In the Ashram
Sixty years ago the first disciple
of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the West breathed her last in the Ashram.
Her life has been associated with the Mother’s since the time she was known as,
not the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, but Mirra Richard, wife of Paul
Richard. She was the first person to address Sri Aurobindo as ‘Lord’ while the
other inmates considered him nothing more than a friend and a guide. Her entire
life was consecrated to the Divine only, and despite being one of the early
members of the Ashram her life has been an unsung song. We are talking of
Dorothy Mary Hodgson who is better known as Datta.
Data was born on 2 September 1884
in
It is not precisely known where
Dorothy had met Mirra. According to KRS Iyengar, Dorothy knew Mirra in
Dorothy had once told one of her
companions about her early meetings with Mirra: “In the afternoon, the Mother
would visit a cherry garden. We met and spoke in that garden. At first sight I
saw the Divinity in her. I adored and worshipped her like a goddess but she
would call me her friend. I used to carry her things—handbag, etc. When we
became very close, I prepared salads for her. She would take very little food.”
[2]
Dorothy was particularly close to
Dr Shumei Okawa and his wife—Shumei Okawa had been a student of Indian
Philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University and was a university professor in Tokyo
where he taught Asian History and was also a member of the Black Dragon Society
and a leading spirit of the pan-Asiatic movement in Japan; he was also quite
interested in Sri Aurobindo after reading an article on him—with whom Paul and
Mirra spent their first year of stay in Japan and Dr Kobayashi and his wife
Nobuko (with whom the Richards stayed for three years in Kyoto; almost forty
years later Nobuko would meet Mirra, then known as the Mother of Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, in 1959 when she visited Pondicherry). It was from Mirra that Dorothy
learnt about Sri Aurobindo and his sadhana. According to KRS Iyengar, Dorothy
must have been informed of the Arya
that Sri Aurobindo was bringing out from his ‘
In 1920 Mirra asked Dorothy whether
she would like to accompany her to
On 24 November 1920, there was a
heavy storm with rainfall and since the house where Mirra stayed with Dorothy
was old and “looked as if it was going to melt away.” [3] Sri Aurobindo said
that under such a weather condition Mirra and Dorothy cannot be allowed to stay
in that house, so he asked them to move into the house where he was staying
with his companions. Thus, Mirra and Dorothy came to live with the other
inmates. However, the moving in of Mirra and Dorothy caused an understandable
amount of uneasiness among the young men (namely Suresh Chandra Chakravorty
alias Moni, Bejoy Nag and Saurin Bose) who were living with Sri Aurobindo since
1910. They were living a camp-life and they viewed the arrival of the two
European ladies as “sudden invasion.” AB Purani also notes that their arrival
had created a sense of dissatisfaction in the minds of the inmates and he adds:
“…men imbued with strong nationalism would find it difficult to accept one who
apparently is a foreigner as an inmate of the house.” KRS Iyengar explains the
reasons for the dissatisfaction due to the ‘moving in’ of the ladies:
“But as for the young men
themselves, taste and appetite weren’t to be quite so easily transcended.
