Men of God

DISCOMFITURE FOR SCHOLAR

About this time an event happened which got him renown as the most prominent in all Nadea. Keshava Kashmiri, a great scholar, who had vanquished scholars of different schools of learning in Tibet, Delhi, Guzerat, Darbhanga, Kanchi, and the Telugu countries, came to Nadea and his superiority was acknowledged everywhere. Dressed like a prince, he came riding on an elephant with a large following. The grey-haired veterans of Nadea pointed out to the new-comer young Nimai Pandit whose notoriety for challenging everyone to a free debate got him the title to conduct it with Keshava Kashmiri. Courteously welcomed and questioned, the latter composed a verse on the spot which Nimai dissected and disposed of, showing rhetorical flaws in every line. The great scholar could not hold his own, and humiliated, he fled away. The scholars assembled on this occasion gave Nimai the title of Vadisimha ’Lion in Debate’.

So respectfully was he thereafter looked upon that even millionaires who passed by him got down from their palanquins and paid him their respects before resuming their journey.

Before founding his Tol, he had married Lakshmi, the beautiful daughter of Vallabhacharya of Nadea. As his earnings were considerable, he lived with his wife and mother a happy life, in moderate affluence. Like the Brahmin youths of well-off families, he ’wore the Krishnakeli cloth with fine black borders, had golden rings on his ears. His memoirs praise the beauty of his long curling hair scented with oil and washed with Amalaki. A golden locket tied to a string of the same metal hanged on his breast’ and he wore floral wreaths as was the custom of the age. This is the picture of Nimai Pandit immortalised by Nadea potters in their clay images of him. They would not recognise the monk that he afterwards became as that would imply his severance of connection with Nadea.