Thoughts on 4th and final 5th verse of maathru-panchakam: CONCLUDED

[Guest guest]

Here are a few thoughts of mine on the last two verses (4th and 5th) of

Sankara’s â€maathru-panchakamâ€. (The first 3 verses were the subject of 3

earlier postings sent to the list over the past few weeks). I hope members

derive as much enjoyment from reading these postings as I did in writing them

these past few weeks.

 

The 4th stanza of the “maathru-panchakam†reads as follows:

 

mUkthA maNistvam nayanam mameti

  rAjEti jeevEti chiram sutathvam  I

ithyukthavatyA tava vaachi mAtah:

  dadAmyaham tandulamEva-shushkam II

 

(meaning):

“My precious gem!â€, “My precious eyes!â€,

“My little king!â€, “My very breath and life!â€

Such were the terms of endearment

You heaped on me, mother of mine!

For all the love spoken through those phrases

I have only these few uncooked seeds of rice to pour

Upon your lifeless lips in solemn and final thanks --

A sacred obsequy: A token of debt

The un-cancelled one a son owes the mother.â€

 

The final and 5th verse reads as follows:

 

ambEti tAtEti shiveti tasmin

  prasUtikAlE yadavOcha ucchaih:  I

krishnEti gOvinda hare mukundE

   tyahO janannyai rachitOyamajalih:  II

 

(meaning):

“When you brought me forth into the world

From your agonized but compassionate womb,

You uttered aloud the holy names of God:

“O Divine Mother! O Lord my Father!

“O Shiva! O Krishna! Govinda!

“Harey! Mukunda!â€

That was an act of kindness, mother,

For that was the moment of my deliverance too!

How shall I thank thee for that deed

Except by offering thee my eternal worship!â€

 

These 2 verses of Sri SankarAchArya once again show us that the heart of an

ascetic is not all cold, arid, lifeless stone. Renouncing the world, embracing

the vows of “sannyAsa†and wearing the ochre robe all do help the human

heart to cultivate a certain worldly detachment but do not in any way for that

reason either dehumanize or desensitize it. The sense of loss and anguish that

the death of one as near and beloved as one’s mother arouses in anyone is felt

by a “sannyAsiâ€, even one as great as Sankara, no less deeply or painfully

than any ordinary ‘gruhasthA’ or householder of the world. It is only when

we encounter Death at close quarters that we begin to realize, even if only

dimly, that “we are not human beings here in the world having a spiritual

experience but rather that we are all spiritual beings having a human

experienceâ€. (Teilhard de Chardin). To both “sanyAsin†and “samsArinâ€

in equal measure of distress, Death is

indeed an essentially human experience.

 

In the 4th verse SankarAchArya does not fight shy of sharing with us a tender

and intimate memory of his. He recalls the way his mother called him fond

“namesâ€; the many ways she used to address him as a child, using little

terms of motherly affection such as “my shining gemâ€,â€apple of my eyeâ€,

“my little king†etc… the sort of common but sportive fancy most

mother’s of the world indulge in while coaxing or cajoling their child to

finish a meal… one “name†being thought up for every morsel, as it were!

“In return for those terms of endearment and affectionâ€, Sankara seems to be

saying in this verse, â€in return for all that love, mother, all I have to

offer you by way of a son’s inadequate reciprocation, is this fistful of raw

uncooked rice to pour upon your lifeless lipsâ€.

 

The reference here in this verse to the age-old Vedic custom of “pouring a

fistful of rice†or “annam†(as it is known in Sanskrit) upon the lifeless

lips of the dead is quite significant. The custom is part of the elaborate

‘preta-samskAra’: the last solemn rites of passage that are traditionally

administered by the offspring to a dead parent. It is a ritual act so rich in a

two-fold symbolism.

 

(1)    On the part of the deceased parent, the ritual act is meant to

symbolize the departing soul consuming its very last morsel of “food†as a

human, being released thereafter from the “anna maya kOsa†and “prANa maya

kOsaâ€, the realms (or “shroudsâ€) of earthly Sustenance and Energy

respectively, in which the soul had lain ensconced and thrived all through its

mortal existence, and now at last readies itself to begin its onward journey to

celestial destinations.                   

