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upon a time, in those bright ages when India was young, there lived a great king, Bharata, and so famous was he that even now the people speak of their country amongst themselves as Bharat Varsha, or Bharata's Land; and it is only foreigners who talk of it as "India."

In the days of this ruler, it was considered the right thing for every man, when he had finished educating his family—when his daughters were all married, his business affairs in order, and his sons well-established in life—to say farewell to the world and retire to the forest, there to give the remainder of his life to prayer and the thought of God. This was considered to be the duty of all, whatever their station in life, priest and merchant, king and labourer, all alike.

And so in the course of events the great King Bharata, type of the true Hindu sovereign, gave up his wealth and power and withdrew. His family and people woke up one morning, and he was gone. That was all. But every one understood that it meant that he had passed out of the city during the night in the garb of a beggar, and