Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/514

 A dream. Goes to Vrindavan and settles there. 478 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. | anxieties; the hand of death took her away, only © a few months after she had become a widow and the © poor children were placed in charge of his relatives. | Krisna Das was not much cared for and he grew | up to be a lad of 16, not running wild as such — boys are likely to become, but sober and quiet— a prey to melancholia and occasional gloom caused by the bereavements he had suffered which weighed — upon his soul. A follower of the saint Nityananda — —Minaketana Ram Das by name, paid a visit to © Jhamatpur at this time. His preachings produced ~ a deep effect upon Krisna Das who now yearned for the religious life. Ram Das was however treated to ridicule by Syam Das, the younger brother of | our author who took the matter sorely to heart. Minaketan had gone away, but the disappoint- ment caused in Krisna Das’s mind by _ his brother's _ conduct, together with the impressions of a holy life left on him by the devout Vaisnava, made him” give up the idea of following any wordly pursuits. — It is said that at this time Nityananda appeared 69. him in a dream and advised him to go to the Vrinda’ groves and pass his life there. The dream became a real force with him and he could not resist the com=_ না mand. He walked about 800 miles on foot begging — alms for his subsistence and arrived at Vrindavana, — where the purity of his life and his high characte ০ even as a boy interested the six distinguished” Gosvamis, the appostles of the Vaisnava faith of that time, who volunteered to take care of the young © man’s education. The beauty of the Vrinda groves, the scenes of which are rendered ever’sacred by their association with Krisna, added to the austere lives of the apostles, ক ৮4