Shri Sursuriji and her husband Shri Sursuranandji gave away everything they owned. Every last possession. Then, with nothing but their devotion, they walked into the forest to perform bhajana of Shri Sita-Ramaji.
One day, as they sat together in a secluded place, a band of armed men descended upon them. Seeing the exceedingly beautiful form of Shri Sursuriji, the attackers rushed forward to seize her.
The couple had no weapons. No protectors. No one within earshot. They had only one recourse. Together, husband and wife remembered Shri Sharngapani Raghuviraji.
At that very instant, Prabhu assumed the form of Nrisimha. The attackers were destroyed where they stood. Not one laid a hand on her. The pativrata of Shri Sursuriji remained unbroken.
Then Prabhu, having scattered the darkness, granted the couple His darshana in the beautiful form of Shri Rajamadhuri. Both hearts were fulfilled. And then He disappeared.
Her truthful pativrata placed her among the great mahasatis: Shri Arundhati, Anusuya, Lopamudra, Savitri. By Shri Rama's kripa, that vow was never once shaken.
The Empty Hands Invite the Fullness of Prabhu
Shri Sursuri Ji and her husband Shri Sursurananda Ji gave away everything before they entered the forest. Not most things. Everything. The home, the stores of grain, every possession built across a lifetime. The Bhaktamal calls this ati udara: exceedingly generous. Most of us renounce partially. We let go of the obvious while keeping some small comfort, some certainty about tomorrow. This couple did not keep that small thing. And when they were most vulnerable in the forest, with no worldly resource to call upon, they found that the Prabhu they had been remembering in their bhajana was sufficient. The teaching is not that we must all abandon our homes. It is that the degree to which we empty our grip on the world is the degree to which the Prabhu can fill what we are holding.
Bhaktamal of Nabhadas, Chhappay 66, with tilaka of Priyadas
True Remembrance Opens a Door
When the attackers rushed toward them in the forest, Shri Sursuri Ji and Shri Sursurananda Ji had nothing to defend themselves with. They turned inward and held the name of Shri Sharngapani Raghuviraji with complete sincerity. The Bhaktamal says Prabhu appeared in that very instant. This is the tradition's teaching on what naama-smarana, divine remembrance, actually is. It is not a technique to reduce anxiety. It is not a recitation performed with half the mind elsewhere. When it is done with the whole heart, without division, it is an act that opens a door. The Prabhu who had been present all along in their bhajana, present in their renunciation, present in every step through the forest, revealed Himself through that door. He was never absent. The remembrance simply made the presence visible.
Bhaktamal of Nabhadas, Chhappay 66, with tilaka of Priyadas
Sattva: The Quiet Force That Holds Without Breaking
Nabhadas places Shri Sursuri Ji among the great mahasatis: Arundhati, Anusuya, Lopamudra, Savitri. These are not merely examples of loyalty. They are examples of sattva, of a quality of inner wholeness so complete that it becomes a spiritual force in itself. Sattva is not built quickly. It is not manufactured in a crisis. It is what accumulates through years of consistent devotion, truthful living, and the refusal to compromise what one knows to be sacred. When the crisis came for Shri Sursuri Ji, her sattva did not waver because it was not new. It had been built through the slow work of a lifetime. What the story offers is not the dramatic rescue but the question behind it: what quality of inner steadiness are we building, day by day, in the ordinary moments before any crisis arrives?
Bhaktamal of Nabhadas, Chhappay 66
The Fierce Form and the Beautiful Form Are the Same Love
After Prabhu appeared as Nrisimha and destroyed the threat, He did not simply withdraw. He appeared again, now in the Shri Rajamadhuri rupa: the form of sovereign sweetness, full of grace and loveliness. Both devotees beheld that form and their hearts were fulfilled. This movement from the fierce to the beautiful is one of the deepest teachings in the story. The Nrisimha who tears apart what threatens the devotee and the Rama who stands in luminous grace to grant what the heart has always longed for are not two different Prabhus. They are the same love expressing itself according to what the moment requires. The Prabhu who protects and the Prabhu who fulfills come from the same source. When we understand this, we stop treating divine grace as something that appears only in beautiful circumstances and recognize it equally in the forms that clear the path.
Bhaktamal of Nabhadas, Chhappay 66, with tilaka of Priyadas
The Vana Is Not a Place But a Quality of Presence
When Shri Sursuri Ji and her husband went into the vana, the forest, they were not simply going to a geographical location. In the language of bhakti, the vana is the interior country where the distractions of the world fall away and only the essential remains. Shri Rama walked through it for fourteen years. The rishis of the Upanishads retired there. It is where bhajana becomes the whole of existence, where morning and evening are marked not by work and rest but by the rising and setting of divine remembrance. Each of us can enter this vana in our own way. It is not reserved for those who physically leave their homes. Whenever we turn the full attention toward Prabhu, sit in ekanta even for a short time, and let the noise of accumulation grow quiet, we are in the vana. Shri Sursuri Ji's story shows that this interior country is not unsafe. It is the place where Prabhu is most fully present.
Bhaktamal of Nabhadas, Chhappay 66
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.