BELIEVE IT OR NOTRAINFALL OF GOLD
Amla and Adi Guru Shankaracharya
The great sannyasin Adi Guru Shankaracharya left his home at the tender age of eight and began his parivrajaka (wandering life) throughout India. One day, when he went seeking bhiksha (alms) he came to the house of a very poor woman. She had nothing in the house with which to feed him, but as it is most inauspicious to turn a sannyasin away from the door without offering anything to eat, she searched until she found the only edible thing she had in the house – a single Amla fruit. When she offered it to Shankaracharya, his gentle young heart was so moved by her poverty and her action that he invoked Goddess Lakshmi in the form of the Kanakadhara Stotram, which literally means ‘the flow of gold’. Kanaka means ‘gold’ and dhara means ‘flow’. Verse 16 of this hymn is: “O Mother, who bestows prosperity and provides ananda (joy) to all the senses. O, Lotus-eyed one, who opens the door into every domain, by prostrating to you, all sins are destroyed. Bless me always with everything that is auspicious.” On completion of this stotram, Lakshmi was so pleased that she blessed and enriched the house by sending down a shower of golden Amlas.
The great sannyasin Adi Guru Shankaracharya left his home at the tender age of eight and began his parivrajaka (wandering life) throughout India. One day, when he went seeking bhiksha (alms) he came to the house of a very poor woman. She had nothing in the house with which to feed him, but as it is most inauspicious to turn a sannyasin away from the door without offering anything to eat, she searched until she found the only edible thing she had in the house – a single Amla fruit. When she offered it to Shankaracharya, his gentle young heart was so moved by her poverty and her action that he invoked Goddess Lakshmi in the form of the Kanakadhara Stotram, which literally means ‘the flow of gold’. Kanaka means ‘gold’ and dhara means ‘flow’. Verse 16 of this hymn is: “O Mother, who bestows prosperity and provides ananda (joy) to all the senses. O, Lotus-eyed one, who opens the door into every domain, by prostrating to you, all sins are destroyed. Bless me always with everything that is auspicious.” On completion of this stotram, Lakshmi was so pleased that she blessed and enriched the house by sending down a shower of golden Amlas.
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