106. सर्वभूतदयापरः Sarva-bhūta-dayā-paraḥ

One for whom compassion to all beings was paramount

His Holiness was described as extremely tender-hearted (nāma 22) and kindness personified (nāma 37). The trait of His Holiness that is described in this nāma is dayā, compassion. The definition of dayā is captured in the verse, “O best among the noble ones on earth! The desire arising in the heart to eradicate the sufferings of others even if it entails the taking of much effort, is called dayā.”²⁷⁰ Thus, dayā is equivalent to what Nīlakaṇṭha refers to as kāruṇya (vide nāma 22).

Bhagavān says, “Compassion is innate to the one who is born inheriting divine traits.”²⁷¹ Maharṣi Gautama lists compassion for all beings as the first of the eight ātma-guṇas (personal qualities)²⁷² to be cultivated by every individual. The Yoga-sūtras too enjoin compassion as a means to mental peace.²⁷³ To His Holiness, sarvabhūta-dayā, compassion to all living beings, was para, the highest pursuit. As such, His was one-pointed dedication to this task. It was solely for the welfare of others that He sacrificed His own personal preference to remain absorbed in the Supreme.

It must be noted that in this nāma, the description of His Holiness’s compassion reaches a crescendo. As already mentioned (vide nāma 37), the fact that His Holiness was tender at heart gets subsumed in His characteristic of doing good to others even if it entails taking on suffering for Himself. Here it is apparent that the latter is in turn subsumed in the aspect brought out in this nāma. After all, one who always acts to relieve others of suffering is bound to act in a way that benefits others and not otherwise.

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His Holiness was prepared to go out of the way to terminate the suffering being inflicted on even a small creature. This trait of His was apparent even from childhood. Sri Srinivasa Sastry once beheld a boy cruelly catching thoroughly innocuous butterflies, tearing out their wings and throwing the hapless creatures to a dog. Walking up to the boy, He quickly grasped his hands and twisted them. The boy yelled. Relaxing His vice-like grip, Sri Srinivasa Sastry said, “The butterflies also must feel like this. Just as you have hands, they have wings. Abstain from torturing them hereafter.”

According to the scripture, even a butterfly does have a jīva (transmigrating, individual soul) that can undergo suffering and it is possible for one to be reborn, as a consequence of one’s sins, as a butterfly. In the Mahābhārata, there is the story of a learned ṛṣi named Māṇḍavya being impaled on a stake. On his later going to Yama, the god of death, and asking the reason for his suffering, he was told that as a boy he had tormented butterflies. By getting the boy to desist from totally unjustifiably and sadistically torturing and killing harmless butterflies, He not only provided relief to the butterflies but also saved the boy from sinning by continuing to kill them and, thereby, saved him from having to suffer, at some time, the painful consequences of such sin.

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One day during His first tour of Andhra Pradesh in 1960, His Holiness had travelled for about an hour when He espied from afar, a partially overturned automobile lying off the road. Some motorists passed on without even pausing. His Holiness had His car halted near the accident spot and rushed to the badly-damaged vehicle. He saw a motionless, blood-splattered man trapped within it. In a trice, He discerned that the mishap had occurred only minutes earlier and that the man was unconscious, not dead. He instructed a responsible employee of the Maṭha to proceed speedily in a Maṭha vehicle to arrange for an ambulance.

Having determined that the accident victim could be freed only after setting his car upright, His Holiness laboured, along with those who were with Him, to do the needful. He was then in His forties and His well-exercised muscles were hard and powerful. Nevertheless, as the vehicle was heavy, He had to put in much effort before it finally stood on its wheels. His Holiness then cautiously examined the wounded man and came to the conclusion that it would be safe to extricate him without waiting for the arrival of an ambulance. Using an improvised stretcher, His Holiness gently transferred him to a spacious Maṭha vehicle and ordered the driver to proceed smoothly in the direction from which an ambulance was expected. His actions ensured that the accident victim received medical attention at the earliest. The man survived and recovered; he owed his life to His Holiness.

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A tree uprooted by a gale fell across a road. Consequently, all vehicles plying on that route were forced to decelerate to a crawl and swerve to beyond the edge of the road in order to get past the obstruction. The car in which His Holiness was travelling had just crossed the tree when He told the person at the wheel to stop the vehicle. “If we move on, as many others before us have done, motorists will continue to be put to inconvenience at this spot. So, we should move the tree to the side of the road”, declared His Holiness. In deference to His command, the Maṭha staff applied themselves to the task of shifting the tree. Though old and unwell at that time, His Holiness did not remain a mute spectator. He gave suggestions and contributed physically too. In a short while, the road became unobstructed. The good deed done, His Holiness resumed His journey.

