Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.1174

c9.1174

14) *Mother’s death.* Śaṅkara now knew that it was time for his mother’s death. According to his promise to her that he would be by her side at the time of her death Śaṅkara returned to Kālaṭi. His mother expired, and he made arrangements for cremation. But his relations did not cooperate with him and argued that it was against the injunctions in the Śāstras for a son, who had taken to sannyāsa, to perform the cremation etc. of his mother. At last, Śaṅkara had to cremate his mother by himself without others’ help. He made a pyre with plantain stems in the compound of his house, and cut his mother’s corpse into pieces, carried the pieces to the funeral pyre and thus cremated the body.