An Advaitic Sage and the Mother Principle: Story of Ramana Maharshi
Sanjeev Kumar Nath

Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) is a modern manifestation of the purest Advaita Vedanta.
His transformation into an Advaitic sage is a story with a dimension of unfathomable mystery.
One day, sixteen-year old Venkataraman was alone in a small upstairs room in the house of his uncle at Madurai. (After the demise of his father Sundaram Iyer, he and one of his brothers were living at their uncle’s house at Madurai.) Suddenly, an unaccountable fear of death gripped the adolescent boy.
He was quite a strong, healthy boy, known to enjoy football and swimming. He certainly had absolutely no cause for thinking about death, but now this terrible fear of death suddenly descended on him. It did not occur to him to seek help from elders or to see a doctor, but he decided to examine then and there what this thing called death was. He lay flat on a bed, and enacted death.
Very quickly he felt that his body was dead, the vital organs had stopped functioning, the breath had stopped, and so on.
He felt that rigor mortis had set in. The body was now a corpse which will be taken to the cremation ground and burnt. But at the same time, he felt a very powerful expression of his existence as “I-I…” He felt that the body would indeed be burnt and destroyed, but with that he would not cease to exist. He remained, absolutely independent of the body, as consciousness, as the “I”.
After this momentous incident, the boy lost all his former interest in games and sports, his likes and dislikes in terms of food, and he became totally indrawn, absorbed in the Self.

He had attained Advaitic samadhi, but he was not aware of all that. He hadn’t heard of Advaita, and had read practically no scriptures except the Periyapuranam which recounts the stories of the 69 Tamil Nayanmar saints (in the Shaiva tradition), and also what was prescribed of the New Testament in his missionary high school at Madurai.
His uncle’s house is very close to the South Gopuram of the Meenakshi Temple, and occasionally he would go there for family pujas and rituals. Other than that, he was not in the habit of going to the temple.
Now, however, he started frequenting the temple, standing before the images of the 69 Nayanmar saints, and of Mother Meenakshi and Her consort Sundareshwar (Shiva). He wept continuously, stirred to the deepest core with devotion.
At home, he lost interest in everything including his studies. He would sit absorbed in the bliss of the Self, instead of doing his homework. One day when he was thus absorbed, without finishing the task given at school, his brother admonished him, saying something like “Why are you behaving like a sadhu? And if you really want to be a sadhu, then why do you stay here, eating and drinking like everybody else, but not doing your work?”
This really hit Venkataraman very hard. He left home, and after a rather troublesome train journey, reached Arunachaleshwara Temple at the foot of the sacred Arunachal Hill at Tiruvannamalai. Some days before his departure to Tiruvannamalai, he had met someone who had gone to Madurai from Tiruvannamalai. Young Venkataraman had asked him, “Where have you come from?” and the person replied, “From Arunachala”.
Later Maharshi would recall that when he heard that word (Arunachala), time seemed to stand still. Hence, when he decided to leave home (without telling anyone, but leaving a note, asking the family not to look for him) he chose to go to Arunachala.
Arunachala Hill has been worshipped as Shiva since millennia. It is possible that Venkataraman was acquainted with Arunachala as Shiva Himself from accounts of the Nayanmar saints in Periyapuranam, and was dumbstruck with awe when someone said that he had returned from Arunachala.
In this article, we will not be dealing with the theology of Shaivism, Advaita or Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, but with only one aspect of the fascinating story of Ramana Maharshi – how what may perhaps be called the “Mother Principle” seemed to play a crucial role in his life.