Nevertheless, with their sunny disposition and boundless faith in Sri
Aurobindo, they had been carrying on gallantly for years. But this sudden
‘invasion’ by two European ladies—however unavoidable under the
circumstances—was a jolt to the kind of unconventional camp-life they had been
living so far. They were excited, they were also puzzled. What would the ladies
think? There were hundreds of books—in English, Bengali, Sanskrit, Latin,
Greek, French—but there were no book-shelves in the house; and bamboo-strips
had to serve the purpose. For the most part, mats had to do duty for furniture;
and there was but a single servant to do the shopping—among other things, daily
three or four annas worth of fish! Cooking was done on a cooperative basis:
Nolini did the rice, Moni the pulses (dāl), and Bejoy the curry and the
vegetables. There was a pariah cook, perhaps, for part of the time, and what he
prepared was not to the taste. And in such a situation, to have to feed two
European ladies too! It was not surprising that uneasiness crawled in the wake
of the coming of Mirra and Dorothy… to Sri Aurobindo’s house.” [4]
But this uneasiness was short-lived
and gradually Mirra and Dorothy were accepted whole-heartedly by the other
inmates. And therefore KRS Iyengar adds: “While with some it was only a
temporary uneasiness in the presence of the apparently exotic, with some others
it was perhaps a half-admitted irrational suspicion about all that was
‘foreign’. But such misgivings were no more than the shadowy mists that prowl
around for a little while, till they disappear with the rise of the Sun of
all-revealing knowledge. Mirra’s crystalline goodness of heart and unfailing
understanding of men and affairs, Datta’s amiable sweetness and kindness of
disposition, their total self-consecration to Sri Aurobindo, and the striking
sea-change their presence and unobtrusive ministry effected in the very
atmosphere of the place, all dispelled the earlier annoyance and the
uneasiness, and only trust and love and sunniness prevailed.” [5]
On 1 January 1922 Sri Aurobindo
asked Mirra, whom he had begun to address as the ‘Mother’, to take charge of
the management of the house. Since the number of inmates were increasing and
the need for additional accommodation was felt, the ‘Library House’ at Rue de
la Marine was rented where Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Dorothy and a few others
shifted in September 1922. It was during this time that Dorothy received the name
of ‘Vasavadatta’ from Sri Aurobindo, meaning “one who has given herself” but
she was addressed as Datta. T
Kodandarama Rao, who met Sri Aurobindo in 1920 and stayed with him between 1921
and 1924 recalls: “Miss Hodgson was supervising the kitchen and serving tea in
the morning and evening to the inmates.” [6]
While Sri Aurobindo, the Mother,
Datta and the others who formed the ‘embryo of the future Ashram’ [7] were
still residing at 41 Rue François Martin, there took place in December 1921 the
famous incident of stone throwing. The Mother has recounted the incident in her
conversations and so has Sri Aurobindo in one of his letters to Dilip Kumar
Roy; what follows is a synopsis of the incident: there was a cook named Vatel
who had a bad temper and “did not like being reproved concerning his work” and
he was in touch with some Muslims who knew black magic. Once, he was scolded by
Datta for doing something bad and he was furious and he threatened that the
inmates would be compelled to leave the house. After two or three days, someone
came and informed the Mother that stones covered with moss were falling in the
courtyard and gradually the number of stones falling increased significantly
till it became a regular bombardment and one of the stones hit Datta as she was
crossing the courtyard. The inmates kept a careful eye to find out who were
throwing the stones but were quite baffled when they could not find the source
and moreover, stones started falling in closed rooms as well. Eventually Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother understood that it was due to some black magic and
they also understood that Vatel was behind this act; they hurled the evil
forces back and then Vatel’s wife came and informed them that he was
desperately ill (because the occult force was recoiled back upon him) and she
begged mercy. Sri Aurobindo forgave him saying: “For this he need not die.” And
Vatel recovered soon after.
Then came 24 November 1926 when the
descent of the Overmind Consciousness took place in Sri Aurobindo’s body. Datta
was one of the twenty four disciples who were witness to this great event. Soon
after the descent she made a proclamation which has been recorded by the other
inmates differently. For instance, according to A.B. Purani Datta has said:
“The Lord has descended into the physical today.” Champaklal recalls Datta
saying:
He has ended the hell of suffering.
He has conquered pain.
He has conquered death.
He has conquered all.
He has descended tonight.
Bringing Immortality and Bliss.
Nolini Kanta Gupta remembers Datta
declaring: “The Lord has descended. He has conquered death and sorrow. He has
brought down immortality.” Now let’s read what Rajani Palit has written about
that day: ‘Now Datta came out, inspired and declared: “The Master has conquered
death, decay, hunger and sleep.” And according to Rajangam, Datta’s declaration
was:
He has conquered Life.
He has conquered Death.
He has conquered All.
The difference in the versions
state that the exact words uttered by Datta were not recorded precisely by the
inmates but the inner message she tried to convey was understandable from the
versions and that is:
The Ashram in those days was quite
different from what it is today. In the earlier times no one guarded the Ashram
gate. It was only in 1927 when a Dr Sloni who had gone straight to Datta and
had ‘worried’ her with a ‘battery of questions’ that the Mother asked Dyuman to
take a chair and sit at the gate and keep a watch. Since then someone is always
there at the gate from 4:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and since 1947 there has been an
arrangement for two persons to sit at the gate during the day.
