About Mathra Devi
Mathra Devi, in the 19-20th century. The Devi threw off her mortal frame, after 106 years, at Verinag on January 5, 1985. An embodiment of sadhana and tapasya, Mathra was in many respects the Lalla reborn.
Born in the Kashmiri Hindu family of Pandit Hari Koul at Verinag, the spot associated with Nilanag and his Nilamatapurana and mentioned as Vurnag in Rajatarangini, She was born on Shravana Shukla Ashtami, Samvat 1935, corresponding to 1878 A.D. It is said that Mathra was born near a cremation ground.
From her very childhood, Mathra, her pet family name, had a great love and earnestness for the search after truth. She grew with all love for Godly things, God’s name and spiritual intimacy. She always demonstrated an unfamiliar and surprising attitude towards her home and the world around her.
She was married to Shri Bhagwan Dass Kandroo Bhagalal of Anantnag at the age of 14-15 years, but the marriage lasted about three years only when her husband passed away in his teens.
Being young, healthy and beautiful, with all her fervour for the divine and the spiritual, Mathra returned to her parental home at Verinag. Here she practiced her spiritual sadhana and tapasya along with her younger and only brother, Pandit Gobind Koul, who was also, like his sister, mad after search for God and Truth. It was at this stage of her life that God’s grace was showered over her in the form of her spiritual Guru, Pandit Shridhar Joo Sharabi of Srinagar. The Guru guided his young disciple with all love, care and bhakti.
After some years, Mathra, with the help of her brother, Pandit Gobind Koul, who had by then become well known for his pious, religious and philanthropic life, constructed a Kutiya for her tapasya on the bank of Vitasta (Jhelum river with its source at Verinag) running close to her parental house. In the ground floor of the Kutiya, she got dug a pitch for her sadhana. It was from this pitch that Mathra emerged as Mathra Devi, after an unbroken tapasya for three years, her face blazing with divine fervour, bright lustre and spiritual insight-Lallishwari was reborn as Mathra Devi. Hundreds of people of all persuasions started thronging the Kutiya of Mathra Devi daily from the surrounding areas, even from far off Srinagar to experience peace and tranguillity, which they got in sufficient measure by their mere proximity to the Devi.
Mathra Devi, however, could not be bound down by the atmosphere created by her halo in and around Verinag. She took it as an attachment and worldly bandhan in yet another form and was on the lookout for an opportunity to get free from it. The opportunity presented itself during 1940-41 when the holy festival of Dashahar at Shadipur in the northeast of the Valley was test approaching. Starting for the yatra to Shadipur. She left her parental Verinag to which she was to return atter 27 years in 1967.
It was Verinag again which the Devi blessed for another seventeen years, till she became one with the One above on the triyodashi of Pausha Shukla Pakhsha of Samvat 2041, corresponding to January 5, 1985. In between, Mathra Devi visted her late husband’s place only once. Pandit Shamboo Nath Kandroo, the only survivor of her husband’s family, a very pious and dharmic gentleman, made her stay for 3-4 months and served her and devotees well.
Thousands of mourners, Hindus and Muslims alike joined the Devi’s arthi amidst sky rending slogans of Mathra Devi Amar Hai, Mathra Devi ki Jai. The pyre was lit by Pandit Shamboo Nath Kandroo, the only survivor on her husband’s side, as per tradition.