Moments Eternal

The Map of India and the Mother’s Symbol

From the day this country was partitioned into India and Pakistan I have been unable to look at a map of India. I just refuse to look at it. My whole being, my body, my mind and heart feel terribly pained when I see a map of divided India. Our land of India, our birthplace, cannot remain divided. In 1947 on 15th August Sri Aurobindo declared that India will become one again.

I carry that immortal promise in my bosom everywhere. I

have just one prayer to our Lord Sri Aurobindo:

“O Lord, O God, make India one again, make India one again!”

In Bankim Chandra’s Anandamath, Bhavananda expresses the author’s inmost feeling, the Indians’ inmost conviction. Bhavananda sings:

Bande Mataram

Sujalam suphalam malayajasheetalam

Shasya shyamalam mataram!

Mahendra is somewhat puzzled as he listens to this song. He does not understand what it means. Who is this ‘sujala, suphala, malayaja sheetala, shashyashyamala’ Mother? But Bhavananda does not answer and continues singing:

Shubhra-jyotsna-pulakita-yaminim

Phullakusumita-drumadalashobhinim,

Suhasinim sumadhurabhasinim,

Sukhadam varadam mataram.

Mahendra retorts :

“But we’re talking about a country, we’re not talking about Mother.”

“We do not believe in any other Mother,” Bhavananda replies. “Janani janmabhumischa swargadapi gariyasi. (The Mother and one’s birthplace are greater even than Heaven.) We take this birthplace to be the Mother. We have no mother, father, brother, wife, son, house, home. We have only that ‘sujala, suphala, malayaja sheetala, shashyashyamala’.” A surprised Mahendra then asks:

“Who are you?” Bhavananda answers: “We are the children.”

“Children? Whose children?” “The Mother’s children.”

Let me tell you now what Rabindranath said about his own country, India. Pankaj Mallick writes:

At number 1 Garsten Place at the main entrance to the Radio station, from the gate upto twenty feet in length and eight feet in width in the centre of the pathway within a circle was a map drawn in green cement. It was the map of India. The Director-General of All India Radio then was A. S. Bokhari and the director of the Calcutta station was Ashoke Sen.

Once on Mr. Bokhari’s and Mr. Sen’s invitation the

‘Vishvakavi’ (the World-Poet) visited the radio station. When Rabindranath arrived everyone got busy to welcome him with due honour and respect. I was among the various people and artists present that day.

Mr. Bokhari and Mr. Sen were showing the poet the way. Quite unconsciously they walked over the map that was drawn near the entrance. The poet, however, stopped for a few moments in front of the cement-map, looked at it with bowed head and with great dignified reverence went around the path in order to avoid stepping on the map and continued to follow the two men in front.

The radio station directors who had just a few moments earlier unknowingly walked over the Indian map, turned around to look at this reverent attitude and felt naturally deeply embarrassed. Seeing the expression on their faces I was not at all wrong in my conclusion. ‘Kavi’ then went inside and observed:

“O soil of my country, I bow down to thee!”

He pronounced the Bengali word for soil, mati, with such softness of speech, as if he were saying “You can touch your Mother with your head, how can you touch your Mother with your foot?” Because mati was ma – ti (meaning ma = Mother and ti = like or like {{0}}Mother[[Amar Jug Amar Gaan, Pankaj Mallick.]]).

Let me now come to Vivekananda. He said:

Our sacred motherland is the land of religion and philosophy—the birthplace of spiritual giants—the land of renunciation, where and where alone, from the most ancient to the most modern times, there has been the ideal of life open to man.

I will tell you now about that well-known quotation of Sri

Aurobindo’s :

Others look upon their country as an inert piece of matter

— a few meadows and fields, forests and hills and rivers

— I look upon my country as the Mother. I adore Her. I

worship Her as the Mother.

The year was 1893. After his education in England, Sri Aurobindo returned to India to dedicate his life to the service of his motherland. He vowed that the country had to be freed from the shackles of foreign domination.

At about the same time another Indian set out for the West in order to lay before the world the real truth about his country and the sanatana dharma. This was Swami Vivekananda.

Eighteen ninety-three turned into a memorable year as it witnessed two voyages in opposite directions by two sons of India out of their love for the country.

We know that Bankim Chandra, Rabindranath, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo looked upon their country as the Divine Mother. And that is why they have all unveiled the real face of India to the world.

When Vivekananda returned from the West he said:

I loved India even before arriving in the West. But now (while returning to India from the West) I feel that each atom of India’s dust is pure, the very air of India is pure. India is my punyabhumi: my pilgrimage.

Vivekananda continues :

I am prostrate before these hundreds of centuries of India’s brilliant unfolding history in awe. …No force in heaven or hell can stop this march of victory.

