Part 9 - Sri Sankara Vijayam

Thanks to my spiritual Friend Subramanian Garu for sharing this information.

Padmapada proceeded to Rameswaram from Shrungagiri.On his way, he halted at Sri Rangam, his birth-place.His uncle was there.He stayed with him for a few days.The uncle was listening to Padmpada's Advaita way and his experiences with Sankara, his Guru.He also read out his Brahma Dandigam.The uncle grew jealous of Padmapada.Further Sankara's sutram, Satyam Sivam Sundaram Anantham Brahmam, did not please him.He was a devotee of Sri Ranganatha, Narayana in Sri Rangam.

Padmapada took leave of his uncle and went to Rameswaram.He was somehow restless in Rameswaram and so returned to Sri Rangam, in a few days.There, he found that the house where his uncle was staying had been burnt due to some fire accident.His uncle escaped the disaster but Padmapada's books were all burnt.This fire accident was contrived by the jealous uncle.He came from the next street and cried before Padmapada, for the loss.Padmapada told him not to cry since he could remember in his writings and he could repeat the Brahma Dandigam again.This made the uncle to grow further jealous about the nephew.Padmapada was asked to stay for some more days and he agreed.

During this time, the uncle mixed unmatha leaves' juice in the food.Padmapada became mad. He cried, danced, showed anger, became silent for some time etc.,He regretted for having not heard Sankara's Guru's words, forbading him from going out of Shrungagiri.He prayed to Sankara for his welfare.

Padmapada told his uncle that he would leave for Shrungagiri soon.The happy uncle packed him fast to Shrungagiri, laughing within himself.

Padmapada came to Shrugagiri prostrated before Sankara.He wept miserably.Sankara said:"Do not worry.Atma Anubhava,once attained, shall never a person.Even madness due to brain dysfunction will not affect the state of self realization.Be with me.Do not leave me."He touched him on his head and blessed him.Soon Padmapada became better, but he could not recollect the Brahma Dandigam.Sankara said:"Perhaps it is destined that none of you should write Vartikam on my Brahma sutra bhashyam.Anyway, you take down slowly.I shall tell you the Brahma Dandigam, and also further Vartikam." He dictated the famous Panchapadiga, a layman's elucidation on his own Brahma Sutra Bhashyam.

In a few days' time, Sankara knew through his mediation that his mother was in death bed in Kaladi.He remembered his words to his mother.He rushed to Kaladi, skyward.

In Kaladi, mother Aryamba was lying in bed like a pulled out creeper withering in sun.No doubt, her family friends were taking care of her food and shelter, but the old age had emaciated.She had been living a life absolute renunication, attending to minimum worldly work and praying to Siva and Uma in Vadkkanathar Temple and Sri Krishna near the Poorna river.

Motherhood is praised in Vedas.When a housewife or a girl is giving blessings by elders, they say:Please get 10 children and let your husband become your 11th son!In course of time, a wife also treats her husband as his son, when he becomes old and sick.

This motherhood, the abundance of grace in a man should also come in due course of his life.A man is an incomplete woman, even as per the chromosome theories.He has got one chromosome less in the double-helix structre, and such an incomplete guy becomes a woman only when he develops love and grace in his life towards all living beings.

Sankara came to his mother and sat.He told her:"Mataha Sankaram agadham nija sudham......" O Mother, Sankara has come.He is Your son....

The old mother looked at him, the great Jnani, as only her son.She became extremely happy.By completing her motherhood,being a mother of a Brahma Jnani, she has in fact, become an ascetic.Brahma Jnana comes out of its own accord.Motherhood is door to Divinity.

Aryamba wanted nothing more.Sankara says:Would like to have Siva-darsanam? Vision of Siva?The mother says:Yes.Sankara gave her the vision of Siva with Uma in Kailas.She could see the same Divine Couple of Tiru VeLLai Man ThuLLi, a temple near Kaladi, where Siva and Uma are together as described in Tiruvannamalai, Ardha Nari...She could see the white Kailas, the bull, the Ganga, the crescent moon and the serpents, Siva and Uma with Ganapati and Skanda.Sankara then asked her:O Mother, do you want Vishnu Darsanam too?The mother said:Yes.Then he conferred her Vishnu Darsanam, as Lakshmi-Narayana, on the milky ocean on the bed of the great serpent.

Aryamba then told Sankara:My son!I do not want to go to any of these worlds like Kailas and Vaikunta.I want to get released from all these and get merger with the Principle, which is formless and nameless.Sankara then conferred her merger with Brahman, without any own identity of hers.

As regards the ceremonies after liberation, there are several heresay stories.None of the biographies of Sankara give any detailed account.Sankara then composed his famous Matruka Panchakam, the five verses on the Divine Mother.

The relatives in the village, refused fuel and fire to Sankara on the pretext that a sannyasi cannot do cremation ceremonies for a dead parent.Sankara then picked up some plantain tree trunks, created fire from his palm and cremated her in the backyard of the house! This news spread like wildfire and the villagers and boys from Vedapatasala came to the house in large numbers.Sankara said:O Mother, you wept on the other day that I was embracing ascetism.Today the Vedapatasala boys are weeping for your great motherhood!

The fact that Sankara was not permitted to cremate his mother had happened 1400 years back, when such rotten theories were there in Hindu society.

King Rajasekar was with Sankara for a few days.Sankara asked him, about the three puranic plays which he had written and shown to Sankara, when he was six years old.The king said that the plays had been lost in a fire accident in the palace.Sankara said:Do not worry.They are good puranic plays and I shall repeat them.You can take down!The king was astounded.The boy who had heard the plays read out to him, when he was six years old, said that he would repeat them for taking down.This is the power of memory of a Brahma Jnani.Such a Jnani displays tremendous power of memory because they always stay in Brahman, the knowledge of everything.

Sankara left Kaladi as a person of immense peace, for having completed the last job, he owed to his mother.He travelled via Tamil Nadu and first came to Rameswaram.He prayed to Ramalinga Swami, Siva, who was worshipped by Rama.He composed the famous Siva Panchakshara Stotram there.It starts as Nagendra haaraaya, tri lochanaya....

Sankara then came to Tiruchendur, one of the six barracks of Skanda.

Sources:

1) http://www.arunachala-ramana.org/forum/index.php?board=10.100