 

(2)    On the part of the offspring it is an act of final thanksgiving. 

Sankara, as already explained, being an ordained “sannyAsi†was forbidden

from performing any one of the last rites for his mother in the prescribed Vedic

manner. But even die-hard Vedic orthodoxy places no obstacles in the way of a

son who chooses to perform the symbolic “samskAra†involving the mere simple

act of offering a single morsel of “annam†to a departed mother in the

genuinely humble spirit of final thanksgiving. It is in a way a kind of

‘samskara’ too and one that perfectly reciprocates another equally hoary and

traditional Vedic “samskAra†called “anna prAsana†which is solemnly

administered by every mother and father to an infant child who begins teething

usually 6 months after birth.. In the “anna pAsana†ritual, the mother and

father take a fistful of freshly cooked rice, and to the chant of appropriate

Vedic “mantrasâ€, pour it

gently through the lips of

the beloved infant-son. It is the child’s very “first morsel of cooked

rice†in life and is meant to bestow upon the child the life-long blessing of

robust health and longevity.

 

If there is but only one lesson to be learnt from a reading of the 4th verse of

Sankara’s “maathru-panchakam†it is this: no son who has received in

infancy the maternal blessing inherent in the “samskAra†known as “anna

prAsana†--- a fistful of rice --- would fail to return the kindness in like

form to his mother after she breathes her last on a death-bed. And it is

precisely why a “sannyAsi†hastened to his mother’s side, as she lay dead,

alone and unattended in a village square in Kaladdy, to ensure that he could at

least render unto her a reciprocal “samskAra†described in the moving words

of the “maathru-panchakamâ€:

 

         “ithyukthavatyA tava vaachi mAtah:

           dadAmyaham tandulamEva-shushkam†II

 

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

 

A distant but remarkable parallel to the episode in the life of Sri Adi Sankara

described in the verses of the “maathru-panchakam†can be found in a passage

of rare but overwhelming poignancy written by St.Augustine (354 AD-430AD) in

that all-time classic of great religious autobiography, “Confessions of

St.Augustineâ€.

 

Augustine, who too like Sankara was at his mother’s side on her death-bed,

wrote eloquently about the misgivings that overpowered him as he witnessed his

mother Monica pass away before his eyes. Both the Christian saint and the

Vedantic “jagadguru†found themselves in a similar situation of extreme

human distress and reading the former’s account of his experience written in

Latin prose helps us gain some valuable insight into the emotional state that

may have inspired the latter to describe the same experience in Sanskrit

poetry: 

 

“One day as she lay ill, she (St.Augustine’s mother) she lost consciousness

and for a little while she was withdrawn from all present things. We rushed to

her but she quickly regained her senses.  She looked at me and my brother as we

stood there and said to us, after the manner of one seeking something. “Where

was I?†And she continued talking to me:â€Son, for my own part, I now find no

delight in anything in this life. What I can still do here and why I am here, I

do not know, now that all my hopes in this world have been accomplished. One

thing there was, for which I desired to linger a little while in this life, that

I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. God has granted this to me

in more than abundance, for I see you His servant, with even earthly happiness

held in contempt. So what am I doing here?â€

 

" I also heard later that my mother one day in my absence, she had talked with a

mother’s confidence to certain friends of mine about contempt of this life and

the advantages of death. They were amazed at the woman’s strength which You,

my Lord, had given to her, and asked if she did not fear leaving her body so far

from her own city, she replied, “nothing is far from God. I need not fear that

He will not know where to raise me up at the end of the world.â€

 

" So on the ninth day of her illness, in the 56th year of her life and in the

33rd year of mine, this devout and holy soul was set loose from the body.

 

" I closed her eyes and a mighty sorrow welled up from the depths of my heart and

overflowed into tears. At the same time, by a powerful command of my mind, my

eyes drank up their source until it was dry. Most ill it was with me to fall

into such agony!

