Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/88

4 o AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF, CHAP. She was then drawing her last breaths. They had carried her into the water of the Ganges, and were fervently crying aloud, "Ganga Narayan Brahma." Didima breathed her last. I drew near and saw that her hand was placed on her breast, with the fourth finger pointing upwards. Turning her finger round and round, and crying "Haribol," 2 she passed into the next world. When I saw this it seemed to me that at the time of death she pointed out to me with up lifted finger, "That is God, and the Hereafter." As Didima had been my friend in this life, so was she the guide to the next.

Her Shraddha ceremony 3 was celebrated with great pomp. Anointing ourselves with oil and turmeric, we went and planted the vrisha kashtha 4 of the Shraddha on the banks of the Ganges. These few days passed in a whirl of excitement and confusion. Then I tried to recover the joy of the night previous to Didima s death. But I never got it back. At this time the state of my mind was one of continued despondency and indifference to the world. On that night the indifference had been coupled with delight. Now, in the absence of that delight, a deep gloom settled on my mind. I longed for a repetition of that ecstatic feeling. I lost all interest in every thing else.

There is a story in the Bhagavata, which might

1 An invocation of the Deity. 2 Take all the name of Hiri !

3 Funeral. 4 A sacrificial post with a figure of a bull at the top.