Sri Sarada Devi

Sarada Devi was born at Jayrambati in Bengal and, in the custom of the time, married to Ramakrishna as a child; she joined him at Dakshineswar as a young woman, where she lived an austere, retired life of service and devotion. After Ramakrishna's death in 1886 the disciples of the new Ramakrishna Order looked to her as the 'Holy Mother' (Śrī Mā), and she became a quiet but central spiritual authority, blessing the monastic and lay community and counseling devotees until her death in Calcutta in 1920. She is venerated within the tradition both as Ramakrishna's spiritual consort and as a teacher in her own right; the more elevated claims about her belong to the movement's devotional self-understanding.