62. भिक्षुकोत्तमरूपधृत् Bhikṣukottama-rūpa-dhṛt

One who donned the form of an ascetic of the highest order

The scripture describes four orders of bhikṣuka, ascetics: kuṭīcaka, bahūdaka, haṁsa and paramahaṁsa, each successive one being superior to its predecessor. There are rules specified for each of these orders of saṁnyāsa, with the following being the external marks of the mendicants of the highest order, paramahaṁsa-saṁnyāsin: “The paramahaṁsa ascetic is devoid of tuft and sacred thread... wears a single loincloth and a single (lower) garment, has a bamboo daṇḍa (staff), wears a single (upper) garment or is intent on smearing bhasma (sacred ash) on the body and has renounced everything.”¹⁶³ Paramahaṁsa-saṁnyāsins are not supposed to chant the Gāyatrī-mantra; Praṇava-japa, that is the japa of ‘Om’, is for them.

His Holiness was One who rūpa-dhṛt, donned the form, of a bhikṣuka-uttama, an ascetic of the highest order. The scripture states that the ascetic of the fourth (and highest) order, the paramahaṁsa-saṁnyāsin, is verily Lord Nārāyaṇa.¹⁶⁴

❧

On 21^st May, 1931, Sri Srinivasa Sastry did sandhyā-vandana and then paid His respects to His Guru and received His blessings and consent for all functions of that day and the next. After the completion of a Gaṇapati-homa, He paid obeisance at the samādhis of the previous pontiffs and at the temples of Bhagavatpāda and Goddess Śāradāmbā. He performed the aṣṭa-śrāddhas that day as part of which He made offerings even to Himself as done to the manes, and with this, He completed once and for all His ritualistic obligations to His progenitors and became decoupled, as it were, from His life so far. His head was then tonsured; just a few strands of hair were left unshaven in His tuft. Having bathed in the river, He performed some purifying rituals. He fasted that day. He kept vigil in front of a sacred fire the whole of that night, with His mind on God; He mentally repeated the Gāyatrī-mantra.

After bathing in the river the next morning and completing His sandhyā-vandana, Sri Srinivasa Sastry performed the Puruṣa-sūkta-homa and Virajā-homa. Standing in waist-deep water in the river He discarded the sacred thread, tuft and clothes, and then took the vow of saṁnyāsa. With this He became a paramahaṁsa-saṁnyāsin. When He had taken a few steps towards the north in the river, the Jagadguru called out, “bho āyuṣman, ita ehi (O long-lived one, come here).” On His Guru calling Him, His Holiness approached Him with all humility. As described under nāma 25, the senior Jagadguru then gave Him ochre clothes, and later a daṇḍa and kamaṇḍalu.

❧