ABSTRACT
In the year 1880 a.d. a boy was studying in the Matriculation Class of the School attached to the Queen’s College of Benares. From time immemorial Benares has been and continues to be the greatest publicly known centre of Saṁskrt learning and the religious capital of India. In that same year, 1880, when the boy was in his twelfth year, he witnessed his dearly loved and loving grandmother pass away. He followed her bier to the funeral pile, wondering deeply what it all meant. Then came into his hands casually papers which spoke of holy men, Rishis, Yogis, possessed of sacred, mystical and philosophical knowledge, as if they were still to be found. He also happened to have some conversations with benevolent Saññyāsins and spiritual-minded persons. In earliest childhood he had greedily absorbed story portions of the puràxnas, the Rāmāyana, and the Mahābhārata, sitting beside his grandmother, when the Pandit recited and expounded them in the afternoons; the philosophy with which they were saturated passed over his mind, leaving behind only sub-conscious traces, if any. But now some sleeping germinal tendencies (samskāras) awoke, though the boy of twelve understood but little of the things that he read and heard.
