Ramana Maharshi Devotee Maragathavalli "Andavan Pichhai"

Her name "Andavan Pichhai", which she assumed in later life, means ‘mad for God’.

Andavan Picchai was born in Mylapore, Madras, on September 6th 1899. Her birth name was Maragathavalli, and she was the second child of T. Sankaranarayana Sastri and Sitalakshmi. About three years later her mother, Sitalakshmi died and her husband remarried shortly afterwards. However, it seems that he did not have much time either for his new wife or his children since he was perpetually engrossed in his studies and his spiritual practices. The children spent a lot of time with his brother, Venkatasubbiar, who developed a great love for his niece Maragathavalli.

Maragathamma hardly ever opened her mouth. A private tutor was engaged to teach her since in those days girls did not go to school, but she frequently managed to escape from her tuition. Her father gave her the nickname ‘Nirakshara Kukshi’ – ‘one who does not know a single syllable’.

When Maragathamma was a small child, Guruswamy, a relative on her mother’s side, gave a promise to her grandfather that he would marry her to his own son Narasimhan. Although Narasimhan was not happy about the proposed marriage, he agreed to it in order to honour his father’s promise. The marriage took place in April 1908 when the girl was barely nine years old. Narasimhan was about twenty at the time. Although child brides sometimes lived in their parents’ house until puberty, in this case Maragathamma was immediately dispatched to the husband’s house with jewellery and a dowry of two bungalows.

During the Navaratri celebrations of 1908 Maragathamma was taken back to her father’s house. Her grandmother had been a great devotee of Tiruttani Muruga and throughout her childhood Maragathamma had listed to tales of the greatness of Lord Muruga. During this visit she had a life-defining vision.

This is how her biographer describes it:

In the years that followed Maragathamma became fully immersed in family life. Her husband Narasimhan became a lawyer, and she gave birth to many children. Her first pregnancy ended with a still-born child. She was less than thirteen years old at the time. A few years later she gave birth to Guruswamy (born 1917), Shankar (1919), Kalpagam (1921) Ganapathi (19230 and Seshadri (1924).

Two days after the birth of Seshadri she had another vision of Muruga. She went into a kind of trance and ended up singing over 600 verses extolling Muruga in the form of ‘aandi’ a beggar. Her flow was stopped only when she heard the cry of her baby, begging for food. Apparently, Seshadri had been crying for food for quite some time before Maragathamma became aware of his needs. The nurse who was attending her scolded her for neglecting her baby while she was absorbed in her devotional singing. This precipitated a minor crisis in the family because the nurse told Maragathamma’s mother-in-law, Kaveriamma, about the event.

Apart from the issue of neglecting the baby, Kaveriamma complained that singing songs that praised God as a beggar would end up making the whole family beggars. She also said that since Maragathamma was in a state of ritual impurity, having just given birth to a baby, she should not be composing songs in praise of God. Kaveriamma collected all Maragathamma’s songs, hid them, and made her take an oath that she would not sing songs on Muruga again, or even talk about him.

Being a dutiful daughter-in-law, Maragathamma took the oath because she knew that she always had Muruga in her heart. She did not have to promise that she would not think about him or be aware of him internally.

More children followed. Venkataraman was born in 1926, but a couple of days after delivering him she developed septicemia because part of the placenta had stayed inside her and become infected. He doctor said that she needed an operation to remove it, but Maragathamma declined an anaesthetic and remained perfectly still, quiet and conscious while the doctor removed the infected material. She had apparently developed an ability to suspend body consciousness and be unaware of pain, or at least be completely unaffected by it.

More children followed: Kamakshi was born in 1928, Padma in 1929 and in 1936 Vasudevan. Padma became something of a child prodigy. She began composing songs when she was only three years old and became a devotee, even at that age, of the Sankaracharya of Kamakoti Peeta. She went blind, regained her sight after the Sankaracharya intervened and sent her to a doctor who restored her sight, but in 1936 she passed away at the age of eight while she was presenting a home-made garland to a Devi statue.

One son, Vasudevan, died of a serious illness; Shankar had some sort of accident that made him mentally retarded, and he died in 1940. The others grew up and were successful in their chosen fields.

None of these family dramas dented Maragathamma’s equanimity since the inner vision of Lord Muruga was always with her. Songs would come to her in the usual way, but she refused to sing them out loud even after her mother-in-law, Kaveriamma, passed away in 1930 after a long illness. Kaveriamma had made her take the oath of silence on Muruga, on her husband, and on her children. She feared that if she began to sing again, something bad might happen to her husband and children. She complained internally to Muruga about this situation, and soon after that she felt his presence within her disappear.

She implored him to return and give her darshan again. After a few days she heard a voice within her saying, ‘Why are you searching for me outside? Am I not inside you? Look within and you will see me.’

In March 1948 Maragathamma went on a trip to Srisailam for Sivaratri to please one of her relatives who had a desire to go there. On her return, she became slightly ill, a condition that persisted for several weeks. In May, as she was walking down the staircase in her house, carrying one of her grandchildren in her arms, she slipped, fell and fainted. She was put to bed and the doctor who was brought in to attend on her declared that she had had a heart attack. Two of Maragathamma’s sons who had become doctors returned home to help with her treatment. She was unconscious, her pulse was beating very slowly, and her general condition was deteriorating to the point where her relatives began to fear for her life.

When Maragathavalli came to Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi she was abruptly shaken from her stupor as if by an electric shock. The whole body started trembling and her heart was pounding hard. She prostrated before him and looked up. At that instant Bhagavan’s gaze fell on her. His eyes were shining brilliantly and showering compassion all around. From them a streak of light like that of lightning flashed out. He gave her an initiation, through the eyes, of the Shadakshari Mantra. This pierced her soul and once and for all the darkness of ignorance in her heart was completely removed. The great truth behind the mahavakya flashed in her and she realized the secret of ‘WHO AM I?’ This gave her an ecstatic experience of merging her individual soul with that of the supreme soul and in this unique state she felt the whole universe within her only.

And then pointing to the grapes brought by Amma, Ramana Maharshi said, ‘These grapes this body likes very much’. He took a grape and put it in his mouth and distributed the rest to all.

On 12th April 1950 Amma and others went to see Ramana Maharshi again as his physical condition was reported to be very serious. His left arm, which had been operated on, was under bandage. There was a stream of visitors to see him and so each visitor was allowed just a minute to tarry by his side. Amma’s turn came. She wanted to prostrate to the Maharshi but she held in her hand a copy of Ramana’s photo which she had bought earlier at a stall. Even as she was wondering where to place it, Ramana himself took it from her and held it in his right hand, enabling Amma to do proper pranam to him. Then he smiled, gave her back the photo copy and held his right hand in abhaya mudra. Amma felt sad at not being able to converse with him. Two days later the world heard the news that the Maharshi had attained Mahasamadhi.

Maragathamma did not remain in Madras for the rest of her life. She went back to Rishikesh and stayed there for many years. At the age of eighty-nine, when she became seriously ill, she returned to Madras and passed away there in her family home in November 1990. She was ninety years old at the time of her death.

Sources:

1) The Gift of God or Andavan Pichhai by Smt and Dr Krishna Rao published by the Divine Life Society, Sivanandanagar, Uttar Pradesh, in 1983.

2) http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/06/andavan-pichhai_09.html