Namadharaka
Sharma asked Siddha, “Oh great soul, you have said that the Lord
incarnated twice during the age of Kali. I long to hear all about
these avatars.” Siddha was very happy to notice the humility and
faith of Namadharaka. He said, “It is good you have asked me of
these. For it purifies the one who recounts it as much as it does
the listener. So listen attentively. The Lord ever incarnates on
earth in order to check evil ways and strengthen the righteous
forces in man. In this age of Kali, he first manifested himself as
Sreepada Sreevallabha for the same end.
To the east of
where we are, there is a village named Pithapur (East Godavari
district in Andhra Pradesh, India). There lived a Brahmin couple,
Appala Raju Sharma and Sumathi, who were devotees of Lord Datta.
The had many children, of whom only two survived. These too were
sons, but as misfortune would have it, one was lame and the other
was blind. Like orthodox Hindus, they believed that unless they
had a son who could efficiently discharge all the righteous rites
and duties, their souls had no hope of entering the portals of
heaven. They worshipped Lord Datta for the fulfillment of their
hearts’ wish and never failed to offer food to mendicants and
monks. They looked upon all such as the very forms of Lord Datta.
One day, they were performing the annual ceremony in their house
and many Brahmins were invited as guests for the feast. Tradition
holds that none should eat on that day before these guests partake
their food.
But Lord Datta
appeared at their threshold in the form of a renunciate sadhu,
bearing the staff and the water vessel (kamandalu) and
asked for food. The head of the family was not aware of it. The
housewife, with immense faith that the visitor was none other than
the Lord to whom the whole annual ceremony was being offered, gave
him food even before the Brahmin guests were fed! Her faith
touched the Lord’s heart and he at once granted her vision of his
true form. The divine form which Sumathi witnessed was such that
neither a thousand eyes can fully comprehend it nor a thousand
tongues can describe it. In His six divine arms, he held the
conch, the disc (chakra), the trident of Shiva (trishula),
the drum (damaru), the water vessel (kamandalu) and
the rosary (japa mala). His glorious form had three heads.
Clad in a tiger’s skin and his body besmeared with sacred ash (vibhuti),
he looked like a silver mountain in moonlight. His matted hair
hung down like ropes, as though in order to help his devotees to
climb out of the mire of phenomenal existence.
The blessed
housewife drank the divine glory of the Lord’s form and felt that
the highest object of her birth was fulfilled. The Lord said,
“Mother, I am pleased with your devotion. Even before you fed the
Brahmin guests, you have given me food with the full faith that
this is the Lord in the guise of a holy sannyasi. Now, ask me
anything you wish and it shall be granted”. The Nectarine words of
the Lord seemed to penetrate every cell in her being. Her eyes
were blessed by the sight and now her ears were sanctified by His
sweet words. “Lord”, she said, “You, whose vision is not attained
even by great yogis, have blessed my sight with it spontaneously,
out of sheer compassion for me! You have even accepted food from
me, on this day. And thereby, the spirits of our ancestors, for
whose welfare we are performing the annual ceremony are all
blessed. You are, indeed, the wish – fulfiller of your devotees.
You have already addressed me as mother. So I have no need to ask
for you anything further. Make me worthy of being addressed by you
as such i.e., bless me with a child as divine as you are and keep
up your word”.
Hearing her
words, the Lord thought, ”She is asking me for the same favor as
did Anasuya of yore.” Then he said, “You shall have a son as great
as I am, but then you must remember one thing: You will have to
implicitly do as he tells you. Do not forget this in your
attachment to the idea that he is, after all, your son!” So
saying, the Lord disappeared.
Still rapt in
the spell of her divine experience, blessed Sumathi at once went
to her husband and said, “Sir, I have transgressed the divine law:
the Brahmin guests are not yet fed. Lord Dattatreya came to our
house in the form of a sannyasi for offerings of food. Believing
that he is the Lord of this annual ceremony and the Lord of all
religious sacrifices, I gave him food”. Raju said, ‘my virtuous
one, we offer food to Brahmins on this occasion and consecrate the
whole ceremony to the Lord Vishnu. If, then, that very Lord had
personally received your offering, it is all the noble fruit of
your deep faith in Him. This noble act of yours has blessed all of
us. Lord Dattatreya, in order to bless his devotees and the
righteous ones, wanders about in disguise of a random guest at the
lunch hour. That’s why it is said that a random guest has to be
treated as the very embodiment of Lord Dattatreya. If, owing to
our inadvertence, the guest goes away unappeased, it means that
the Lord Himself is displeased with us.” Then Sumathi told him of
the divine vision the Lord had bestowed on her and of his granting
her wish for a divine son, along with the caution he gave. Raju
Sharma was overjoyed to learn all that and congratulated her
saying, “You have indeed sought a blessing that would purify our
very lineage and the whole world”. He then completed the ceremony
scrupulously.
