In a follow-up to last week’s story about Adi Shankara, I would like to share some details about a 20th-century ‘secular saint’ in Shankara’s tradition. Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (1894-1994) was the ‘Mahaswami of Kanchi’, the 68th Shankaracharya of the ancient Kamakoti Matha, an important religious institution in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. He remains a cult figure even today for devotees. His birth star was Anuradha, also called Anusha, and is observed every month as a festival in homes across India and the world by sections of the Indian diaspora. There is a Manimandapam or memorial temple to him in New Jersey, US.
The Mahaswami believed that ‘God is One’, and saved the mosque next to his Matha from demolition in the 1960s from the then Congress CM of Tamil Nadu, M Bhaktavatsalam. At the same time, he played a key role in reviving the study of the Vedas, equipping society with properly learned priests to serve homes and temples, and teaching the public lost devotional verses. He pioneered the conservation of neglected temples and inspired the building of new ones. Many devotees personally testify online to his miracles of healing.
While deeply learned, he was simple and accessible, and reportedly had a wicked sense of humour. He walked barefoot for miles across India in padayatras. Carnatic music was his grand passion, and great musicians of the day flocked to him for spiritual insights into the compositions they sang. Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya came to Kanchipuram and sang North Indian bhajans for him. One of the Mahaswami’s protegees was M S Subbulakshmi, and when she was invited to sing at the UN General Assembly in 1966, he composed the Sanskrit hymn ‘Maitrim Bhajata’ for her, calling for world peace.
His admirers included a wide swathe of society across religions, from the very poor to the rich and powerful, from canteen boys to kings. Indira Gandhi, King Constantine and Princess Irene of Greece, and King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia of Spain were among his fans. The Dalai Lama called him “the only monk of the century”.
But this great sage had a heartbreaking start. Swaminathan, or ‘Ginni’ (meaning ‘parrot’) as he was called at home, was the pet of his family, in a small town in the Madras Presidency. He sang like a bird, topped in Bible class at Mission school, and was as happy as a normal little boy could be, safe in the love of his parents and siblings. His father, Subrahmanya Iyer, was a school supervisor for the British government and had him admitted to the English school to give Ginni and his brothers the best possible modern education available. Ginni’s mother Mahalakshmi was of distinguished descent. Her long-ago ancestor was the great 17th century musicologist Venkatamakhin, who had mapped Carnatic ragas into the grid called the 72 Melakarta. Another ancestor was Govinda Dikshitar, who had been a minister of the Nayak kings of Thanjavur and had worked very hard to improve the conditions of temples and ghats by the river Kaveri. Music ran in her blood and she taught Ginni to sing in many ragas.
“Listeners should know how to enjoy a song whether it is in a light or weighty raga,” she taught Ginni. “One should be broad-minded because although tastes may differ, music is everybody’s birthright. A song should touch the heart. That is the yardstick, not anything else. Raga Todi has weight while Sindhu Bhairavi is light. Both touch the heart.”
A thought struck Ginni. “Why do all concerts end with a Mangalam?” he asked.
“A Mangalam is a blessing,” explained his mother. “It is in Raga Madhyamavati which is linked to Raga Kharaharapriya, Sri Rama’s favourite raga. It is like a return gift from the musician to the listeners, wishing them well-being and repentance for any sins, knowing or unknowing.”
Ginni grew particularly fond of the songs of 18th century scholar-saint Muthuswamy Dikshitar, whose pen-name was ‘Guru Guha’. This meant ‘Kartikeya’, the same as Ginni’s name ‘Swaminathan’. “He really describes the gods well,” Ginni told his mother. “I can almost see them when you sing his songs.”
That year, Ginni’s father took the family to a town nearby where the 66th Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram was on a visit. The family looked up to him as their spiritual guide and went to seek his blessings. The Shankaracharya’s eye was caught by Ginni. “Come closer, child,” he said, and Ginni, not shy in the least, came forward at once.
The seer asked Ginni a number of questions about prayer, practice and music. He was greatly surprised by Ginni’s confident, precocious answers. Ginni too found him deeply interesting. There was a gentle, deep air about the seer that impressed him. A line from Bible class came to mind: “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled.”
A few months later, news came that the 66th Sankaracharya had passed away of age. The new Shankaracharya, a very young man, was Swaminathan’s cousin. But he, too, died of a sudden sickness, and Ginni, to his absolute shock, was taken away to be installed as the 68th Shankaracharya.
Kneeling on the floor of the cart he was taken away in, he repeated the only mantra he knew, ‘Rama, Rama’, in fright. His parents were informed and could not object. They were allowed to see him one last time, already in the shaven-headed, ochre-clad dress of a sanyasi, and left weeping.
How this little boy, taken at just 13, overcame his homesickness and evolved into a great saint is a deeply poignant tale, which I will tell another time, if you wish.
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan