In his spare time he would endow scholarships for the study of medicine and manufactures on strictly English lines , and write letters to the `` Pioneer '' , the greatest Indian daily paper , explaining his master 's aims and objects . At last he went to England on a visit , and had to pay enormous sums to the priests when he came back ; for even so high-caste a Brahmin as Purun Dass lost caste by crossing the black sea . In London he met and talked with every one worth knowing -- men whose names go all over the world -- and saw a great deal more than he said . He was given honorary degrees by learned universities , and he made speeches and talked of Hindu social reform to English ladies in evening dress , till all London cried , `` This is the most fascinating man we have ever met at dinner since cloths were first laid . '' When he returned to India there was a blaze of glory , for the Viceroy himself made a special visit to confer upon the Maharajah the Grand Cross of the Star of India -- all diamonds and ribbons and enamel ; and at the same ceremony , while the cannon boomed , Purun Dass was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire ; so that his name stood Sir Purun Dass , K.C.I.E. . That evening , at dinner in the big Viceregal tent , he stood up with the badge and the collar of the Order on his breast , and replying to the toast of his master 's health , made a speech few Englishmen could have bettered . Next month , when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet , he did a thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing ; for , so far as the world 's affairs went , he died . The jewelled order of his knighthood went back to the Indian Government , and a new Prime Minister was appointed to the charge of affairs , and a great game of General Post began in all the subordinate appointments . The priests knew what had happened , and the people guessed ; but India is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why ; and the fact that Dewan Sir Purun Dass , K.C.I.E. , had resigned position , palace , and power , and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of a Sunnyasi , or holy man , was considered nothing extraordinary . He had been , as the Old Law recommends , twenty years a youth , twenty years a fighter , -- though he had never carried a weapon in his life , -- and twenty years head of a household . He had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth ; he had taken honour when it came his way ; he had seen men and cities far and near , and men and cities had stood up and honoured him . Now he would let those things go , as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs . Behind him , as he walked through the city gates , an antelope skin and brass-handled crutch under his arm , and a begging-bowl of polished brown coco-de-mer in his hand , barefoot , alone , with eyes cast on the ground -- behind him they were firing salutes from the bastions in honour of his happy successor . Purun Dass nodded . All that life was ended ; and he bore it no more ill-will or good-will than a man bears to a colourless dream of the night . He was a Sunnyasi -- a houseless , wandering mendicant , depending on his neighbours for his daily bread ; and so long as there is a morsel to divide in India , neither priest nor beggar starves . He had never in his life tasted meat , and very seldom eaten even fish . A five-pound note would have covered his personal expenses for food through any one of the many years in which he had been absolute master of millions of money . Even when he was being lionised in London he had held before him his dream of peace and quiet -- the long , white , dusty Indian road , printed all over with bare feet , the incessant , slow-moving traffic , and the sharp-smelling wood smoke curling up under the fig-trees in the twilight , where the wayfarers sit at their evening meal . When the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took the proper steps , and in three days you might more easily have found a bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas , than Purun Dass among the roving , gathering , separating millions of India .
At night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook him -- sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery by the roadside ; sometimes by a mud-pillar shrine of Kala Pir , where the Jogis , who are another misty division of holy men , would receive him as they do those who know what castes and divisions are worth ; sometimes on the outskirts of a little XXXXX village , where the children would steal up with the food their parents had prepared ; and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grazing-grounds , where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy camels .
Atlantic Englishmen Hindu K.C.I.E. Law London Post begging-bowl cloths evening