Page:Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets.djvu/70

of age; he had a numerous progeny, for whose support he was necessitated even to beg alms. While in this condition, it is said, that a stranger who was a prophet, and who had come to worship the God Verapaksheswer, one day visited him, and taught him certain formula of prayers through which, wealth and honors could be attained. Madhavabhatt being duly initiated' devoted his whole attention for a considerable time to the abstracted devotion of the image of a goddess, and it is said, that the divinity being gratified with his prayers, became manifest in a human form, resembling his wife, and conferred on him the gift of wisdom, and pre-eminent knowledge, and changed his name to Vidyaranya, which being interpreted means a forest of knowledge. This poet wrote a very elaborate and luminous commentary on the Vedes, and entitled it Vedabhashaya. He assumed the habit of a Sanyasi and renounced all secular concerns, and his time was entirely taken up by intense devotion. It is said, that he had another interview with the Goddess, who revealed various events, and discovered to him some hidden