Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/173

132 proposal, and the money was funded accordingly. Vidyasagar was thus the means of awarding four prizes to four pundits of his country, thereby encouraging the culture of Sanskrit composition.

These prizes were called Cost-prizes, after the name of the donor. What disinterested self-sacrifice! Vidyasagar was never known to have any greed of gain. On the contrary, it is well known that in many cases, when he had good opportunities of getting money, Vidyasagar, poor as he was, instead of receiving the money himself, gladly provided for the award of that money, however large the amount might be, to some other person or persons. He had such greatness of heart. It was for this, that respectable Europeans cherished a great esteem for Vidyasagar.

We will notice here briefly, in passing, another instance of his self-sacrifice, in connection with one of the Cost-prizes.

Vidyasagar was appointed examiner of the Cost-prize essays. At the second year's examination for this prize, the essays of one Srischandra Vidyaratna and Dinabandhu Nyayratna, Vidyasagar's younger brother, were superior to the others. The style and diction of both the essays were beautiful. In Srischandra's essay there were a few grammatical mistakes, but in that of Dinabandhu there was none. But Dinabandhu had a great misfortunate in that his elder brother, Vidyasagar, was charged with the examination of