Page:Ramakrishna - His Life and Sayings.djvu/52

34 the Puras, the MahdbhSrata, the Rdmdya^a, -and the BMgavata must have been in Bengali, as he never, ac- cording to Mozoomdar, who was his friend, knew a word of Sanskrit.)

The pilgrim road to Purt passes through the outskirts of dbe village where he lived, and very often a whole host of ascetics and religious men would come and take shelter in the DharmasSli or pilgrim-house, built by the L&M family, the Zemindar of the village. Rdmakr/sh^a used to go there very often, talk to them on religious subjects, mark their habits, and hear their tales of travel.

It is the custom in India to gather all the learned pandits or professors of the neighbourhood at a funeral ceremony. In one of these gatherings in the house of the Lh& family, a question arose about some intricate points of theology, and the professors could not come to a conclusion. The boy Rmakr*shtfa went to them and decided it quickly with his simple language, and all present were astonished. (This might be taken from any Evangelium infantiae^)

Before he reached his teens, he was walking in the fields one day. The sky was very clear and blue, and he saw a flight of white cranes moving along it The contrast of colours was so very beautiful and dazzling to his imagination, and produced such thoughts in him, that he fell down in a trance. (This would admit of a very natural pathological explanation, and may therefore be perfectly true, though it would easily lend itself to further poetical expansion.)

He was the youngest child of a family of three sons and two daughters. His eldest brother, R&nkum&r Chattopd-