Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/133

Rh thousands of his worshippers assert, on their solemn oaths, that Jivánlálji Máháráj existed ages before he was born, and that ages before that event did he carry on that amorous traffic with his fair devotees which is essential,in the Vaishnava creed, to the salvation and beatification of the degraded female soul. Thus Jivánlálji was a philanthropist before he was born; but those "deeds of merit" could not be visible to mortal eye. His life "here below" and its many exciting incidents are better known. At ten years of age he could tell a maiden from a matron; at that tender age could this incarnation of the divine Krishna Chand warm the iciest of fair worshippers; he could toy with their toes in amorous wantonness; he could ogle the most virtuous prude into a smile of ineffable happiness. The wondrous boy! What could he not do?

At twenty, Jivanlálji was an old man, and took to studying Sanskrit and patronising female education among his people. This was a great triumph for the "reform party," who shed tears of joy and wrote odes belauding the Máhárájá's liberality of sentiment, and voted him a handsome memorial. This, by the way, irresistibly reminds one of the old rhyme, recounting how,