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His Holiness had the compassionate insight to recognize the difficulties of people even if they were not explicitly presented to Him, the vision to arrive at optimal solutions to eliminate those difficulties, and the commitment and perseverance to make sure that these solutions are implemented. Many of His plans and schemes had as beneficiaries the general public, who might not even know that He was responsible for the schemes.

There used to be a road connecting Shivamogga in Karnataka to the port city of Mangaluru, through Agumbe, but it was not a road good enough for heavy vehicles like trucks and buses to ply. His Holiness noticed the practical difficulty faced by people because of this lack of good road connectivity between these two important cities. He also recognized the importance of such a road for the economic development of Karnataka State. Aware as He was of the good road connectivity between Shivamogga and Sringeri through Koppa (approximately 100 kilometres), as well as between Karkala and Mangaluru (approximately 60 kilometres), He concluded that a good road laid to connect Sringeri with Karkala (approximately 60 kilometres) through Nemmuru and Kerakette, would suffice to achieve the Shivamogga-Mangaluru (a little over 200 kilometres) connectivity.

Not stopping at this, he took steps to have the plan implemented. When ministers or officials of the Karnataka Government came for his darśana, He told them of the idea and also impressed upon them in detail, the importance of such a road for Karnataka. This committed endeavour of His started bearing fruit when the Government started the construction of the road in the 1980s. However, His Holiness did not leave it at that. Until the road construction work was successfully completed, He would go to the site and Himself monitor the progress of the work from time to time. This road stands today as National Highway 169, and is a busy road with large and heavy vehicles plying on it every day.

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As His Holiness’s car was passing through a road in a city, He saw a beggar lying prostrate on the ground, convulsing sporadically. He ordered His driver to halt the car in order to attend to him. The driver said that beggars often put up a show of sickness to earn the sympathy of passers-by and get alms from them. His Holiness refused to budge and said, “Regardless of whether this man is genuine or not, I am going to help him.” Hence, the driver halted the car. His Holiness observed that the man had stopped having fits. Without a moment’s thought He picked up His water vessel and asked for the water to be given to him. In the meantime, another car stopped and its driver rushed with water to him before the vessel sent by His Holiness reached him. When His Holiness resumed His journey, He remarked, “How fortunate the other car’s driver was to have been able to help him! I did not have the privilege of doing anything for him.”

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The selfless compassion of His Holiness extended to not just human beings but to animals as well, all of which He loved deeply.

In the late 1970s, an Āyurveda-vaidya gave His Holiness a rare preparation, the composition of which was his guarded secret. The physician said that his preparation would heal any wound. The quantity supplied was small and so it was precious. One day, His Holiness beheld a dog that whimpered in agony due to a deep knife wound. Moved as He was, He immediately ordered for that rare medication to be applied to the dog. Whoever would have thought that such a rare medicine, possibly meant for some future use of His Holiness, would be parted with for healing a dog? The application was continued for a couple of days. The wound healed well and quickly too. The dog returned to its normalcy.

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His Holiness was once proceeding in His car from Narasimhapura back to Sacchidananda Vilasa, via the Durgāmbā Temple. The road leading to the temple consisted of many ups and downs and did not have an asphalt surface. At one point, the way was blocked by a bullock cart. The cart driver was coaxing his bullocks up a slope but the load coupled with excessive friction in the axle prevented the cart from moving up. The cart had a faulty axle and this led to the cart swerving sharply to the right when the bullocks put in additional efforts. On seeing His Holiness, the cart driver jumped down from his vehicle and stood reverentially. He then moved his cart to the edge of the road to enable His Holiness’s car to pass. Since the road was narrow, the resulting clearance for the car was not much but, nonetheless, sufficient. His Holiness told the disciple who was driving His car not to proceed and asked His attendant to lend a helping hand to the cart man, who, however, said that he would manage. He did not want His Holiness to wait because of Him. His Holiness, for His part, deemed that the man needed aid and so must be helped before proceeding.

His Holiness’s attendant and the disciple who was driving the car got down from the car and pushed the cart, while the cart driver egged the bullocks on. His Holiness was unwell and so was observing the scene from His seat. He called out, “Do not push the cart from near the axle or from the back. Push the outer portion of the spokes and you shall get additional leverage. Alternatively, you can hold the rim of the wheel.” Till then their struggles had been in vain but when they implemented His Holiness’s suggestion they were glad to find that the cart started to inch its way up the slope. Soon, it ascended the slope and, thereafter, the bullocks were in a position to pull the faulty cart on their own. His Holiness asked the disciple to drive slowly behind the cart till it reached its destination. On the way, He said, “It would have been most unfair and improper to have left the bullocks to struggle and this man to be stranded with his cartload. Had I not been unwell and weak, I would certainly have joined all of you in pushing the cart up the slope.”

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