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their greatest aim was to get me initiated into its religious
mysteries; and thus I was early taught to worship the un-
couth piece of clay representing Shiva's emblem, known as the
Parthiwa Lingam. But as there is a good deal of fasting and
various hardships connected with this worship, and I had the
habit of taking early meals, my mother, fearing for my health,
opposed my daily practicing of it. But my father sternly
insisted upon its necessity, and this question finally became a
source of everlasting quarrels between them. Meanwhile, I
studied the Sanskrit grammar, learned the Vedas by heart and
accompanied my father to the shrines, temples, and places of
Shiva worship. His eonversation ran invariably upon one
topic; the highest devotion and reverence must be paid to
Shiva, his worship being the most divine of all religions. I
went on thus till I had reached my fourteenth year, when
having learned by heart the whole of the Yajur Veda San-
lanai parts of other Vedas, of the Shabda Rupavali and the
grammar, my studies were completed.
Vigil
As my father's was a banking house and he held more-
over the office-hereditary in my family— of a Jamadar, 3 we
were far from being poor, and things, so far, had gone very
pleasantly. Wherever there was a Shiva puran to be read
and explained, there my father was sure to take me along
with him; and finally, unmindful of my mother's remons-
trances, he imperatively demanded that I should begin practi-
cing Parthiwa Puja. When the great day of gloom and
fasting—called Shivaratree—had arrived, this day following
on the 13th of Vadi of Magh. 3 My father regardless of the
1. The office of Jamadar” answers to that of a town Reve-
nue Collector, combining that of a Magistrate at the same-
time.
2. Parthiwa Puja is the ceremony connected with the wor-
ship of a lingam of clay—the emblem of Shiva.
3. The eleventh month of the Hindi year.