Mother Compassionate and Divine

“Do you want to drag me down into Maya?” Sri Ramakrishna questioned his young wife Sarada Devi, soon after her arrival at Dakshineswar from Jayarambati in March 1872.

- LAKSHMI DEVNATH

“No,” came the prompt reply, “Why should I do so? I have come only to help you in the path of religious life.” The question was strange coming as it did from a husband who was seeing his wife after a gap of almost five years. But then Sri Ramakrishna and Mother Sarada Devi were no ordinary persons. Sri Ramakrishna had verily incarnated on earth to fulfil a divine purpose and it is a well-known fact that when divinity manifests itself on earth, he or she brings along with them their full entourage to help them fulfil their mission. Otherwise, how can one explain the circumstances that led to the marriage of this pair?

“She who is marked for me,” declared the twenty-three-year-old Sri Ramakrishna in an ecstatic state of mind when the topic of his marriage was broached, “is waiting at the house of Ramachandra Mukherjee at Jayrambati.” That “She” was Sarada Devi, five-year daughter of Ramachandra Mukherjee and Shyamasundari Devi of Jayarambati. She was born on 22 December 1853. This divine marriage that took place in 1859 was very much in accordance with the plan of destiny. Of this there can be no doubt for, on an earlier occasion during a temple festival in the neighbourhood of Jayarambati, an infant Sarada on being teasingly asked as to whom she was going to marry, decisively pointed to Sri Ramakrishna who was there in the crowd.