CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 17 



who have thus made more impression upon his character 

 and outlook on life. Above all, and most characteristically, 

 it was Kama who became the boy's hero ; and this from 

 ten years old onwards, up to the formative years of puberty 

 indeed so deeply that it might still be put on his garden- 

 stage to-day and the part vividly played by him, despite 

 grey hairs and science ! Indeed it should be so ; for hear 

 him talk : ' Kama ! Kama ! the greatest of all the heroes ! 

 Eldest of the Pandavas, he should have been the king ; but 

 he was more the son of a great god. Floated away by 

 his mother, he was found and brought up by the wife of a 

 charioteer, who trained him to be the great warrior he was. 

 From his low caste came rejections, came every dis- 

 advantage ; but he always played and fought fair ! So his 

 life, though a series of disappointments and defeats to the 

 very end his slaying by Arjuna appealed to me as a 

 boy as the greatest of triumphs. I still think of the tourna- 

 ment where Arjuna had been victor, and then of Kama 

 coming as a stranger to challenge him. Questioned of 

 name and birth, he replies, " I am my own ancestor ! You 

 do not ask the mighty Ganges from which of its many 

 springs it comes : its own flow justifies itself, so shall my 

 deeds me ! " Then later, when before the great battle his 

 mother reveals to him the secret of his birth, and tells him 

 that if he will refrain from this contest with her sons whom 

 he now for the first time knows to be his younger brothers 

 she will answer for it that he shall be their chief, and reign 

 .as Emperor; he says "No! Those who brought me up 

 are my true mother and father, poor though they be ; and 

 it is Duryadhana, King of the Kauravas, who has been my 

 chief through life. I cannot change sides now. But this 

 I promise you : on your other sons, my brothers, I will not 

 lay a hand, save only on Arjuna ; but him I must fight to 

 the end. ! " And then their battle ! At Arjuna he aims 

 his arrow, and would have slain him ; but a defending god 

 shakes the earth under his feet as he lets the arrow fly, and 

 so it misses his enemy by a hairbreadth. Now the arrow 



