Page:Ramakrishna - His Life and Sayings.djvu/38

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THE LIFE AND SAYINGS OF RÂMAKRISHNA.

I thought that this glimpse at what passes in India within doors, and is but seldom seen or even suspected by those who tell us so much about the palaces, the Rijahs and Mah&rdjahs, the car of Juggern&h, the Towers of Silence, or the Caves of Ellora, was worth preserving and might interest the true friends of India.

We have but to open the Indian papers to meet with notices of men who have led the same saintly and God- devoted life as Debendrandth Tagore, but who nevertheless have not reached the rank of a Paramahawsa in the eyes of the people of India. It is quite possible that some of them who are venerated as Saints in their own country, would be disposed of as fools or fanatics by European critics. Still they hold their own place in their own country, and they represent a power which ought not to be entirely neglected by the rulers of ' weak, indigent, helpless 'Bengal'

Bai ShaligrAm Saheb Bahadur. One more case and I have done with my imperfect sketch of the stage on which Eimaksha appears before us to act his part, together with his fellow-actors who sup- ported and often guided him in his unselfish and devoted endeavours. We read in the Piabuddha BMiata, May, 1898, p. 132 seq., of one Rai ShaligrSm Saheb Bahadur. Saheb Bahadur, who is now about seventy years of age, has spent a very active and useful life as an official in the Post Office, where he rose to be Postmaster-General of the North-Western Provinces. It seems that the horrors of the mutiny in 1857 made a deep impression on his mind.