 

" What was it that grieved me so heavily if not the fresh wound wrought by the

sudden rupture of our most sweet and dear way of life together? I took joy

indeed from her testimony, when in that last illness my mother mingled her

endearments with my dutiful deeds and called me a good son. With great love and

affection she recalled that she had never heard me speak a harsh or

disrespectful word to her. Yet, O my God who made us! What comparison was there

between the honor she had from me and the services that she rendered to me? When

I was bereft of such great consolation, my heart was wounded through and my life

was as if ripped asunder. For out of her life and mine one life had been made.

 

" Those around me thought I was free from all sense of sorrow. But in your ears,

my God, where none of them could hear, I upbraided the weakness of my affection,

and I held back the flood of sorrow. It gave way a little before me but I was

again and again swept away by its violence, although not as far as to burst into

tears, nor to any change of expression. But I knew what it was I crushed down

within my heart. Because it distressed me greatly that these human feelings had

such sway over me, for this needs must be according to due order and our

allotted state, I sorrowed over my sorrow with an added sorrow, and I was torn

by a two-fold sadness.

All day long and in secret, so heavy was my sorrow, and with a troubled mind I

besought you as best I could to heal my anguish. You did not do so, and it was I

think to impress upon my memory by this one lesson how strong is the bond of any

habit, even upon a mind that no longer feeds upon deceptive words. I also

thought it good to go and bathe then as I had heard that the bath (Greek

“balneaâ€) are so-called because the Greeks say that it drives anxiety from

the mind. See, O Father of orphans, this fact too do I confess to Your mercy,

for after I had bathed I was the same as before I bathed. Bitter grief did pour

like sweat out of my heart. But then I slept, and I woke up, and I found that my

sorrow had in no small part been eased. As I lay alone on my bed I remembered

those truthful verses about you, and for who You are, my Lord Almighty:

 

“God, creator of all things, ruler of the sky,

  Who clothes the day with beauteous light, and the night with   

  grateful sleep,

  That rest may weakened limbs restore for labor’s needs,

  And ease our weary minds, and free our worried hearts from griefâ€.

 

" Little by little, I regained my former thoughts about my mother, Your handmaid,

about the devout life she led in You, about her sweet and holy care for us, of

which I was so suddenly deprived. I took comfort in weeping in Your sight, my

God, over her and for her, over myself and for myself. I gave way to the tears

that I held back, so that they poured forth as much as they wished. I spread

them beneath my heart, and it was rested upon them, for at my heart were placed

Your ears, not the ears of a mere man, who would interpret with scorn my

weeping.

 

" Now, Lord, I confess to you in writing. Let him who read it who wants to, let

him interpret it as he wants. If he finds a sin in it, that I wept for my mother

for a small part of an hour, for that mother now dead to my eyes who for so many

years had wept for me so that I might live forever in Your eyes, let him not

laugh to scorn me. But rather, if he is a man of large charity, let him weep

over my sins before you, the Father of all brothers of your Christ.†"

 

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

 

In the 5th and final stanza of the “maathru-panchakamâ€, Sankara recollects

what he had been told about his mother that when she was pregnant with him, even

while undergoing labor and painful birth-pangs she uttered the holy names of the

Almighty, “O Shiva! O Krishna! Govinda! “Harey! Mukunda!â€. It was an act

of maternal kindness of far-reaching power and consequence, says Sankara, for by

doing so his mother had actually gifted him at the moment of birth itself what

otherwise ordinary men of the world struggle to earn only in the moment of

death. His mother at the very moment she gave birth to him gave him a

birth-right, says Sankara: the birthright of spiritual salvation.

 

One final thought that arises in my mind on a reading of the " maathru-panchakam "

is that none of us should be surprised at all that the great Adi Sankara wept

for his departed mother. Having received the highest spiritual reward in life

from his mother at the very moment of birth -- the everlasting fortune of

Salvation served on a gold platter as it were --it is really no wonder that

Sankara considered himself eternally beholden to his mother: “tyahO janannyai

rachitOyamajalih:â€. To use the words of St Augustine in paraphrase: “I wept

for my mother for a small part of an hour, for that mother now dead to my eyes

who for so many years had wept for me so that I might live forever in Your eyes,

My God!â€.

 

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

 

Best Regards,

Sudarshan MK

 

 

 

 

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