maathru-panchakam -- some thoughts on the 2nd stanza

[Guest guest]

“maathru-panchakam†of Sri Adi Sankara bhagavath-pAdA

 

Continuing from the 2 earlier postings of mine on AdiSankara's

" maatru-panchakam " , here are a few annotations on the 2nd stanza of this

beautiful Sanskrit hymn:

 

gurukulamupasrutya svapnakAlE tu dhrushtvA

yatisamuchitavEsham prArudO mAm tvamuchhyai: I

gurukulamaBhasarvE prArudathE samaksham

sapadi charanayOh: tE mAtarastu praNAmah: II

 

(meaning):

 

" How can I forget the overwhelming love you felt for me!

Remember the day, O mother, when you came running from home all the way

To the doorsteps of my Teacher’s school with tears in your eyes to tell us

about an ill-omened dream

You’d had the night before—

A dream that spoke of the imminence but certainty of a mother’s loss

When a son appears dressed in the ochre robes of the world-renunciate,

a nomad, a mendicant ‘sannyAsi’.

You were heart-broken that day, O mother,

And you broke the hearts of my Teacher and my fellow-students too,

By your motherly love! "

 

****************

 

In this stanza, Sri Sankara bhagavathpAda is being very autobiographical indeed

leaving one a little surprised why of all persons, an

avowed ‘sanyAsi’ should want to indulge in intimate, personal nostalgia even

if it is all about his beloved mother.

 

We are all used to regarding “achAryAs†or “sanyAsis†as being rather

stone-hearted and un-emotional. After all they have renounced the world, cut off

all their worldly ties, purged their hearts of all feelings for a family,

transcended human bondage and hence they ought never to show the kind of

emotional “weakness†or soft-heartedness that afflicts ordinary mortals of

the world – “samsArins†like us who are inextricably attached to kith and

kin, our flesh and blood, parents, spouses, children and lovers. Strange then

therefore that the great Sankara himself, a giant amongst the foremost

“sanyAsis†of the Vedantic fold, and he who had otherwise cut asunder all

human ties of the world, should in this hymn reveal an altogether human side to

his personality . Was the great ‘achArya†too as frail as we are? This is

the almost blasphemous but not unreasonable thought that crosses one’s mind as

one reads the second stanza of the

“maathru-panchakamâ€.

 

To understand Sankara’s true intention of mind in this stanza one must closely

examine a few biographical details.

 

Sankara lost his father when he was but a toddler of two or three years age..

The burden of his upbringing fell entirely on his mother. Life generally was

very difficult for a widow the in the brahminical society of those times. We can

only imagine today the extreme trials and tribulations Sankara's mother must

have surely endured in providing for little Sankara and getting him educated. In

keeping with the tradition of those times, Sankara's mother, with the help of

in-laws and relatives, managed to get her son admitted into a Vedic

“gurukulaâ€. (The biography of Sankara reveals the great “advaitin†Sri

GaudapAda as Sankara's " guru " but it is not clear if the " gurukula " Sankara went

to was his). In any case, Sankara was an extraordinarily precocious student. It

is said by the age of 6 or 7 he had mastered Vedic syllabi that other students

would have taken ordinarily all of 12 or 15 years to cover and attain a modicum

of proficiency in. By the age

of 7 or 8 Sankara became not just a Vedic adept ... but a consummate Master

endowed with that spark of enlightenment or “brahma-tejas†that marked him

out in later life as a true “jagadguru†(universal teacher).

 

Sankara’s mother, the poor widow that she was, andwholly dependent for

subsistence on the charity of her relatives, watched the scholastic and

spiritual progress of her little son with a mixture of both great pride and deep

anxiety. The pride in the son’s growing fame as a Vedic Master was greatly

overshadowed by a growing premonition that Sankara would soon take the vows of

worldly renunciation or “sannyAshrama†and go away into the wider world to

fulfill his earthly destiny and purpose viz.: to bring about the restoration

and resurgence of the Vedic faith in India and establish its pre-eminence in the

land of his ancestors, the great “rshis†of yore.

 

Sankara’s mother knew in her heart of hearts that one day her son Sankara

would heed the call of his destiny and on that day he would simply pack up and

take leave of her and go away forever in pursuit of his lofty goals in life, the

loftiest of all being his own liberation. For the poor widowed mother the

prospect of losing her sole and beloved son to the order of “sannyAshramaâ€

was a kind of second bereavement. To a widow a son is really the last lifeline

and if it snaps then there is really nothing left in the world for her except

abject emptiness and endless despair. A son for a widow represents the promise

of emotional wellbeing and the prime source of material security. Sankara’s

mother knew that if he went away as a “sannyAsi†into the wide world, he

would never be hers to call her own again. She would lose everything in life.

 

In the ancient Vedic scriptural text known as the “ushanha-samhita†the

duty of a son towards his mother is laid out clearly: “Let a son be devoted

to the service of the parents as long as they live, if they are satisfied with

his virtue, he gets the reward of all religious deeds; there is no god equal to

the mother, no guide on par with the father; there is no complete exoneration

from a man's obligation to them; let him to do for them daily what is agreeable

and let him not engage himself in any religious rite without their permission,

the sole exception being what would lead to liberation. " ( " usanhsamhita "

I.33-37)

 

Purely from a maternal perspective, it is perhaps rather heartless irony that

while the great Vedic “samhita’ loudly acknowledges the paramount nature of

a son’s duty towards his mother and father, by way of a singular proviso of

exception to the general rule however, the “samhita†recognizes that should

the son hear the call of the heavens that beckon him to seek spiritual

liberation, then that call must be heeded at any cost, with or without the leave

of mother or father. Sankara’s mother, aware as she was of her son’s growing

spiritual stature and promise, must surely have anticipated the moment when he

would hear call of the spirit and that would be the moment he would walk away

to seek his liberation.

 

It was to this sense of gnawing insecurity and foreboding that perhaps caused

the troubled sleep of Sankara’s mother and gave her that strange but

clairvoyant nightmare: the nightmare in which her darling son Sankara donned the

ochre robes of an initiate into “sannyasaâ€, took the solemn vows of

celibacy, snapped all ties with family and went away into the wide world to do

his life’s work. The nightmare made her one day scurry in desperation to the

school where Sankara was undergoing “gurukulavAsa†and there she lamented

aloud to him, his guru and his classmates about the terrible premonition. What

an embarrassment his mother must must have caused to Sankara and the class! Poor

lady! Her mother’s heart beat with love for her child but it was also filled

with fear and desolation. Who else but mothers and sons of the world can truly

fathom and empathize with Sankara’s mother?

 

Empathy certainly it was that drove Sri Adi Sankara too to indulge the slightly

maudlin sentiment that overcomes any son who in moments of somber recollection

of times bygone allows himself to shed a silent, private tear or two in memory

of a dear, departed mother. Such emotion, such sentiment, is at all times great

and noble when it moves the heart of ordinary sons; when it overwhelms one who

is as mighty of spirit as the great Adi Sankara himself, without doubt or

hesitation, it sanctifies and indeed glorifies the other-worldliness of

“sannyAsis†even. In the other world as much as in this, shall we say, they

all know that “it is the hand that rocks the cradle which truly rules the

worldâ€.

 

Best Regards,

daasan,

Sudarshan MK

 

 

Explore and discover exciting holidays and getaways with India

Travel http://in.travel./