In the 3rd stanza of the “maathru-panchakam” Sri Adi Sankara recollects the
terminal moments spent with his mother on her death-bed.

It is a verse of heart-breaking lamentation. But more importantly it contains an
implied but fervent appeal to every son in the world not to fail in his duty to
perform last-rites for a deceased mother and to ensure she receives the honor
and dignity deserved in death that perhaps in some measure, for reasons good or
otherwise, might have been denied in life.

The great Vedantic “achArya” after having left home as a mere
boy-“sannyAsi” returned after several years to his little non-descript
village of Kaladdy (Kerala) as a world-renowned Vedantic “jagadguru”. The
“sankara-digvijayam” is the standard biographichical text on the life of Sri
Sankara BhagavathpAdA and it describes this homecoming in some detail.

The text speaks of how Sankara who was busy with his mission while sojourning in
North India, one day had a clear premonition of his mother’s impending death
and so hastened to his village to be by her side in the last mortal moments.
When Sankara arrived his mother was already in the throes of death. The
biographical details are rather shrouded in inconsistency. One account of
Sankara’s last meeting with his mother is that she breathed her last after he
had chanted into her ear the sacred “tAraka-mantra”. But if one goes by the
3rd stanza of the “maatru-panchakam”, we cannot help inferring that when
Sankara arrived at her death-bed, his mother had already passed away. He clearly
does express regret not having arrived in time to administer the final
“mantra’ to the departing soul.

Anyway, whichever version is true the pathos of the moment itself and the pain
that swelled up in Sankara’s heart is very vividly portrayed here in the 3rd
stanza of the “AchArya’s” “maathru-panchakam”. We must remember that
the circumstances surrounding the death of Sankara’s mother were extremely
unfortunate and tragic. Since Sankara was a “sannyAsi”, he could not perform
for his dead mother the traditional last-rites since it was against age-old
brahminical codes (the “sAstrAs”) for “sanyAsins” to have anything to do
with Vedic “fire-rituals” and his mother’s obsequies necessarily involved
them. Sankara was hence compelled to run from pillar to post in the village to
find a relative who could act as his proxy and perform the obsequies but then
none was willing to oblige.

Even in the days of Sankara as it seems now performing death-rites in the manner
prescribed by sacred custom was never without its difficulties. The community
did not cooperate willingly and the necessary means were not easily available.
Even close kith and kin baulked and in general everyone grudged the effort and
expense. Any convenient excuse or pretext that could be found to avoid
volunteering help to those bereaved was readily claimed by everyone. Sankara the
“sannyAsi” had over the years gained both fame and notoriety as both a
trail-blazing and an iconoclastic philosopher and radical reformer
(anti- " mimAmsaka " . In Kaladdy particularly he had come to earn local enmity
amongst the village orthodoxy. They simply turned their backs on him in his hour
of grave need and gave him the proverbially haughty and imperious brahminical
cold-shoulder.

The body of his mother thus lay unattended for a long while before some
sympathetic neighbors eventually came forward to make amends for the lapses of
Sankara’s erstwhile kith and kin. This bitter and traumatic experience must
have left a deep and permanent scar on Sankara’s mind and we see evidence of
it in the anguished words of the celebrated 3rd stanza of the
“maathru-panchakam”:

na dattam mAtastE maraNasamayE tOyamapi vA
svabaddhA bA nOdEyA maraNadivasE shradha-vidhinA I
na japtO mAtastE maraNa-samayE tArakamanuh:
a kAlE samprAptE mayi kuru dayAm mAtaratulAm II

(meaning):
" In your final moments, O mother, I regret I wasn’t around
To able to hold you in my arms, help quench your parched throat
With those morsels of water
Every son pours into the lips of a dying parent
As last farewell gift.
The vows of ‘sannyAsa’ I embraced, O mother,
Held me back from the rites of “shrAddha” meant for your soul;
Nor could I administer thee, as every dutiful son should,
The words of the sacred chant of “taraka-nAma mantra” as you breathed your
last.
I turned up late, so very late, O mother of mine,
To bade farewell.
Show me kindness, a mother’s kindness,
In your very last act of forgiveness for a son that failed " .
****************

From the time he finished his Vedic “gurukula” studies at the age of 8 years
only to formally renounce the world as a “sannyAsi” until the time he
returned to Kallady to be at his mother’s deathbed, Sri Adi SankarAchArya had
already gone around India twice on foot, had founded a great philosophical order
and 4 monasteries in the 4 corners of the country which still survive and
flourish to this day as pre-eminent centers of the Advaita Order; he had also
written about 80 books, dissertations on Vedantic philosophy and numerous
devotional hymns in purest Sanskrit; he had restored the Brahmin-Hindu tradition
of India which had been almost submerged in what was at that time popular
Buddhism and, finally, he had safely established his reputation as undeniably
the foremost scholastic philosopher of the millennium in this part of the
world….

And yet .... yet, ironically, when such a man of herculean accomplishments,
finally, arrived at his mother’s deathbed, he found to his deepest chagrin,
dismay and regret that there wasn’t any way he could himself perform or
otherwise arrange to have performed the customary last rites that would convey
his beloved mother’s soul from this world to the other. The great philosopher
who preached a whole great philosophy that prided itself upon having solved the
mysteries of the human soul, its true nature, purpose and destiny... such a
great one found himself helpless at Kallady in his efforts to see his mother's
soul off from its earthly abode!

IN the brief lifetime of 33 years that the AchArya spent on earth he could not
have spent but more than a few years –- 5 or 6 at the very most -– in the
company of his dear mother. The bond of love between mother and son in those
very brief and fleeting years might have been rich and intense but then it could
never really have been seen by either one to grow and endure very long in life.
She as a hapless widow might not have been in a position to give or demonstrate
care and affection in the true measure she might otherwise have felt in her
heart for her one and only son. And he too, when he embraced “sannyAsa” at
the tender age of 8 and went away from home on his life’s mission, could
scarcely have had time thereafter to spare very many moments for an affectionate
thought for his forlorn mother languishing back in the village of Kallady…

Such a man as Sankara, yet, when he arrived at his mother’s deathbed to see
her breath her last, was moved to speak these heart-rending words :

“na dattam mAtastE maraNasamayE tOyamapi vA
svabaddhA bA nOdEyA maraNadivasE shradha-vidhinA I”

Of what value or worth my monumental accomplishments in life as a
“sannyAsi”, as a philosopher, as a “jagadguru” --- Sankara seems to be
saying in this stanza in the “maathru-panchakam”--- of what merit is all
this if at the moment of your passing away, dear mother, there is no way I can
offer you the due courtesies and honors that I know you deserve and which a son
must show his mother's departing soul?

This soul-stirring verse should indeed make us all sit up and reflect deeply: If
the great Sankara showed no mercy to himself and, in fact, severely castigated
himself for it and took no shelter or defense behind any lame or valid excuse
for failing to perform the obsequies for his departed mother, how can we, we who
are indeed less-than-ordinary mortals by comparison, ever venture to think that
we may, after all, be able to find amidst the vast vagaries of our busy, modern
and sophisticated lives those convenient excuses we eagerly seek in order that
we may be able to shirk the sacred duty we owe to our departing mothers?

Best Regards,
daasan,
Sudarshan MK


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