In the initial years Datta stayed
in the Ashram main building where she occupied two rooms and a separate
bathroom was provided to her. The room to the left on the top of the staircase
of the Library House belonged to Datta (it was given to Rajangam later). During
the early years, every evening the Mother came from the Meditation House to the
Library House which she entered through the room that later became Champaklal’s
room (and eventually his aunt Motiben’s) and after freshening up there, she
went to Datta’s room from where she went to Prosperity where on the first of
each month, she distributed articles ascertained to the inmates of the Ashram.
The names that were given to Datta’s rooms were quite interesting: her main
room was called ‘Vital Conversion’ and the second room she occupied was given
the name of ‘Psychic Centre’ while her bathroom was called ‘Water’. After a few
years she shifted to 14 Rue de la Marine, the house that is situated on the
west of the Ashram main building; she occupied the room that was later used by
Ichchaben and slept in the corner room.
Ever since she became a part of the
Ashram Datta served the Mother whole-heartedly. She did all the chores for the
Mother and prepared food in her own room. Apart from the work she did in the
Mother’s dressing room, she also cleaned her bathroom. She would prepare a big
bowl of salad and carry it to the Ashram and in the afternoon she would prepare
something for Sri Aurobindo as well. Her entire life revolved around the Mother
and Sri Aurobindo. So close was she to the Mother that even when the latter went
for her bath, Datta used to accompany her. Pujalal used to get the bathroom
ready and while the Mother was in the tub, behind the curtain Datta used to
stay near the door where she either meditated or cleaned certain things. Her
day started early and she used to come to the Ashram at eight in the morning
with soup for the Mother and worked in the Ashram till 1 p.m. when she returned
to her own room. The entire verandah of her apartment was occupied by a big
table that was used to iron the Mother’s clothes. There used to be a stool on
the either side of the table; Datta would sit on one side of the stools
preparing salads while Margaret Woodrow Wilson alias Nishtha washed the
utensils used by the Mother and which were wiped by Madame Monod-Herzen, an Italian
lady who was given the name of Jwalanti by Sri Aurobindo. Another lady named
Swarna would carry the trays on which the vessels were kept to the terrace for
wiping. Sahana Devi recalls: “We all knew where the tray of our cooked offering
[for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother] had to be placed and at what hour of the
day, or it was given into Champaklal’s hands…In the evening again we used to
bring back our trays containing their ‘prasad’, which some of us shared… Datta…
often took in the tray from us and kept it in its appointed place.” [9]
In October 1931 the Mother fell
seriously ill and from 18 October to 24 November she withdrew completely and
suspended all her activities including Darshans and meditations. So critical
was her illness that she could hardly move her limbs. In a letter to a
disciple, Sri Aurobindo wrote expressing his concern over her illness: “The
Mother has had a very severe attack and she must absolutely husband her forces
in view of the strain the 24th November will mean for her. It is quite out of
the question for her to begin seeing everybody and receiving them meanwhile—a
single morning of that kind of thing would exhaust her altogether.” [10] To
Dilip Kumar Roy, he wrote: “The Mother has been ‘seeing’ nobody and even now
and for some time to come all visits and talk must be refused until she is
stronger. Certain people come here for their usual work, or to do necessary
things, or to bring food or letters, etc. (dealt by me, not by the Mother!) but
the Mother has not been wasting her strength in receiving them…” [11] At that
time Datta and Chinmayee (who came to the Ashram in 1927) nursed her day and
night till she recovered.
In the early years of the Ashram,
the Mother used to play certain symbolic games with the inmates. In one of such
games one had to write what he/she craved. Questions like “What do you want”,
“What is Yoga”, or “Realization” were answered by the inmates differently. What
follows are the answers that Datta had given to the aforesaid queries:
(1) What do you want?
“To be taken right into the Beyond
in surrender.”
(2) What is Yoga?
“To be so entirely cleansed of
falsehood that there may be purity to know the Divine Will and respond to the Call at any
moment.”
(3) Realization: “The star of your
Realisation is rising.”
