← Mother KrishnabaiHer autobiography

15

Appayya Samarth

NOW WHO is Appayya Samarth? How did my mother come to have so much faith in him? In answer, I am herewith narrating in brief Appayya Samarth’s life.

Appayya Samarth was the elder brother of my father’s grandfather’s great grandfather. So I belonged to the seventh generation in the family. Appayya Samarth was from his childhood not only proficient in all arts but also fond of fun and laughter. He was even in his youth performing the daily worship, Japa and Sandhya regularly, besides reading scriptures dealing with the essence of eternal truths. He loved solitude and was generous in giving alms to Sadhus and saints.

For some time Appayya Samarth used to reflect on the eternal verities and was discussing within himself about God and meditating on Him. In this manner, he was spending his days in solitude. Observing these ways, his father, Rama Rao, fearing that his son might turn into a Vairagi, got him married to a girl who was later known as Bhagirathi. Samarth, although married, did not give up his nature and old ways. So his family members treated him with marked indifference.

It so happened that Appayya Samarth once went as usual for the Darshan of Maruti, the village deity in Bhatkal, and on his return he beheld a radiant Yati in the nearby rest-house. The Yati asked Appayya Samarth for a meal as he had been fasting for several days. Samarth, with all joy took the Yati to his home.

That day being Ganesh Chaturthi, all the men and women in the house were fully engaged in their various activities. So Samarth, requesting the Yati to take his seat in the verandah, told his wife to serve him meals. As his wife went on serving food to the Yati, he was finishing it all. Then he was served the Naivedya intended as offering to the family deity. When the people in the house came to know of this there was a great hubbub, resulting in the sudden disappearance of the Yati. Yet it was found that the vessels in which the food was prepared and kept were full and intact.

Samarth was aggrieved over the departure of the Yati without having his fill at meals. He therefore went in search of him and reached as far as the seashore. Having searched for him until sunset and not finding him, he walked into the sea out of despair. As he proceeded, the water of the sea covered his body more and more. When it rose up to his nose and he was about to be drowned, he saw a flash of Divine Light coming from the Yati on the seashore. As the Yati beckoned Samarth, the latter rushed towards him. The Yati at once initiated Samarth with the five-lettered Mantra and directed him to go to Swami Vimalananda, who lived in Bailur, telling him that the Swami was his Guru and was none other than the Yati himself. So saying, the Yati vanished.

As commanded by the Guru, Appayya Samarth went to Bailur and engaged himself in the service of Guru Vimalananda. He was not always living at Bailur but, as desired by his mother, was going home off and on.

After the Guru renounced his body, Samarth took to a wandering life, during which he composed several songs replete with the fervour of devotion, knowledge and dispassion. During his itinerary he once came to a rest-house. Here, Vardayya Hegde of the Manjunath Temple, had lost his eye-sight as a result of his indifferent treatment of a low caste devotee. As Hegde had heard of the fame of Samarth he appealed to him to endow him with eye-sight again. When Appayya Samarth prayed to God and went round the temple thrice with Hegde, the latter recovered his eyesight.

The Goddess Mukambika was the family deity of the king of Kollur. To obtain the prasad of the Goddess daily, the servants of the king used to go to the temple priest. One day, owing to some unknown reason, the priest got up late in the morning and the king’s servants were seen waiting for the prasad. As the morning worship in the temple had not been performed till then, there was no prasad to offer to the servants of the king. The priest, fearing that the king would be angry with him if no prasad was sent, took out from his hair the prasad he had worn the previous day and gave it to the king’s servants. The king, discovering hair in the prasad, became wild and sent for the priest. He threatened the priest with dire punishment if he did not show hair on the head of the Goddess. Thoroughly frightened, the priest went to Appayya Samarth who happened to be there and took refuge in him. Samarth assured him of protection.

Next morning the king had to go on a war and before he started, as was his custom, he first came for the Darshan of the Goddess. His visit to the temple was sudden. At that time Samarth was present at the temple and he prayed to Goddess Mukambika for her vision. The image of the Goddess became alive and appeared before them as a veritable animate Goddess with long, shining black hair.

Appayya Samarth performed many miracles of this nature. All these took place not from the Siddhis he had attained, but owing to prayers offered to God in the spirit of a child to its mother. Just as a mother cannot deny what is asked of her by her child, similarly God cannot resist granting the prayer of His devotee. To bring out hair on the head of the image of the Goddess could never have been possible by the use of mere occult powers. It could be done only by the power of devotion.

It was related by some old people that Appayya Samarth, before he gave up his body, called all his devotees and friends and, after delivering illuminating discourses to them, entered his bedroom. As he did not come out of the room even after a lapse of two or three hours, his friends went inside only to find that he had disappeared. Thereafter his devotees installed in this room a Linga of Umamaheshwar and later an image of Dattatreya, and thereby converted the room into a temple.

O bliss incarnate Papa! Since we had faith in and devotion for Appayya Samarth from generation to generation, whenever we were confronted with any difficulty, we would place it at his holy feet and seek his help. My mother had the highest faith in him, so she expressed herself as she did when I sought her permission to go to you. She asked me to sleep with her that night. I consented and laid myself down near her and she slept soundly with her hand resting on my body.