Anandamayi Ma: ‘The most perfect flower of the Indian soil’

Saints are like trees. They do not call to anyone, neither do they send anyone away. They give shelter to whoever cares to come...

From time immemorial India has been a land of pilgrims and itinerant renunciates, of scholars deeply versed in the religious tradition, charismatic gurus, hermits and ascetics, yogis and other adepts of arcane psycho-spiritual disciplines, of mystics, visionaries and ecstatic devotees. No doubt there have always been a number of frauds and charlatans in the mix as well; the last century has seen some of this disreputable lot thrive, at least for a while, in the West. No names need be mentioned. (Perhaps there is something to be said for George Orwell’s dictum that ‘saints’ should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.) Our concern here is with the genuine article, with saints and sages whose status, to use a worldly term, is beyond dispute. As far as the modern Indian era is concerned – let us say the last two hundred years – there are only three figures who, to my mind, pass all of the possible tests of sainthood with flying colours, though such a notion could not have been more foreign to their sensibilities: Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi and Anandamayi Ma. There is no need for the reader to become agitated! I do not for a moment suppose that this small list exhausts the case. In any event, saints remain saints regardless of public perceptions. For my own part I am tempted to add Mohandas Gandhi to the list – certainly the Mahatma was a man of saintly qualities but a more complex, problematic and controversial case. There are also plenty of other ‘contenders’. But let us leave the exemplary cases at three.

​Ramakrishna, Ramana and Anandamayi Ma, as we shall see, each had a distinctive spiritual personality and a unique vocation. Nonetheless, there are some arresting similarities and convergences in their backgrounds, experiences and teachings. All came from humble beginnings in small villages; none had much formal education and the wellsprings of their spiritual development were not to be found in books; each was visited by unsought transformative experiences which left them without even a glimmer of doubt about the supra-material realities to which their visions and mystical illuminations gave access; each was spontaneously recognized as a ‘higher being’ with a powerful darsan, an irresistible spiritual presence, or radiance; none of them concerned themselves with worldly matters or paid the slightest homage to the idols of wealth, power, status,  or sensual gratification; each lived a chaste life (two within celibate marriages), untouched by scandal or indeed impropriety of any kind; each wrote very little, if anything at all, and spent extended periods in mouna (holy silence) while none set themselves up as great teachers; insofar as they gave teachings, they were almost invariably of a deceptively simple kind, were in accord with the Hindu tradition, and satisfied simple village folk and the most erudite pundits and philosophers alike, not to mention sceptical Western seekers. 

​Ramakrishna died in an outlying neighbourhood of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in August, 1886. Less than a decade later, in April 1896, another luminous Bengali figure of the same sort of order was born in Kheora, in present day Bangladesh. Nirmala Sundari was born into a poor but devout and respected Brahmin family in a small village peopled by both Hindus and Muslims, and sometimes visited by Christian missionaries. Hindu devotional chants, the imam’s call to prayer and Christian hymns were in the air. After hearing some Christian missionaries singing hymns the small girl begged her mother to buy one of their Bengali hymn books. Her father was renowned as a singer of Vaishnavite songs while the child was known in the village for her exceptionally sweet disposition, her perpetually cheerful outlook and her apparent indifference to any kind of adversity. Her village nickname was ‘Mother of Smiles’ while her given names, ‘Nirmala Sundari’, literally meant ‘without taint’ or, more poetically, ‘Immaculate Beauty’. It soon became apparent that she was well-named. Because of the family circumstances Nirmala was to spend less than two years in total at school though her teacher had recognized her as being exceptionally ‘quick’ and ‘bright’. She remained semi-literate throughout her life, never read books nor wrote down any teaching except for one small fragment, probably written in 1930, and, we might say, containing the quintessence:

O thou Supreme Being,
Thou are manifest in all forms
This universe, with all created things,
Wife, husband, father, mother and children, all in one.

Man’s mind is clouded by worldly ties.
But there is no cause for despair.
With purity, unflinching faith and burning eagerness
Go ahead and you will realize your true Self.

In line with Hindu custom Nirmala was formally married at a young age, still not quite thirteen, but did not live with her husband for some years, spending an extended period first with her brother-in-law’s family in Sripur, where she devoted herself to domestic chores and the upkeep of the household, soon capturing the hearts of her new family. She proved to be a dab and willing hand at spinning, sewing, weaving and cooking. Nirmala’s husband, Ramani Mohan Cakravati, was a humble clerk in Dhaka whence Nirmala joined him, five years after their marriage ceremony. Like that of Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi, it was, to say the least, to be an unusual union. When her husband made the initial sexual advances he suffered from an extraordinary physical charge which he likened to an electric shock and which disabused him of the notion that he had married an ordinary village girl. Quite a shock, no doubt! Remarkably, he soon understood and accepted that their relationship was to be celibate and, in time, he actually become her disciple. We must surmise that Cakravati was able to accept this situation not only because of his own make-up but because of an infusion of his wife’s spiritual energy. As Anandamayi Ma said of her husband later in life, ‘he led an extraordinary life of self-denial and rigorous asceticism’. He came to be known as ‘Bholanatha’, one of the names of Lord Siva. Soon after his wife joined him in Dhaka he was appointed as the caretaker of the extensive gardens of the Nawab of Dhaka, the head of the largest Muslim zamindar (estate) in British Bengal.

An early disciple named her ‘Anandamayi Ma’, meaning ‘Bliss Permeated Mother’; she also came to be known as ‘Mataji’, ‘Respected Mother’.

​By the early 1920s Nirmala was becoming widely known as a figure with a rare spiritual charge. Even as a child she had she had fallen into strange meditative states, just as Ramakrishna had. She was also in the habit of talking to plants. By her mid-teens she had been recognized by some as extraordinary and was addressed by a number of villagers as ‘Ma’; a few prostrated themselves before her. She attracted further attention when she fell into rapturous swoons at public kirtans (the singing of devotional hymns). Sacred music was a recurrent motif in her life, often catalyzing an ecstatic state where her body would become stiff and she would enter an altered state of consciousness. An early disciple named her ‘Anandamayi Ma’, meaning ‘Bliss Permeated Mother’; she also came to be known as ‘Mataji’, ‘Respected Mother’.

She encouraged all to go forward to their spiritual destination, whatever the individual’s path or religion.

​The first ashram in her honour was built in Ramna in central Dhaka in 1929. From 1932 onwards she lived an itinerant life, travelling extensively throughout the sub-continent, devoting herself entirely to her followers. Many identified her as an avatara of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, speech, music and wisdom.