Not long after,
Sumathi conceived and delivered a male chilled at the proper time.
She gave birth to one who is indeed birth less. Astrologers and
priests had all prophesied that Lord Datta Himself was born as her
son and praised her good fortune. Indeed, He kept his word to
Sumathi and, as he can have no equal, he had to take birth as her
son. As the child had all the divine features besides celestial
radiance, it was fittingly named as Sreepada. This was the first
incarnation of lord Datta in the age of Kali.
As days and
months passed, the child Sreepada grew ever more glorious, like
the waxing moon and attained the age of eight. As per the
tradition, he was invested with the sacred thread. Normally, after
the sacred thread ceremony a boy has to be trained by a Guru for 8
years before he can memorize the Vedas completely. But this boy,
Sreepada, started imparting Vedic knowledge to his pupils’ right
from the moment of his upanayana (sacred thread ceremony).
It was all a purely divine miracle. In him was demonstrated the
truth of the dictum that all knowledge acquired in one’s previous
lives springs up spontaneously in the present life, like things
recollected.
Meanwhile, his
father Raju Sharma wished to get his son married and even started
looking for a suitable girl. When he heard of it, one day,
Sreepada said, “Father, you need not search for a bride anew. The
perfect and divine bride is awaiting me. She is the treasure of
Yoga. Hence, I shall renounce all. As I am Sreepada Sreevallabha
(meaning the consort of Sree or Goddess Lakshmi), I shall gain
liberation even without the need of begetting a son.” The
determined aim of his son to forego marriage pained the father.
With tears in their eyes, the parents said to Sreepada, “If you
were to leave us, as a wandering sannyasi, we shall be like fish
out of water. Even though you are the Lord incarnate, you have
taken birth as our son. Is it proper for you, then, to leave us to
perish in the ocean of grief of separation? How can you, the
protector of righteousness, not fulfill the duty enjoined upon
every son?”
Then, pointing
at their two sons, they said, “Indeed, even by contemplating on
you (i.e., when u leave us), one can cut asunder the
self-perpetuating rounds of birth and death. But when we look at
these blind and lame sons, our minds are again caught up in the
whirl-pool of worldly concerns.”
His heart,
melting with compassion at the sight of the tears in their eyes,
Sreepada touched his brothers and made them whole in a trice! What
is impossible for the almighty and the lord of the universe?
The miracle
dispelled the veil of delusion that blinded their understanding.
As the realization that he is all pervading had dispelled the
illusory grief of being parted from him, it even seemed a sin to
them to confine him at home and keep him off from all creatures
who are, indeed, his children. Then his mother said, “Lord, your
Maya has deluded me into looking upon you chiefly as my son. In
fact, the whole cosmic egg is within your being. That you are my
son is but a convention. You should keep my understanding clear on
this delusion”.
Then the Lord
granted her the vision of his real, divine, form. The handsome,
tender, lad at once appeared radiant like a million suns and
pleasing as a myriad moons. His blissful nature seemed to enliven
every atom of existence. “Mother, you ever contemplate this form
you now see. You shall soon attain eternal unity with me. These
two sons of yours shall live to their full span of life and serve
you with devotion. They shall be learned and wealthy and you shall
be blessed with grand children and great grand children. They too
shall win fair renown”, he said.
As the brothers
praised his glory, Sreepada said to them, “Look upon your parents
as the embodiments of divine parents and serve them well. And I
shall renounce all”. Then he circumambulated thrice around them in
reverence. With their permission, he renounced all worldly ties
and trekked to holy places like Dwaraka, Brindavan, Mathura, and
Badrinath. After wandering there for sometime, he marched down to
the holy Gokarna in order to bless the spiritual seekers there.
There, Lord Siva manifested himself in the form of Mahabaleshwara
Linga which was installed by Lord Ganesha. Hence the place came to
be the spiritual resort of innumerable seekers after the Spirit,
down the ages”.