Nineteen forty-seven, August 15th. In front of Sri Aurobindo’s own eyes his India, his motherland, was cut into two. But Sri Aurobindo came out with a luminous message on that day. He emphatically declared:

By whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India’s future.

Nineteen fifty, 18th October. It was Pranab’s birthday. And Durga-puja or Mahaashtami as well. On this day at an auspicious time, on the southern wall of the Playground (where the Mother used to stand and take the salute for the children’s March Past), the map of India was born. The inspiration and design came from Tejen-da, son of the celebrated Bagha Jatin. Tejen-da used to look after the little ones. Everyone called him

‘Borda’. Tejen-da had taken this initiative without informing

Pranab so as to give him a surprise on his birthday.

Manoranjan-da entrusted Bibha to make a royal swan in cotton to decorate the children’s courtyard for games. Almost ten full bags of cotton were used to make this swan. Bibha completed the swan with infinite patience, effort and skill. It was exquisite! This swan too was meant to decorate the children’s courtyard on the occasion of Pranab’s birthday. There is a photo of the Mother with this swan in the Bulletin. The swan was brought to the Playground at three in the afternoon. While Bibha was busy setting up the swan at the right spot, Tejen-da asked Bibha:

“Can you draw the map of India on this wall?”

Bibha happily agreed. After having strained all morning making the swan, she now had to draw the map of India! Tejen-da asked her what she would need for this. Bibha suggested that Krishnalal-ji be requested to make the outline of the map first. Some green leaves, maida (refined wheat flour) and some yellow chandramallika flowers (called Life-Energy by the Mother) to make the Mother’s symbol in the centre of the map were brought at once.

There was such excitement in the air! As if a mandapa or pavilion was being made for Durga-puja. Krishnalal-ji drew the outline of the Indian map. And Bibha at once got down to doing her part with the help of two-three other people. There was not much time on hand. By five o’clock the Mother would be back from the Tennis Ground. The map had to be finished by then. Some people were cladding the maida-dough on the wall under Bibha’s instructions and then she herself started pasting the green leaves. Once this was over Bibha quickly got down to completing the Mother’s symbol in the centre with the yellow chandramallika flowers. Both the map and the symbol looked lovely! Just as all the work was over, the Mother’s car arrived in front of the Playground door.

The Mother noticed the map of India as soon as She entered and She looked delighted. This map of India did not include Burma. Then on everyone’s request the Mother agreed to make this map a permanent feature of the Playground. In order to make it permanent She herself drew the map of undivided India before Monoranjan-da had it cemented.

Now we can see this map of undivided India on the southern wall of the Playground to our heart’s content. Besides, it was drawn by the Mother herself. On the Mother’s map, we see not only Pakistan and Bangladesh but also Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Burma and Sri Lanka as part of undivided India. The Mother drew India as She saw the nation in Her divine vision. India was no longer divided. Mother India herself, the World-Mother revealed herself. And this unforgettable event happened before Sri Aurobindo’s physical withdrawal.

Mother India herself had come down in a human form. By drawing this form with Her own hand, the Mother showed the whole world that India could not remain divided. In the subtle world this division has not happened:

…the division was not decreed, it was a human deformation, unquestionably it was a human deformation. (The Mother)

This sand and cement map drawn by the Mother is sea-green in colour. The outline is golden. Our eyes light up with joy as we drink in this vision of undivided India, of Mother India to our heart’s content.

What an interesting coincidence! That map of India drawn within a circle in Garsten Place at the All India Radio headquarters was also made in green cement!

And it is Mother India herself, the Divine Mother of the world and the universe, Mother Aditi who says :

It is the map of the true India in spite of all passing appearances, and it will always remain the map of the true India, whatever people may think about it.

The Mother’s symbol in the centre which was made with yellow chandramallika flowers by Bibha, was on the Mother’s instructions made in copper by a coppersmith known to Monoranjan-da and Gangaram got these petals fixed on the map. Here is the significance of the Mother’s symbol:

The central circle represents the Divine Consciousness.

The four petals represent the four powers of the Mother. The twelve petals represent the twelve powers of the Mother manifested for her work.

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It is the symbolic design of the white Lotus of Supreme Consciousness, with the Mahashakti (the form of the Mother as universal creation) at the centre in her four aspects and twelve attributes.

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India is not the earth, rivers and mountains of this land, neither is it a collective name for the inhabitants of this country. India is a living being, as much living as, say Shiva. India is a goddess as Shiva is a god. If she likes, she can manifest in human form.

Every evening the Mother would stand in front of this map of undivided India and take the salute of Her children during March Past. At that divine moment the whole being was thrilled with the firm inner conviction that India was never divided and that it could never be divided. And by accepting Her children’s salute the Mother was reassuring us that India was indeed one. As we watched the Mother’s firmness of a challenging warrior, it would fill our hearts with bliss. In a second the pain and anguish of losing part of one’s country would vanish into thin air.

The soul of India is one and indivisible.