September 12, 2015 Saturday: Mother As I Saw Her (Being Reminiscences of Holy Mother Sarada Devi)
12-September-2015 (Saturday)
Mother As I Saw Her – Swami Saradeshananda
Events after her Passing Away – 4
Swami Saradanandaji performed the rite of circumambulating the pyre and lighting the pyre. Swami Shivanandaji, Swami Subodhanandaji, Swami Nirmalanandaji, M. (Mahendranath Gupta) and many old devotees together with many others who had collected there, stood round the pyre with their hearts full of sorrow, and watched this ‘Yajna-homa’, in which the holy mortal frame of the Mother was offered as oblation in the all-consuming fire. Swami Nirmalanandaji chanted a Vedic Mantra. The pyre soon began to blaze. They then offered oblations of Dhupa (incense), Agaru (a scent) and Karpura (camphor) in the pyre. Soon it was all finished. Then to quench the fire, they started bringing the Ganga water in pots. All of a sudden it started raining. So revered Saradanandaji Maharaj asked them to stop pouring water in pots. This shower of rain quenched the fire of the pyre and cooled the children of the Mother who had been so far bearing the heat of the sun. A few of the sons collected the pieces of bones, the mortal remains, in a pot. But lo! there was very little of it to be thus collected, as the whole body had been well reduced to ashes. Whatever could be gathered was put in a copper urn and taken to the shrine room of Belur Math, and placed near the picture of the Mother.
[Mother As I Saw Her (Being Reminiscences of Holy Mother Sarada Devi) – Swami Saradeshananda. Translated by Prof. J. N. Dey. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore Madras-600004: p 198]
