Page:Life and Teachings of Sri Ramanujacharya.djvu/27

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Many a long year afterwards, Sri Sathakôpa was born, and when he was sixteen years of age, Mathura Kavi was on a pilgrimage to the Shrines of Hindustan and was even then at Ayôdhyâ. One night, he saw, proceeding as it were from the south, what appeared to him an immense blaze of light, calm and steady. He very naturally concluded that it might have been from a conflagration in some village near or in the woods. But the same light presented itself to his eyes the second and the third night too. His curiosity was awakened, and he set about to fathom the mystery. So he travelled south, sleeping through the day, and walking all night, guided by the pillar of Light, but failed to locate it in every holy spot he passed through. He reached Srirangam, hoping to find there the solution of the mystery, but still the light shone farther south. On, on he travelled, until he came to Kurukoor (Kuruhoor) or Srî Nagari. There it was, but when he went further south, he saw it to the north. He came back to the place and easily traced it to the Sacred Tamarind.

There he found a young lad (youth) sitting in Padmasana, in deep contemplation, his eyes closed and his body erect and motionless. The blaze of light proceeded from his head and heart, radiated from him on all sides, and extended far, far as the eye could reach, and was lost in space illimitable. He stood speechless before him, wrapt in wonder and admiration. A curious fancy took possession of him—almost a fantastic one. “Is this strange being mortal? One of us? Has it a consciousness like any other? Is he pervious to external sensation?” On the spur of the impulse, and entirely forgetting that he was committing a sacrilege by his act, he let fall a slab of stone