Mother Arca Vigraha

Giriraj Swami: Mother Kalamini Mataji says that she read in a book that I assisted a disciple of mine named Arca Vigraha devi dasi leave her body. Actually for a devotee there is no death. Death is for people who identify with the body, but for devotees there is no death. The devotee just leaves one position of service and enters another position of service. This is actually quite a deep topic. The answer could take some time.

Arca Vigraha was a very special devotee. She had been a famous artist in South Africa. She was a European lady and she met the devotees quite late in life compared to others. She was probably about fifty, but she had been a spiritual seeker. Anyway, she would travel to different parts of the world to get themes for her paintings. She lived for some time with Bedouins in North Africa and different places.

After she met the devotees she had the idea to go to India and to get themes for her artwork there. While in India she came to Vrindavan and there she had the idea to buy some land. That was a time when no devotees from ISKCON had bought land, but she bought some land, and she built a house that would serve as an art studio. So she thought she would spend some time in Vrindavan and some time in Johannesburg, but maybe a year or two later she was diagnosed with cancer. I just felt that Srimati Radharani was accelerating the course of her spiritual advancement and I told her that now she should make her base in Vrindavan and prepare herself to go back to Godhead.

It just so happens that His Holiness Sivarama Swami bought the next plot of land on behalf of the British yatra. He built a house there. Sometimes he would visit, but most of the time His Holiness Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami stayed there. Somehow Mother Arca Vigraha became very . . . She was just a very special person and so many senior devotees in Vrindavan would come regularly to visit her and read to her. Govinda Maharaja would come every morning and he would bring his Deities, Gaura-Nitai Deities, and govardhana-śilā. Indradyumna Swami had a nice antique, old Radha-Krishna Deities that he had brought to her to paint. So she painted Them, but then she wanted Them to be with her. So he gave Them to her at least for her illness. Bhurijana Prabhu would come every evening at four o’clock and speak with her and read to her. So, so many senior devotees would come and read to her.

But still she was trying to get cured, but at a certain stage she just realized—maybe the doctors even told her—that she wasn’t going to be able to beat this illness. And then her mood changed. Then she accepted the fact that she was leaving. She gave up the effort to cure the cancer and she just absorbed herself in hearing and chanting about Krishna.

She loved Vrindavan. She had a desire that other devotees should also have the same opportunity that she had to spend their last years or months or weeks in Vrindavan and leave their bodies in Vrindavan in Krishna consciousness. At that time the medical facilities in Vrindavan and Mathura were very poor. I think they are a little better now, but they were really poor then. It was terrible. Once she needed an IV. They somehow managed to bring some nurse from somewhere and she didn’t even know how to put in the IV properly. It was really a very bad situation as far as medical care.

So she had the desire that devotees should have the chance to come to Vrindavan and leave their bodies there in Krishna consciousness and at the same time have medical care because even though one’s illness is terminal, still there are issues. First of all someone can get other diseases which can be treated. She also happened to get jaundice which could be treated even though the cancer was beyond being treated. Then there is also the question of managing the pain because we don’t want the patient to suffer and at the same time if there is too much pain it will be hard for the person to focus on Krishna. But then again if the person is too heavily sedated then too will it be hard to focus on Krishna. So it is always a very delicate balance to keep the pain within a certain limit, but at the same time not dull the person’s consciousness too much.

From her desire came the idea to build a hospice for devotees in Vrindavan and now the construction is going on. It is nearing completion. There are some doctors and nurses there. We are already treating devotees and local people even without the physical facility. They have erected a place where they have some beds and take care of people.

It was like that at the last day. I was sitting by her bedside chanting japa and there were some other devotees. She left as she wanted. It was in the morning and Daivi-sakti Mataji came and there was a procedure with the body at the floor. They dressed the body in white. Of course she was wearing white anyway, but they dressed her in fresh white cloth. Then we took her in procession in front of the Deities and then to the Yamuna for the cremation. By then it was summer so some of the devotees had left, but Govinda Maharaja had stayed and Bhurijana Prabhu had stayed, I had stayed. So we went with the body in procession with hari-nāma. Dina Bandhu Prabhu was there. We did the last rites. Then we took bath in the Yamuna and then we returned.

She did some very special services as an artist. It was a very strict rule that no women should go on the altar at this stage I can say. So the pujaris, they really wanted her to paint the Deities. So they would sneak her into the Deity room at night and she painted the Deities very beautifully.

Then too there was a devotee, he was a grand disciple of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, but although he was coming in the line of Sarasvati Thakura, he was living at Radha-kunda. But he had some of that spirit of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and he was very good friends with some of the ISKCON devotees especially Bhurijana Prabhu. I was spending time in Vrindavan then and I also got to know him.

So he wanted to renovate some of the holy places at Radha-kunda. He began with Srila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami’s bhajana-kutira where he wrote Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta and he asked Mother Arca Vigraha to paint a picture of Srila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami to be worshiped in the bhajana-kutira. So that was another secret mission because most of the babajis at Radha-kunda are very particular and they don’t accept foreigners—of course now things have changed a bit—and officially they don’t accept service from women. And she was both. So that was another secret mission. She did the painting and then when the day came, very auspicious day, disappearance day of Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami, Raghunatha Bhatta Gosvami, and Raghunatha dasa Gosvami, the renovated bhajana-kutira opened. The painting was there. No one knew who did it.

So I went, Bhurijana Prabhu and I went separately, she went separately with her assistant Kunti. Then this devotee, Akincana, next he took up Jiva Gosvami’s bhajana-kutira and he had her paint the picture of Jiva Gosvami to go in his bhajana-kutira at Radha-kunda. Somehow the head babaji from Radha-kunda somehow he found out that she had done the painting and in his talk he surprised everyone. In his talk he said, “We are very obliged (I don’t know if he knew her name), but one European lady has painted the portrait of Srila Jiva Gosvami. She has come from so far, all the way from South Africa, and painted this beautiful portrait.”

The last little note, she had painted the deities of Vṛndādevī at Vṛndā-kuṇḍa. That was an ancient, very holy place which was given to ISKCON devotees to manage. Maybe three days after she left or somewhere within that period of twelve days so we went to Vṛndā-kuṇḍa. The pujari there, a very special person, he was remembering Arca Vigraha, how she had painted the deities and he said something like, “Now she has gone to Vṛndādevī in the spiritual world to continue her service to Vṛndādevī there.”

So it is a very sacred service to help a devotee leave the present body and move onto the next situation of service.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Hare Krishna.