18
THE PERSEVERING STUDENT
Bopedev, author of one of the two greatest grammars of the Sanskrit language, did not display his mental capacities in the early days of his student life. On the contrary, he was so dull that he could make but little progress. Grammar was particularly his aversion. The teacher’s rebuke and rod one day drove him from the school in despair and he sought a neighbouring tank in the cool and blue waters of which he proposed to end his misery by drowning himself. But as he sat on the edge of the water for a while brooding over his purpose, his eyes fell on a large stone the centre of which was worn. into a cavity with the constant setting on the spot of earthen pitchers by the women who fetched water from the tank before they carried them away poised on their heads. Bopedev pondered over the circumstance: Here was hard stone worn in by frail earthen pots constantly pressing against it. How strange! Then the thought flashed into him like an inspiration that it should not be stranger if his intelligence, weak as it was, should penetrate his dense ignorance by
