Page:Durgesa Nandini.djvu/52

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DURGESA NANDINI.
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"My child," said the teacher, "you have acquired such uncommon learning, that some novel title must be conferred upon you. Accept then the title of Vidyadiggaja."

Diggaja humbly bowed at his feet in perfect self-complacency, and went home.

"I have now mastered grammar," thought he. "Now I must study Law a little. I have heard that Abhiram Swami is a great scholar. Who is there under the sun save him to teach me? To him then I will go."

With this determination, he became an inmate of the castle. Abhiram Swami taught a good many pupils, and was not the man to set his face against any one;—so that whether Diggaja learned any thing or not, he did not deny him his teaching.

The holy Gajapati was not only a grammarian and a lawyer, but he had a touch also of the rhetorician and the wit; for instance, 'the pail of clarified butter.' His shafts were mainly directed against Ashmani; and there was a profound reason for this. "The advent of such a one as I," thought he "is solely for dalliance. This is my fair Vrindaban; Ashmani is my Radhika."[1] Ashmani was also a votary of Mirth; and her Madan-Mohan[2] served but as a substitute for a baboon. Bimala, also upon the scent, occasionally came to make the baboon dance? "Lo! this

  1. Krishna, one of the ten Incarnations of Vishnu—the Preserver of the universe, is, practically, the Cupid of the Hindus. His flirtations with the milk-maids of Vrindaban have been immortalized by the Sanskrit Muse; and the story of them is literally a 'house-hold word' in men's mouths. His principal lady-love was Radhika, the daughter of Vrikabhanu. From a spiritual point of view, Krishna may be considered as the Spirit of love, and Radhika, the impersonation of all loveliness and grace.
  2. One of the thousand and one designations of Krishna;—literally, it means, he whose beauty fascinates Madan, the Hindu Cupid.