belonging to the family of Bhava Mukherji used to come to the temple-garden to bathe in the Ganges. Now and then she would spend a long time with me. She used to give me lessons and afterwards examine me. And in return, I would give her a large quantity of greens, vegetables and other articles of food that were sent to me from the temple-gardens.'
Though she could read quite well, she never mastered the art of writing. In later days a disciple wanted to have an autograph from her, and she agreed in a way. But the effort to write her own name was in vain, she scrawled and scrawled, and being unable to produce anything readable, gave up the attempt..
This does not mean that the rural surroundings of her early days did not provide her with any facilities for education. In India, culture has never been identified with literacy. The Indian mind has devised methods of its own for the training of the head and the heart and for an unconscious assimilation of the nations's highest ideals, without unduly emphasizing the pedagogue's art. The religious life of the family, the atmosphere of self-abnegation and service in which girls grow up, the temple festivals, the recitals of epics, village dramas, devotional narratives, - these and several other factors of like nature provide even women who live a comparatively isolated life with facilities for developing a unified character undistracted by the conflicting thoughts and ideals that flow into the minds of the literate that commercial publishing houses produce.
The Holy Mother had plenty of opportunity to receive the training that such an environment