As we roll further into festival season with Ganesh Chaturthi, Vishwakarma Puja, Navaratri, Dussehra and Diwali lining up, I would like to retell the first miracle attributed to Adi Shankara, the pillar of the faith. It happened when he was a little boy seeking alms as required of students.
Hemavati was a desperately poor woman living alone in a hut at the far end of her village. Her husband had been a ne’er-do-well who never cared to tend the three home fires—the garhapatya, ahavanya and dakshina—to whom a householder had to make offerings for the peace and prosperity of society. Abandoning his duties, he left the village in the wake of an unpleasant band of tantric mendicants and no more was heard of him.
Was she a wife or widow, wondered Hemavati, ironically named ‘the golden one’. The village wondered, too, and had many a salty wisecrack to make. Hemavati had no children and she was getting on in years, with no source of income.
Had her husband been around and earned his keep, ceremonially addressing the gods on behalf of those who were born, got married, died, built homes, or wanted special rituals, the village would have automatically supported her. But as a woman alone, she had no standing and no value. Too proud to beg, she went to every festival at the local temple where free food was distributed and did household chores for her neighbour for a bit of rice and old clothes. But after her neighbour died in childbirth, nobody bothered with her. Her last and only garment was reduced to tatters and there was absolutely no food for four days. “I must have done something bad in my last birth to suffer so,” thought Hemavati bleakly, drinking yet more water to fill her stomach.
She went to sleep that night feeling very lonely and discouraged. The next morning, Hemavati was horrified to hear the clear, young voice of a student calling out for alms. She peered through a hole in the wall. A boy of about eight stood outside holding out his alms bowl.
“Alas, child,” she called out tremulously, “I have nothing to give you. I have had no food myself for several days.”
“Have you nothing at all for me?” said the child gently.
“Wait; let me take one last look,” Hemavati found herself saying. She turned over her empty pots, bins and baskets. There lay a single shrivelled amla at the bottom of the last basket. Hemavati pounced on it and took it to the door. Opening it only a little to hide her ragged state, she put out her right hand with the amla. “I am so sorry, child, I have nothing at all but this. Please take it, if you don’t mind such paltry alms,” she said, deeply ashamed, and dropped it into the boy’s alms bowl.
Instead of going away, the boy stood looking at the amla with a troubled face. Hemavati saw him step back and raise his arms aloft to the sky. He shut his eyes as though praying and burst into a hymn of praise for Lakshmi, goddess of good fortune.
Twenty-one beautiful verses poured out of him, describing the goddess in whom he said he saw all goddesses as one. “Let her garland of glances that protects Lord Vishnu, and gives him great strength, fall on me as well,” Hemavati heard him sing, enchanted, “Gracious goddess, giver of joy, giver of wealth, be merciful as the cool breeze.”
A great concentration of light appeared before him when he finished, so bright and intense it stood out even in the light of day.
“You have pleased me greatly with your sweet, spontaneous song,” Hemavati heard a melodious feminine voice say. “Ask something of me, child.”
“Gracious Mother! Please make this poor lady prosperous, I beseech you,” said the boy.
“I may not do that, son, for she never gave anybody a thing in charity in her last life,” answered the celestial voice.
“Why, Mother, look how she gave away the gooseberry, the very last thing she had in her house. She was starving for days and could have kept it for herself. But she gave it away in alms. Mother, you know very well that you alone have the power to erase and change the destiny written by Lord Brahma on each person’s head,” cajoled the child.
Hemavati heard an amused laugh. “So be it,” said the goddess, and the column of light faded. The next moment, a hail of solid gold gooseberries fell through the roof of Hemavati’s hut. Astounded, she rushed out to thank the boy.
“Child, I am beyond beholden to you. What name do you go by, blessed one?”
“Shankara,” said the child, smiling sunnily. “God bless you and keep you!” said Hemavati. What a bold, tender-hearted little boy, to address the goddess on another’s behalf and in such verses as to make her appear; and then, to bandy words with her and get his way.
“He is marked for some great work,” thought Hemavati with a sudden flash of insight, overcome by the extraordinary contrast between the young student’s spiritual energy and boyish simplicity. Gathering her wits, she said, “What a beautiful hymn to the goddess…the Litany of the Shower of Gold. Won’t you teach it to everyone who cares, that all may benefit hearing it?”
“I will,” said the boy and went away smiling to fulfil his destiny while Hemavati watched him go through a mist of grateful tears. And indeed, the Kanakadhara Sthavam or Litany of the Shower of Gold remains a hugely popular prayer even now. You can find it easily on YouTube.
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan