Mother (August 1974)

In our culture the mother occupies a unique position. She is perhaps second only to the father. In the ancient days when a student was educated, he was first taught;" Pitru Devo Bhava " and next to that he was taught " Matru Devo Bhava ". Our whole social system is paternal and not maternal. Except for the recent amendment of the Hindu Law, the ancestral property was legally inherited only by the sons and the daughters had no claim whatever in the ancestral property. It was perhaps because of this, that the mother was given a place next to the father. Anyway both the father and the mother are revered so much that a student has to honour them as good as God.

The idealism of our society has held the mother in so high an esteem that when the grades of the different deities are considered the highest place is also given to the mother. " Naa Matru Par Devatru" is the saying which says that we may have regard and honour for different Gods and deities, but if they are to be graded, then the highest position among them should be given to the mother; because there is no other deity higher than the mother, which means that the mother's place is the highest.

The place where we are born is know as our motherland. In the modern days every political leader is preaching for first considering the well-being of his country or motherland. Whenever wars are fought, the appeal is always for laying down the life for the protection of the motherland and for righting the aggression on the motherland; but another saying says that the mother stands on equal footing with the motherland and both of them are superior to heaven is that saying.

From good old days the aim of all human life, as per the ethics of all the religions, has been the redemption from the human life or the achievement of heaven. The human beings are trying for various achievements in their life. Some are trying to obtain tons of money, others are trying for acquiring huge landed property, some others are trying to acquire a high position in the political field; but those who have a philosophical bent of mind do not value any of these worldly things. For them these worldly things are perishable or temporary and hence they attach absolutely no value to all these things. They feel that man must acquire something higher than this and that thing is heaven; but the saying quoted above says that the mother and the motherland are even better than the heaven. Their value is more than the heaven. The value of the mother in the opinion of a few is therefore so high that it is even higher than the heaven.

Language is a very important vehicle of human thought. From the childhood to death the language serves the human beings very faithfully. This language, which a child usually learns in his infancy, is known as the "Mother tongue". Why is this so? A child is born of the mother. For a first few months or years the child if brought up only on the mother's milk. The child is naturally, for most of the time, in the company of the mother and the first articulations that the child listens are in the language of the mother.

The child therefore naturally tries to speak the same language that it listens. It is because of this fact that the language of a person is known as the "mother tongue". Though in the paternal system, the child is known as the son of a certain father, still so far as his language is concerned, it is not called "father tongue", but it is called the "mother tongue". It will thus be seen that the importance of the mother has been recognised in this case also.

The unlimited power that the mother wields has been very well described in the saying, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world". We think that bringing up a child is an insignificant achievement; but it is not so. The hand that rocks the cradle, that means, who brings up the child, has got so much power that it rules the world. In other words the training given by the mother to the child is so important that it determines the whole shape of the child. If the mother brings up the child in the proper way, the child will shape well and develop into a great personality and when this is not done, the child will prove to be a failure. The example of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, which is sited very often, can prove this importance of the mother in shaping her child. Jijabai, the mother of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an accomplished lady and she brought up Shivaji Maharaj, both physically and mentally by encouraging him to take physical exercises and by speaking to him constantly and advising him on various topics. Many people, who have become great in their later life, have always acknowledged this debt of their mothers in shaping them in such a manner that they have developed into great personalities.

It will thus be seen that a mother has a very important place in the composition of a family. Now-a-days the lady folks are having a service mania and majority of them are taking jobs somewhere or the other. Under these circumstances they have got to neglect, on several occasions, their duty as a mother towards their children. This has led the children at large to have op ardent love for their mothers, which they would otherwise have got; but taking it for granted that the ladies are serving in order to face the present financial crisis, we as the heads of the families have got our duty towards them. For this purpose the elders must always try to impress upon the youngsters the duties and the achievements of the mother and thus try to reestablish in the minds of the younger generation the respect and honour towards the mother which is waning fast.

If that is done, then the mother will get her proper place and reverence in the set up of the family, which is the crux of the social structure in our country.