Since a number of you wanted more about the Kanchi Mahaswami, let me share some more stories of the many known about him.
Matters moved swiftly when Ginni was taken away at 13 to become the 68th Shankaracharya of the Kamakoti Matha at Kanchipuram. They said it was his daily duty to perform puja to Lord Shiva, worshipped at the Matha as Sri Chandramauleshwara, the Moon-bearer. Ginni was awestruck. “Paramashiva, Mother Kamakshi, they say I am your priest. Help me!” he prayed.
Woken every morning at four, Ginni was set to learn Vedic meters, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and Sanskrit literature, besides Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. He broke off to conduct the daily puja with utmost concentration and increasing felicity. He read English classics in the late afternoon. He was taught yoga at the deepest level to transcend his body’s urges, which took serious practice.
A hard part was fighting food cravings. Ginni had spent a lot of time with his mother while she cooked. He thought of his favourite rava dosais and crisp vadais and sighed. Delicious food was made at the Matha and hundreds of pilgrims and the poor were fed daily. But it was unseemly for a sanyasi to gobble, he was taught. He must not gorge himself, either alone or in public, and learn to resist sweets and fried food.
There were only adults at the Matha and as a sanyasi, he could no longer play cricket with other boys. So lonely Ginni spread grain in a corner to entice the flocks of parrots that swept by. He played with the calves in the cattle shed and made friends with the Matha elephant, Kumbhan.
One day, Kumbhan defied his keeper and refused to leave the pond in which he was enjoying a luxurious bath. The keeper was at his wits’ end, when someone thought of calling the boy sanyasi. When Ginni arrived, he merely said, “Come along,” and Kumbhan clambered out meekly. Several such incidents with animals added to Ginni’s growing mystique.
Ginni tried hard to overcome his boyish craving for treats. One day, a landlord brought baskets of the finest mangoes from his orchard for Ginni, who noticed Lambadi gypsies outside the Matha. “Please, share the fruit with them. They never get to eat such mangoes,” he told him. Astonished, the landlord did so and was warmly blessed by the tribe.
This gave Ginni another idea. Motherly devotees brought him entire tins of homemade murukkus and laddoos. “There are young boys at the patashala who get only plain fare and miss their mothers. Please give them these snacks,” he said. The mothers did so gladly, after their first pang of disappointment that Ginni refused their labours of love.
Ginni began to link the big ideas he was taught to everyday life and was struck by a novel notion. “A typical South Indian meal is served in three courses,” he thought. “There’s rice with sambar, rice with rasam and rice with curds or buttermilk. Sambar is known as kuzhambu in Tamil, which also means ‘to get confused’. Don’t these three courses seem to illustrate the three gunas or qualities of mankind? The ‘confusion’ of sambar is the darkness of ‘tamo guna’, the clear flow of rasam is the activity of ‘rajo guna’ and buttermilk is the peace of ‘sattva guna’. Our daily meal reminds us of our spiritual path if we eat mindfully. But I’m too young to say these things.”
So many people thronged the Matha to gawk at him that Ginni’s managers removed him for further education to the remote hamlet of Mahendramangalam by the Kaveri.
Learned scholars were handpicked to instruct him. When they asked what else he wished to learn, Ginni chose Marathi and French. A tutor was brought from Maharashtra and stayed for three years. A French teacher came from Pondicherry and a music teacher was engaged, as music was a key spiritual activity.
Mother Kaveri proved a great solace in this isolation. Ginni became a strong swimmer and his teachers often found him in the water. He explored the lush, green countryside on long walks, taking photos of neglected temples with the little camera he was gifted for rapidly mastering Panini’s difficult grammar. His heart never stopped aching for his parents. “I am a sanyasi, I am not allowed to miss my family,” he thought sternly and threw himself into the next activity. One night, when he had an agonising toothache, his instructors made light of it but a teacher’s wife took pity on his huddled form and gave him a clove to keep on the afflicted tooth.
Months later, a touring Carnatic singer stopped by Mahendramangalam with a violinist and a mridangam player. After two glorious hours of singing, he slid into Raga Madhyamavati. “Vinayakuni valeno brovave,” he sang in Telugu, meaning “Look on me as you look on your son, Vinayaka”. The song was addressed by saint-composer Thyagaraja to Goddess Kamakshi at Kanchipuram. When the singer came to the line “Anatha rakshaki Sri Kamakshi” meaning ‘Sri Kamakshi, protector of orphans’, he sang it several times with deep emotion. Ginni suddenly felt alight with the joy of realisation.
“The Universal Mother belongs to each of us,” he exulted. “Mother Kamakshi, you have been patient with me. I have tried my best to grow up, but I still felt like a little boy. I don’t anymore, Mother. I have duties ahead and I know you will help me.”
Ginni sat at ease to hear the rest of the song. He was no longer ‘Ginni’ in his mind. He was Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, a sadhu and the head of a Matha. His God-given task was to serve society. With Kamakshi’s blessings, he would do that all his life.
Renuka Narayanan
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)