Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

O Daughter of the Mountain, I fancy that the ocean of
the milk of poesy rising out of Thy heart verily caused the
milk of Thy breasts to flow. On swallowing this milk given by
Thy grace, the Dravidian child became a poet among great
poets.

The Telugu commentary stated that the word ‘dravida
sisuhu’ in the sloka meant Sankara himself. On the next day
I mentioned this to Bhagavan. Bhagavan replied, “The
Telugu commentators must have stated it wrongly. The
Tamil Soundarya Lahari stated that the words ‘dravida sisuhu’
meant Sambandha and not Sankara”; and he sent for the
Tamil book and read out all that was written in it about the
reason for Sambandha receiving the title of ‘dravida sisuhu’,
and explained it to us as follows:
“Sambandha was born in an orthodox brahmin family
in the town of Sirkali, to Sivapada Hridayar and his wife
Bhagawatiyar. The parents named him Aludaya Pillayar. One
day, when the boy was three years old, the father took him
to Thiruttoni Appar Koil. While immersed in the tank for a
bath, he began repeating the aghamarshana mantram. When
the child could not see the father in the tank, it looked around
with fear and grief. There was no trace of the father. It could
not contain its grief and so wept aloud looking at the temple
chariot saying, ‘Father! Mother!’ Parvati and Lord Siva
appeared in the sky, seated on the sacred Bull and gave
darshan to that little child. Siva directed Parvati to give the
boy a golden cupful of her breast milk, the milk containing
Siva Jnana (Knowledge of Siva). She did accordingly. The
boy drank the milk and became free from sorrow, and the
divine couple disappeared.

“Having drunk the milk of jnana, and feeling quite
satisfied and happy, Sambandha sat on the tank bund with
milk dribbling from the corners of his mouth. When the
father came out from his bath, he saw the boy’s condition
and angrily asked, flourishing a cane, ‘Who gave you milk?
Can you drink milk given by strangers? Tell me who that
person is or I will beat you.’ Sambandha immediately
replied by singing ten Tamil verses beginning with,
‘úRôÓûPV ùN®Vu ®ûPúV± Ko çùYi U§ã¥. . .’
The gist of the first verse is: ‘The Man with kundalas (sacred
ear-rings), the Man who rides the sacred Bull, the Man
who has the white moon on His head, the Man whose
body is smeared with the ashes of the burning ghat, the
thief who has stolen my heart, He who came to bless
Brahma, the Creator, when Brahma, with the Vedas in his
hand did penance, and He who occupies the sacred seat
of Brahmapuri, He, my Father, is there, and She, my
Mother who gave the milk, is there!” So saying he described
the forms of Siva and Parvati as he witnessed with his eyes
and who gave him milk to drink, and also pointed towards
the temple chariot.

“It was clear from the verses, that the people who gave
milk to the child were no other than Parvati and Lord Siva.

People gathered round. From that day onwards, the boy’s
poetic flow began to run unimpeded. That is why Sankara
sang, Thava Stanyam Manye. The commentators therefore
decided that the word ‘dravida sisuhu’ referred to Sambandha
alone. Nayana also wrote of him as ‘dravida sisuhu’ in Sri
Ramana Gita.”