thither. Come away then, and let us find sister Sumedha. She is a keeper of the Word, a treasure-house of the doctrine. Her discourse may well lend a double glory to this Sinsapa grove." And thereafter we would spend the greater part of such a night in thoughtful converse.
This life in the open air, this constant spiritual activity, and the lively interchange of thought, as a result of which no time was left for sad brooding over personal sorrows or for idle reveries, and finally the elevating and purifying of my whole nature by the power of the truth—all this strengthened both body and mind marvellously. A new and nobler life opened out before, and I enjoyed a calm and cheerful happiness of which a few weeks earlier I could not even have dreamt.
When the rainy season came, the building already stood prepared for the sisters, with a roomy hall for common use, and a separate cell for each one. My husband and several other rich citizens who had relatives among the nuns insisted upon fitting out these abodes of ours with mats and carpets, seats and couches, so that we were richly provided with everything needed to make life reasonably comfortable, and all the more willingly dispensed with its luxury. So this period of enforced seclusion passed quite tolerably in the regular alternation of conversation on religious questions with independent thought and contemplation. Towards evening, however, we betook ourselves, when the weather permitted, to the common hall of the monks to listen to the Master, or else he or one of his great disciples came over to us.
But when the forest, so dear to the heart of the Master, in all its freshness of renewed youth, in its hundredfold richness of leaf and splendour of flower, again invited us to transfer the calm of our solitary contemplation and our