Venkataraman’s absorption in the Self was not because of any meditation or concentration that he was trying to do. He was not trying to do anything, but “it” was just given to him, transforming him from an ordinary fun-loving adolescent to an Advaitic sage.
His absorption caused many problems for the body, for he had lost ordinary sensation of time and did not care to eat. While he stayed in the Patala Lingam (in those days a deserted, underground cell; now beautifully maintained by Ramanashram and Arunachaleshwara Temple) in the premises of Arunachaleshwara Temple, he was force-fed by people who noticed the strange young sage.
Later he changed places many times—mostly to avoid the attraction of people—staying at a shrine called Gurumurtam, in a mango orchard, caves in the Arunachala Hill, particularly Virupaksha Cave and Skandashram. He had no intention of starting an Ashram, but devotees gathered around him and Ramanashram came into existence.
(He did not pose himself as a guru and liked to remain silent, but people came with questions on spiritual sadhana, and Maharshi’s answers would later become books like Who Am I (originally Naan Yaar in Tamil) and Self Inquiry. He did not want to write anything, but the goadings of devotees and certain circumstances led to his composition of works like the wonderful Tamil prayer to Arunachala, Akshramanamalai and Sanskrit texts like Upadesa Sara. His expertise in the prosodic aspects of Tamil verse was exceptional, and he translated some texts into Telegu, too. He could converse fluently in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and sometimes spoke in English, which he understood perfectly well.)
It is not my intention to trace everything concerning the growth of Ramanashram here, but only to point out something that is overlooked at times : the role on the Mother Principle in the making of the Maharshi and his Ashram. Ramanashram first began as a shrine to the Maharshi’s mother who breathed her last at Skandashram on Arunachal hill, and was interred at the present site of the Matrubhuteshwara shrine in Ramanashram.
One hundred years have passed since that day in December 1922 when Sri Ramana Maharshi first spent the night near his mother’s shrine instead of going back to Skandashram in the evening, as he was wont to do during those early days of the fledgling Matrubhuteshwara shrine.

After Mother Azhagamamal attained moksha, breathing her last while Maharshi placed his hands on her head and heart, the body was brought down from Skandashram and buried, as a saint’s body should be buried, with all due honours, at the foot of Arunachala. Thus, the Matrubhuteshwara shrine came into existence. It would take years for the shrine to be built properly, but this was indeed the beginning.
Maharshi would come down daily to his mother’s shrine and then return to Skandashram in the evening. One day, however, someone offered bhiksha (offerings of food) and also requested Maharshi to go on giripradakshina (going round the sacred hill) with them. The same thing happened the next day, and the day after, too. This was tiring for Maharshi because the routine meant that he had hardly any time for sleep and his close devotees were concerned about his health.
Of course, Maharshi did not complain, and even tried to muffle the complaints of the companions. Anyway, after this apparently accidental stay of one or two days at the site of the shrine, Maharshi just stayed on there. Devotees believe that the same force that brought him from Madurai to Tiruvannamalai in 1896, now made him stay there so that Ramanashram could grow around the Matrubhuteshwara shrine.
Maharshi’s connection with the Mother Principle, however, does not seem to be accidental. Right from the beginning of his life on earth, the Mother in Her various manifestations, played very crucial roles. It is said of the young Venkataraman, that when he was just a breastfeeding baby, he would sometimes invite tiny tots like him to be suckled by mother Azhagammal.
I think this is a pointer to what was to come: that his mother would become a mother for all, and of course, the incident also illustrated Maharshi’s generosity. Which infant would want to share his mother’s milk? Maharshi’s devotees who worship the Mother Principle in the form of Matrubhuteshwara believe that they are blessed by the Mother, just as some infant, invited by the little Venkataraman, may have been suckled by his mother.
Maharshi’s ancestral home at Tiruchuzhi is very close to the Bhoominathaswamy temple, a Shiva temple. So young Venkataraman lived just across the street of the Bhoominathaswamy temple at Tiruchuzhi; at Madurai he lived very close to the south gopuram of the great temple of Mother Meenakshi, and after reaching Tiruvannamalai he spent all his life in close physical proximity to Arunachala.

