat meant for the goddess and worshipped her with all the ingredients and ritualistic procedures. Almost from the start of the worship she was in a superconscious state. When at the end, Rāmakṛṣṇa offered his rosary at her feet, symbolising the total surrender of all his spiritual attainments, she was in deep samādhi, which lasted for quite a long time. After coming down to the normal plane of consciousness, she walked out of the room majestically with extreme grace. This event, now well-known as the Soḍaśīpujā in the annals of the Rama- krishna Order, marks a very significant stage in her life. Apart from the rousing of the uni¬versal motherly spirit in her, she also, automatically, became the possessor of all the spiritual wealth that her divine spouse had acquired over the years through superhuman efforts. Thus, Sāradādevi, the spouse of Rāmakṛṣṇa, became the Holy Mother or just the Mother even as he came to be known extensively as the Paramahaiṅsa.

Flow of Events

The Holy Mother, hereafter, lived more or less continuously for about thir¬teen years at Dakṣiṇeśvar with occasional short breaks when she used to go to Jayarāmbāṭi. These years proved to be hectic in every sense of the term. Apart from taking care of Candrādevī—Rāmakṛṣṇa’s mother who lived with him till her death in A. D. 1876— she had to do all the work of the household, including cooking food for the ever-increasing number of devotees of her divine husband, now popularly called Thākur or the Master. It was during this period, in one of her sojourns to and from Jayarāmbāṭī —probably during her third visit in A. D. 1877— that she had to encounter a robber and his wife in the forest area, since she had got separated from the group and lost her way. Her great presence of mind, fearlessness and universal love made her gave permission to Vivekananda to go to America.*

‘Mother’s House’

Ever since the Holy Mother arrived in Calcutta for a permanent stay, and started living in the houses of the Master’s devotees—and, sometimes, in houses taken temporarily on rent—a great need was being felt by Svāmi Sāradānanda, (a direct monastic disciple of the Master) on whose shoulders the responsibility of taking care of her, rested. By raising funds including borrowals, he managed to build a spacious and beautiful building in the Baghbazaar area of Calcutta. It was here that he wrote his immortal work Śrirāmakrsna Lilā- prasañga (Sri Ramakrishna, The Great Master), the sale proceeds of which were partly used in repaying the loans. On the first floor was the shrine for the worship of Rāmakṛṣṇa where itself the Holy Mother also lived. Her entourage also stayed in the same floor. She entered this new house on the 23rd May 1909 and lived there till the end of her life. The ground-floor of the building also housed the office of the Udhodhan, the Beṅgālī monthly journal of the Rama¬krishna Order started by Vivekananda himself in A. D. 1899. Hence it has also come to be known as the ‘Udhodhan House’.** The monks too lived in the same ground floor.

Pilgrimage to Rāmeśvaram

On Vivekānanda’s triumphant return from the West in 1897, his old friends, associates and admirers at Madras (now Chennai) pressed him to send a sarimyāsin to continue his work of spreading the message. Accordingly he sent Svāmi Rāmakṛṣṇānanda (known earlier as Saśibhuṣan or Saśi) to Madras where he started a centre, now well-known as the Sri Ramakrishna Math (at Mylapore). Towards the end of February 1911, Rāmakṛṣṇānanda organised a trip for the Holy Mother to Rāmeśvaram, the famous place of pilgrimage. The Mother stayed at Madras for a few days and also gave initiation. It was surprising to discover that language was no barrier for her communicating with the local people. At Rāmeśvaram she had the rare privilege of worshipping the Sivaliñga in the temple with 108 golden bilva leaves (.Aegle marmelos) with her own hands. She is also said to have remarked that it (the Sivaliṅga) was just as it had been established by her earlier (as Sītā in the Rāma-incarnation?). She also visited the Ramakrishna Ashrama (now Ramakrishna Math) at Bangalore during the same period (March 24 to 26, 1911) before returning to Calcutta. Later in 1912, she visited Kāśī (Vārāṇasī in Uttar Pradesh) for the third time. This was her last pilgrimage.

Mahāsamādhi

Apart from aging factors, the ever- increasing domestic responsibilities, physi¬cal strain of giving dīkṣā or initiation to a very large number of seekers and the subtle taking over of the burdens of their sins (even partially) told on her health adversely. As a result, her body began to show signs of breaking down. By the time the doctors discovered the nature of the disease known as Kālā-azār (black-water fever), it was too late. A few days before her final departure, she was found to have completely detached her mind from Rādhu and her baby, thereby indicating the abandonment of the prop that had held her to sustain her physical life here. Now, none could hold her back from returning to her Master any more! She gave up the physical frame on the 20th July 1920. Her body was carried in a long procession and was cremated on the bank of the river Gaṅgā in the Belur Math Campus (Headquarters of the Rama¬krishna Order), where now stands a small temple.

Final Message

Five days before her demise, she addressed a grieving lady-devotee of hers thus: ‘Why are you afraid? You have seen the Master... But I tell you one thing: If you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather, see your own faults. Learn to make the world your own. No one is a stranger. The whole world is your own!’ This can be treated not only as her last message to the world but also as a reflection of the quintessence of her life itself. The first part gives a tremendous assurance to all those who have seen Rāmakṛṣṇa, the Great Master, to be free of all fear by that very act. In other words, all those who have chosen to have him as their ideal and strive for perfection through the path shown by him, will be freed from the fears and dangers of transmigratory existence. The second part gives us not only the method of attaining such fearlessness but also the end-result of the same. At the outset, it should be understood that this ‘finding fault’ does not apply to those cases where love is the driving force behind it and correcting the person is the ultimate goal, as in the case of parents or teachers chastising their wards. It applies only to those cases where people find fault with others out of hatred or jealousy or a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude. By not finding fault with others— since ‘to err is human and to forgive, divine’—we can keep good human rela¬tionship with them. By discovering our own faults and foibles through calm self-introspection, we will be able to make serious attempts to eliminate them, thereby becoming more agreeable to others. Also, we will look upon others with greater sympathy and understanding. Behind the golden advice that none is a stranger and that the whole world is our own, is the great Vedāntic truth taught by numberless sages over several millennia! If the same ātman (the Self) or God dwells in the hearts of all including myself, then, finding fault with others will tantamount to abusing myself! Once this truth is discovered or the deep conviction developed, the entire gamut of human relationships gets transmuted to a higher plane! True, this is not that easy as we may imagine. But, by trying to learn to practise it we gradually elevate ourselves —and others—in the truly spiritual sense. A mother never sees the infirmities of her children. Even if she does, she makes light of them. Then what to speak of the Universal Mother, the Mother of all mothers! She who could melt the hearts of the robber couple or make a hardened criminal like Amzad (a Muslim labourer, notorious for his nefarious activities) behave like a loving son, only she could deliver such a unique message, since she had attained to the status of the Universal or the Divine Mother and reflected it in every word and act of hers. The world at large is yet to learn and act on her message.

Epilogue

If the motherly love inhabiting the hearts of all the mothers in the world were to be put together and churned, the nectar that would issue forth would perhaps approximate to Sāradādevi. Rāmakṛṣṇa left her in this world to uphold the highest ideal of universal motherhood. Her rare insight into the problems of Indian women who were handicapped by obsolescent social customs on the one side, and, exposure to the modern Western culture on the other, made her recognise the need for their education and even economic independence. That is why she was an ardent supporter of Sister Niveditā’s (A. D. 1867-1911) endeavours in the field of educating Indian women. She is certainly the best bridge between the ancient and the modern ideals of Indian womanhood, retaining the best of both.

References

• The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore