From Shiva’s Temple gleaming white among the yellow-green of the date palms came the sound of the pooja bell—some one, a woman probably, praying for her Lord to the Lord of Killing and Cursing. Clear against the gray-blue sky stood, the cross-crowned spire of the Christian Cathedral; and almost at our doors, rang out the prayer-keeper’s call to the faithful Moslem: “There is no God so great as God.” …
“There is no God so great as—my God.” It is what we are all saying; and it makes at once the strength and the tragedy of human lives. “No God so great as my God.” What different things we mean when we say that—we of the bustling outside world.
The Hindu woman means one thing only. … “No God so great as my God.” That was the lesson each was taking from the story of Durga and Uma. Did not almost every fable and legend chant that chorus? “No God so Great.” … In punishment may be sometimes, or in penitence (see the miracle of the Destroyer himself turned monk for Durga)—but most of all in graciousness. …
“He knew Uma for her who went to
