The problem of Janani janmabhumishca in Anand Math – Pradip Bhattacharya, IAS July 20, 2002
In Anand Math, just before the remarkable passage about in chapter 10 about “Mother as she was, Mother as she has become and Mother as she will be”, the protagonist Mohendra is astonished with the song “Bande Mataram” and asks the sanyasi Bhavananda "What Mother?...That is the country, it is not the Mother". Bhavananda replies that the only mother the Santans know is the motherland because, he quotes in Sanskrit, janani janmabhumishca svargadapi gariyasi—mother and motherland are greater by far than even heaven. Here is the passage translated by Sri Aurobindo in chapter 10: 'Bhavananda replied, "We recognize no other Mother. Mother and Motherland is more than heaven itself."'
I was intrigued by the half-shloka because I could not find it in any Sanskrit work readily to hand...In the meantime I met Professor Julius Lipner of Cambridge University, who was completing a new translation of Ananda Math but had never seen Sri Aurobindo and Barindra Ghosh’s translation of the novel in the early decades of the 20th century. I provided him with a copy and arranged for his visit to Lalgola in Murshidabad district to see the image of Durga-Kali that had inspired Bankim's vision of the mother-as-she-has-become. I put the problem to him, but he had not a clue. On his return to England he took the trouble of getting in touch with several scholars including Prof. J.L. Brockington of Edinburgh University who has studied the epic verse-by-verse (cf. my review of his Epic Threads). Professor Lipner writes, “They all say that this verse is not in any edition of the Ramayana known to them! Folklore.” But, he added, had I noticed that the half-shloka was engraved on one of the entrances to the Dakshineshwar Kali temple? Now, that was something none of us, who visit the temple so often, have noticed.
In Anand Math, just before the remarkable passage about in chapter 10 about “Mother as she was, Mother as she has become and Mother as she will be”, the protagonist Mohendra is astonished with the song “Bande Mataram” and asks the sanyasi Bhavananda "What Mother?...That is the country, it is not the Mother". Bhavananda replies that the only mother the Santans know is the motherland because, he quotes in Sanskrit, janani janmabhumishca svargadapi gariyasi—mother and motherland are greater by far than even heaven. Here is the passage translated by Sri Aurobindo in chapter 10: 'Bhavananda replied, "We recognize no other Mother. Mother and Motherland is more than heaven itself."'
I was intrigued by the half-shloka because I could not find it in any Sanskrit work readily to hand...In the meantime I met Professor Julius Lipner of Cambridge University, who was completing a new translation of Ananda Math but had never seen Sri Aurobindo and Barindra Ghosh’s translation of the novel in the early decades of the 20th century. I provided him with a copy and arranged for his visit to Lalgola in Murshidabad district to see the image of Durga-Kali that had inspired Bankim's vision of the mother-as-she-has-become. I put the problem to him, but he had not a clue. On his return to England he took the trouble of getting in touch with several scholars including Prof. J.L. Brockington of Edinburgh University who has studied the epic verse-by-verse (cf. my review of his Epic Threads). Professor Lipner writes, “They all say that this verse is not in any edition of the Ramayana known to them! Folklore.” But, he added, had I noticed that the half-shloka was engraved on one of the entrances to the Dakshineshwar Kali temple? Now, that was something none of us, who visit the temple so often, have noticed.
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