Once when Shyamasundari
Devi was living with her father in the northern part of Shihar, she had
occasion to sit in the dark beside a potter’s oven under a bel (bilva, aegle
marmelos) tree. There suddenly issued a jingling sound from the direction
of the oven, and a little girl came down from the branches of the tree. She
laid her soft hands round Shyamasundari’s neck, whereupon she fell down
unconscious. She had no idea how long she lay there thus. Her relatives came
there searching for her and carried her home. On regaining consciousness, she
felt as though the little girl had entered her womb.
Ramachandra was then in Calcutta in search of
some means of earning money for his family. The thought of his family’s poverty
weighed heavily on his mind. One day, before he had decided to start for the
city, he was engrossed in that thought. Then he fell asleep and dreamt that a
little girl of golden complexion embraced him from behind by throwing her
delicate arms around his neck. The incomparable beauty of the girl, as also her
invaluable ornaments, at once marked her as out of the common run. Ramachandra
was greatly surprised and asked, ‘Who are you my child?’ The girl replied in
the softest and sweetest of voices, ‘Here I come to you.’ Ramachandra woke up
and the conviction grew in him that the girl was none other than Laksmi, the
goddess of fortune, whose appearance implied that the time was auspicious for
him to go out in quest of money. Accordingly he left for Calcutta. We do not know how far Ramachandra
was successful in his quest. All that we know is that after returning home he
heard what had happened to his wife, and, spiritually-minded as he himself was,
he readily believed everything. Henceforth this holy Brahmin couple lived the
purest of lives in expectation of the divine child. Ramachandra had the highest
regard for his wife and never touched her person till the birth of the Holy
Mother. Shyamasundaru Devi was conscious of her unique fortune, and long after
she said to Yogin-Ma, ‘How beautiful I looked when I was in the family way, how
thick were my tresses, and how many pieces of cloth were presented to me during
that time!’
Gradually the time of
confinement approached. Autumn had now passed, and it was the beginning of the
month of Paush when winter had just set in. This was one of the happiest times
in Bengal villages. The harvest was over and
the granaries were full. The fields around again began to smile with the
shooting forth of the summer crop. The new harvest had just been finished, and
the little children were counting the days for the festival of the month-ending
when they would have a feast of cakes.
The Christian world was
eagerly waiting for the merry Christmas day. The Tantrikas were busy paying
visits to Kali temples, especially as such visits were thought to be very
meritorious in that month. And it was the day of winter solstice when the
longest night was over and the sun was beginning its northward course – the day
on which the Hindu gods and goddesses wake up from their long slumber of six
months. During such a time, a little after Thursday evening, on the 8th
Paush (22nd December, 1853) when the night had spread her
star-spangled cloth over the village of Jayarambati to lay it asleep after the
day’s labour, the blowing of conchshells from Ramachandra’s house announced the
happy news of the advent of Sri Saradamani Devi.
- Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi
by Swami Gambhirananda, P16-18
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