Datta wore ochre saris; in fact she
was the only lady in the Ashram to wear such saris and among the male members
only Dilip Kumar Roy and Poornananda wore ochre robes. At that time the Ashram
was not as prosperous as it is today and Datta shared the financial hardships
that the Ashram had to undergo. Narayan Prasad writes in his book Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram about
Datta: “When none of us knew who the Mother was, there was one who gave her
whole life to her even from when she was very young… Her spirit of dedication
was above all bargaining, truly matchless. It is said of her that she was
prepared even for sweeping work if that was assigned to her. She was so simple,
so free from taint of ego that during the pre-Ashram days she used to wear pieces
of old clothes (dhotis) of sadhaks at night, herself darning the torn pieces.
With the birth of the Ashram she used the ochre garb and adhered to it till the
last…her whole life was a living illustration of her self-giving.” [12] Sahana
Devi too remembers: “The very sight of this lady [meaning Datta] was indeed a
pleasure, she seemed to us a pure white flower consecrated to the Divine.” [13]
Narayan Prasad notes in his book how a sadhak who had narrated the story of
Datta to him folded his hands repeatedly in reverence to her memory. [14]
Those who have seen Datta remembers
her as a very serious but very humble person and a silent worker of the
Mother’s Work but who hardly interacted with anyone. But there were some like
Nishtha, Jwalanti and Swarno with whom she interacted as they were her
companions in her work for the Mother. One day she smiled broadly and told her
companions: “I have good news for you.” Nishtha asked: “What is the news?”
Datta answered: “Today the Mother said, ‘I have four flowers there.’” Jwalanti
asked: “Four flowers?” “Yes,” Datta replied, “The Mother said, Jwalanti is
Fire, Nishtha is Consciousness, Datta is entirely Self-giving and little Swarno
is Service.” On another occasion Datta had told Swarno: “How nicely you
embroider! Once I embroidered a blouse for the Mother for which I copied a
pattern from a book. Later when I saw that some of you do such nice embroidery,
I felt like throwing the blouse away. I told the Mother, ‘Don’t wear it. They
are embroidering such beautiful things. This is not nice.’ But the Mother
replied, “No! No! I will wear it.” [15]
Here is another incident: once a
sadhika, who used to sew and repair the Mother’s clothes, was asked to darn a
handkerchief. She told Datta: “This handkerchief has been darned so often that
there is hardly any of the original material left.” Datta told her: “No matter.
Once I told the Mother, ‘This handkerchief is too torn’ and I put it to one
side. ‘It has served me so long, so nicely, and you are throwing it away!’ With
these words the Mother jumped up from her chair, picked up the handkerchief and
held it on her lap. Since then I never say anything.”
Another small but interesting piece
of information for the reader: when Sri Aurobindo wrote The Life Divine, Datta and Arjava were the fortunate ones who read
the handwritten sheets.
But as Datta did not socialize at
all, the inmates hardly knew anything about her. She also never spoke about
herself or her inner life. While there were some inmates who drew their own
conclusions (like Barindra Kumar Ghose, Sri Aurobindo’s younger brother), there
were some (like Nirodbaran) who had asked Sri Aurobindo about her. For
instance, in Correspondence with Sri
Aurobindo, we find Nirodbaran asking Sri Aurobindo (on 3 November 1935):
By the way I learned that Datta
once belonged to this lamenting and repining group and spent almost 5 years in
such a crisis! True? who will believe it now?”
Sri Aurobindo replied: “You are
asking very delicate questions. I can only say that Datta has been with the
Mother from the pre-Asram, even the pre-Yoga-times—her case is uniquely
difficult.