On one occasion, the young Venkataraman had made paper boats out of old legal papers that his father Sundaram Iyar the pleader had preserved. Scolded by the father for this prank, the young boy ran into the Bhoominathaswamy temple, and took shelter behind the image of Mother Sahayadri, the divine consort of Lord Bhoominathaswamy, and it took some time for people to finally find the boy. The point to be noted is that it was the Mother that young Venkataraman chose to seek protection from.
And of course, when Venkataraman at Madurai read the Periyapuranam and was deeply affected by the stories of the Shaivite saints, when, on hearing the word “Arunachala” he was transported to another realm, when love of God consumed his whole being, he shed tears before Mother Meenakshi and her divine consort, Sundareshwar.
Maharshi’s devotees generally understand the oneness of Arunachala and Ramana, but what about Mother Meenakshi who first witnessed young Venkataraman’s God-intoxication? Can we say that She didn’t have a hand in planting the seed of para bhakti in the young boy? And if Mother Meenakshi is famous for bestowing grace through her look, hasn’t the power of the Maharshi’s look been extolled in the great poet-devotee Sri Muruganar’s verses and the accounts of so many devotees?
When the God-intoxicated young Venkataraman finally left Madurai, one of his brief stops was in the house of Muthukrishna Bhagavatar, and we read about how the lady of the house took a special liking for the boy, fed him well, and sent him off with a packet of sweetmeats for the journey. This lady would later visit Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai.

During Maharshi’s stay in Tiruvannamalai, especially during the first difficult days, there were so many mothers, so many women who took care of him. These included Ratnammal the temple dancer who brought food to him while he was in the premises of the Arunachaleshwara temple, Meenakshiammal who fed him and gave him a proper oil bath while he was at Gurumurtam, Keerai Paati (“Keerai” in Tami means green leafy vegetables, and “paati” is grandmother, so Keerai Paati is the granny who cooks greens) who would beg and feed him on the hill, Desurammal (literally, “the mother from Desur”, a village near Tiruannamalai) who made it a point to bring food to him everyday when he was staying in the Virupaksha cave, Echammal and Mudaliar Paati who also regularly supplied him and his devotees with food. Also, there were many women devotees and ashram workers who adored and worshipped him. Maharshi, in turn, bestowed them with his grace.
During an onslaught of the plague in and around Tiruvannamalai, Maharshi and a few others stayed near Pachaiamman Temple, a temple of the Mother Goddess, at the foot of Arunachala hill. It was as if the Mother was anxious to keep Her son safe. We also learn how, in recounting the ancient story of the Divine Mother coming on a penance to the ashrama of sage Gautama rishi—the area of the Pachaiamman Temple— Maharshi would be moved to shed tears.
Once, when a lady from Maharshi’s village Tiruchuzhi came to Ramanashram, she asked, with some hesitation, if he remembered her. She was then a widow with a shaven head. Maharshi then told the people in the hall that in his childhood, his family was planning to get him married to this person who was a little girl then.
Apparently, the girl’s family did not agree to the match because they said that this boy Venkataraman was always following his mother, wearing a single piece of cloth. In fact, young Venkataraman would often follow his mother and help her in certain rituals and tasks which required him to be dressed like that.
But the thing to note is that Maharshi, destined to be a sadhu and a jnani, ever established in the Self alone, was, in a way, saved by his mother from entering wedlock and becoming a householder. It was his attachment to her and his service to her that apparently disqualified him for being chosen as a husband!

