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They were good and
pious people. Niranjan had great learning in the scriptures and
could recite the Vedas for hours on end. He served as a priest for
several of the village families, officiating in the ceremonies that
attended all the important events of life. In return for his
services, the villagers gave what they could to him according to
their means, and thus his fortune rose and fell with the fortune of
the village. He was satisfied with little, and it was well known
that he would take as much care in a simple puja for the poorest man
as in an elaborate one for the wealthiest, where all manner of
fruits and grains were offered to the Deity and later shared in by
the priest.
When Niranjan and
Prema had finished their morning worship, they went into the
courtyard behind the hut, blinking their eyes against the harsh
daylight. The sun was high now, and the sky had lost its depth of
colour, drained by the heat. Niranjan carried with him a manuscript,
which he held in both hands as tenderly as if it were a living
thing. He walked to his seat under a shade tree in a corner of the
yard. There he sat cross legged and, using a low bench for a table,
soon became absorbed in the Sanskrit verses that some scholar before
him had painstakingly copied from an ancient text.
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