The next day Nirodbaran wrote to
Sri Aurobindo: “About Datta, it was in one of a series of articles written by
Barin. So everybody knows what I know.” Sri Aurobindo answered: “Ah, then I
understand. Barin’s statements are always inaccurate. The 5 years must have
been his own construction.” [16]
Apart from her daily visits to the
Ashram Datta hardly went out of her house and whenever she went most of the
time it was due to some work that the Mother would give to her. When Sarala
(the daughter-in-law of Shivji-bhai, an old follower of Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother who came to the Ashram for the first time on 13 August 1934) gave birth
to her daughter Aruna on 5 January 1944, Datta had gone, on the Mother’s
instruction, to her house to see the child. Let’s read about it in some detail:
In those days the Mother did not
see young children…Sarala…had to rent a house situated in the market place,
near the Indian Coffee House. One morning she and her mother were taking bath
to be ready for the Mother’s Darshan in the Meditation Hall. Just then the
servant with whom her daughter was playing called out from outside, “Datta Amma
has come.” Wondering at this, Sarala hurried with her bath, asking the servant
to request Datta to wait awhile. She was surprised at this honour, for Datta
usually did not go out of the Ashram and for her to come to the market was
surely to be marvelled at. The servant reported that Datta had said, “I will
not stay, I have come to see the child,” and saying this she left before Sarala
could come out. After her bath when Sarala and her mother reached the
Meditation Hall to do the Pranam the Mother said, “I have heard the child is
very nice.” Then Sarala understood that the Mother must have asked Datta to go
and see her daughter. [17]
Those who have seen her recall
meeting her only on the road while she was either going to or coming from the
Ashram main building. As said earlier, she hardly interacted with anyone in the
Ashram and carried on for nearly two decades in the same manner. Physically she
was never stout and she continued to become frail. Champaklal noted in his
diary (on 9 December 1944): “Datta was not keeping well. Mother went to see her
and after coming from there, she told Sri Aurobindo: “Peaceful, detached.” Datta
continued with her work silently till her health completely broke down in 1949
and she breathed her last on 2 July 1949. Champaklal noted (on 10 July 1949):
After Datta passed away, Surendra
[Surendra Mohan Ghose settled in the Ashram in 1930; he was an efficient
manager who was in charge of several departments of the Ashram] brought
upstairs, with the help of some boys, a big box containing her things. As
Mother was looking at them, someone pulled out an old mirror. It was a Japanese
mirror and one corner of its frame had been eaten away.
At once I asked: “Mother, what are
you going to do with it? Is this not the same mirror that Sri Aurobindo was
using in Library House?”
Mother: “Yes, but it is in a very
bad condition. I will give it for repair.”
Champaklal: “No, Mother, I would
like to keep it as it is, without making any change. I shall only give it to
Risabhchand to treat it with solignum so that there [may] not be further decay.”
Mother placed the mirror in my hands very happily.
Champaklal: “Mother, there was also
a copy of The Mother, where Mother
had written
in Sanskrit the name Mira. Where is
that book?”
Mother found it along with other
books which had her autograph and gave all of them to me. [18]
From the aforesaid passage we come
to know how some of the possessions of Datta were passed on to Champaklal after
her demise, just as her responsibilities were taken up by Chinmayee who
succeeded her as the Mother’s attendant and continued her work for the Mother
till her own death in 1953. It is interesting to note how Datta kept certain
objects used by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo with herself whose existence was
probably not remembered by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Datta lived up to the name that Sri
Aurobindo had given to her—“One who has given herself”. She was the epitome of
devotion and dedication and her entire life was a perfect example of dedicated
service. Apparently her life was a very ordinary one with hardly any ups or
downs. But who knows about her inner life about which she never revealed
anything? But there were depths in her which was simply unfathomable. And that
is why she is still remembered even after sixty years of her physical
departure. Such was Datta—someone really very special.
References
[1] KRS Iyengar, On the
Mother, p. 182
[2] Shyam Kumari, More Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother, p. 143
[3] Nolini Kanta Gupta, Reminiscences, p. 69
[4] On the Mother, pp. 210-211
[5] Ibid., p. 211
[6] T Kodandarama Rao, At the Feet
of the Master: Reminiscences, p. 20
[7] Georges Van Vrekhem, The Mother: The Story of Her Life, p.
229
[8] Nirodbaran, Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, pp.
294-295
[9] MP Pandit, Breath of Grace (ed), p. 165
[10] The Mother: The Story of Her Life, pp. 294-295
[11] Sri Aurobindo To Dilip, Volume I, pp. 112-113
[12] Narayan Prasad, Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, p. 363
[13] Breath of Grace, p. 165
[14] Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, p. 363
[15] More Vignettes of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, pp. 143-144
[16] Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, pp. 373-374
[17] Shyam Kumari, How They Came to Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother, Vol. II, p. 52
[18] Champaklal Speaks, p. 157
In Japan: extreme left with the Mother and Paul Richard