Vashishtha Ganapati Muni the great Sanskrit scholar, tapaswi and poet extraordinaire, was so wonderstruck by Maharshi’s answer when he sought to know what tapas was, that he gave the name Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi to the young saint (Venkataraman) known as Brahmana Swami in Tiruvannamalai in those days. Ganapati Muni was an ardent worshipper of the Divine Mother.
The history of the composition of his Uma Sahasram, a wonderful hymn to the Divine Mother, shows how Maharshi actually worked as his muse on that crucial night when Ganapati Muni shot off four different verse lines to four different amanuenses to be able to finish the great poem in time.
Great sages and avatars have always had wonderful and special relationships with their mothers. When Sri Ramakrishna was in Vrindavan and Mathura during a pilgrimage, he got so intoxicated with the love of Krishna that he refused to return to Dakshineshwar.
Then, he remembered that his mother Chandra Devi, staying in the Nahabat (music tower of the temple) of the temple of Ma Bhavatarini, would be waiting for him, and he immediately agreed to return. We all know about Adi Shankaracharya’s great devotion to his mother. The Bible tells the story of how Jesus on the cross, noticing his mother, his disciple John and others, ensured that John take care of her as his own mother.
Ramana Maharshi, who could look supremely indifferent to all ties, was actually all love for his mother. When the adolescent Venkataraman, intensely absorbed in the Self, left Madurai for Tiruvannamalai, no one at home knew where he had gone, and they were all anxious for him, but mother Azhagammal suffered the most.
When she finally got news of his being in Tiruvannamalai and came seeking him, Maharshi refused to go with her, although she made her plea relentlessly, day after day. Finally, on the request of a devotee, he gave her a written answer which said that she should not grieve over the fate of her son, but should be at peace, and that whatever happens is ordained by Providence, and one can do nothing about it.

This statement is sometimes interpreted in terms of fatalism, but before coming to a conclusion on this issue, we need to remember that it was not Maharshi’s practice to give general advice applicable to all. He gave a specific message to a specific devotee or inquirer in a specific context.
What he said to his mother, therefore, needs to be seen in the context of his effort to lessen her sorrow. By urging her to reconcile herself to the doings of providence, he was providing her with some solace. However, it is interesting that this first recorded teaching of the Maharshi is directed to his mother.
Although her son refused to go back with her, Azhagammal continued to visit him. Once, in 1913, she came to ask for a blessing. She wanted him to bless his younger brother and his wife with a son so that the family line could continue. A year later, a son, a future president of the Ashram, was born. He was named Venkataraman after Maharshi.
When Maharshi was in the Virupaksha cave in 1914 and his mother came visiting, she suffered from a terrible attack of typhoid fever. Maharshi composed a moving song to Arunachala, begging the Lord to save his mother. Probably this is the only instance in which Maharshi actually asked such a favour from Arunachala. Indeed, Arunachala listened to him (if at all we take the two to be different) for she recovered from her ailment.
In 1916, the young Venkataraman’s mother Mangalam died, so that the little boy came to be brought up by his aunt and Maharshi’s sister, while Azhagammal came to live with Maharshi. Some of the devotees apparently were against the mother joining the son, but Maharshi’s resolve not to abandon his mother did not change.
Over the years of her stay with her extraordinary son, Mother Azhagammal began to shed off her stiff orthodox ways in regard to caste and other rules, and gradually matured into a quiet, saintly lady. The jnani that Ramana Maharshi is, even mundane events turn to spiritual experiences under his influence.

Once when Azhagammal prepared appalams (a kind of papad) so cherished by her son in his younger days, Maharshi composed the appalam song, which while talking of the process of making appalams, talks of brahma-vidya. One day, when some lower caste women gathering grass on the mountain had dropped in, Maharshi asked his mother to provide them with food.
She hesitated because according to her strict orthodox rules, serving the food to them would necessitate her to take bath and cook again. Understanding her state of mind, Maharshi said, “Do you know who they are? They are God — the forms of Sri Arunachala Himself!” Such was the power of the sages’ words that immediately, she served them the food.
On another occasion, she would tear a portion of the sari she was wearing to give to a needy mendicant.
Everyday, under the influence of Maharshi, Azhagammal’s soul grew, so that it broke through all narrow confinements of caste, creed, etc. Can any darkness stay when the sun comes out? Maharshi’s proximity cleaned every little spec of ignorance that may have been there in Azhagammal’s mind, and she matured into a jnani, worthy to be worshipped. Thus, Maharshi moulded her, taught her, and finally gave her liberation. It is her samadhi that was the beginning of Ramanashram.
It is Matrubhuteshwara, God as Mother, that is the originator of Ramanashram (called Sri Ramanasramam in Tamil). It is the Mother Principle that gave birth to Ramanashram.
(Sanjeev Kumar Nath, English Department, Gauhati University, sanjeevnath21@gmail.com)
[Images from different sources]
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