of twenty three years of age with Sarada of five was part of a divine dispensation, and took place in a way that can only be described as Providential. When Gadadhar, as Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master used to be known in those days, was passing through the early phase of his spiritual adventure, his near and dear ones thought that marriage would have a resettling and stabilising effect on his mind, which had lost all interest in worldly affairs. But their search for a suitable bride met with failure every time they started on it, until Gadadhar himself came to their rescue. The relatives had kept their plans unknown to Gadadhar, as they feared a vehement protest from him; but upsetting all their worldly-wise calculations, Gadadhar himself came to the rescue of his disconcerted relatives. In an ecstatic mood, he declared: "Why are you searching for a bride here and there? She who is ' marked ' for me is awaiting at the house of Ramachandra Mukherjee at Jayrambati." And that 'marked one' they found, was none other than Sarada Devi, the five year old daughter of Ramachandra Mukherjee and Shyamasundari Devi of Jayrambati.
There is a tradition of an incident of an earlier day indicative of the divinely ordained nature of this alliance. It was the occasion of a temple festival in the neighborhood where quite a number of families from Kamarpukur and Jayrambati had gathered. Among them were young Gadadhar and infant Sarada. Some women folk on such occasions indulge in the pastime of pre-planning possible marriage alliances for the future. It seems when infant Sarada was asked whom she would marry, she pointed to the boy Gadadhar.
After the marriage, Sarada had occasion, when she was seven and again at thirteen and fourteen, to meet Gadadhar and be with him for a few days each time. Though on these occasions she had the happy experience of serving him, a really meaningful meeting between them took place only later, when she went to Dakshineswar to meet him under strange circumstances. Hearing the rampant rumour that the village gossips bandied about regarding Sri Ramakrishna's mental condition, young Sarada, now eighteen, felt much upset, and a sense of her duty to be by her husband's side to serve him in his ailment began to dominate her mind. So under the guise of a pilgrimage to the holy Ganga, she went with her father to Dakshineswar Temple at Calcutta, where the Master was then staying. Trudging most of the sixty miles to Calcutta, she