Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/195

Rh with pilgrims bound to Kumâri, and there gave birth to a child, near a shepherd’s village, and abandoned it. This boy is that child. Touch him not: he is a bastard.”

I shall tell you the origin of the Brabmins,” replied the boy with a scornful laugh. “Were not two of your first patriarchs the Sons of Brahma, by a celestial courtezan? Is this not true? How can you then speak ill of Sâli?”

“Astounded at these words, his foster father declined to receive the youth into his house and the Brahmins set up a hue and cry after him as the thief who had stolen the cow. The youth therefore left the Brahmin village and came to the great city of Dakshina Mathura, where he begged food from door to door, and out of the food so collected he fed the blind and the lame, the old and the infirm, and himself ate the remainder. At night, he took his bed in the hall outside the temple of Chintadevi, with his alms-bowl for his pillow; a beggar in all else, but rich in his boundless love for all living creatures.

“On a dark and rainy night, when he lay fast asleep in the temple of Chinta-devi a few beggars who were weary with travelling arrived there, and being very hungry awoke him and asked for food. The poor youth having no food to give was greatly distressed. The goddess Chinta-devi then appeared to him and handed to him a cup saying, “Grieve not, but take this cup. You will never find it empty though the whole land may be famine-strirken.” The youth praised the goddess and receiving the cup fed the travellers out of it. The wonderful cup was never empty although he fed myriads of poor people who flocked to him, owing to the famine then prevailing in the Pandyan kingdom. Favourable seasons soon followed, and Aputra found that no one came to him for charity. He left Madura and travelled to other towns in search of poor and starving people. He heard from merchants who arrived by sea that there bad been no rain in Chavakam, and that the inhabitants of that country were dying from want of food. Hence he resolved to visit Chavakam and relieve the distress of the people of that land, and went on board a ship bound to Chavakam. As a storm came on during the voyage the ship anchored at Manipallavam, and