Then the musicians beat their drums and rang the bell of worship, and every single forehead was on the ground before the Goddess. The worship had begun.... First be consecrate, then bring your offering--is the creed.... I heard no prayers, but there-after, one by one, the Babies passed before her, throwing at her feet sweet-scented wreaths of Jasmine. I needed not then to hear their prayers.... And that was all the Service. The play of the children at the feet of Wisdom. Thus then the Hindu honours his Guest. And, on the second day--for even Wisdom must share at length the waters of oblivion--with music and singing with the happy laughter of children and a gay following of the faithful, her image is taken to the Ganges; and with love and much injunction as to next year’s journey from the Mounts of Blessing, is it set afloat on that sacred river whose bourne is the Eternal Sea. Wisdom, in Sanskrit story, is Creative Power to the Great God himself, his energy--without her he is but a great incommunicable passive force. “I make strong whom I choose--originating all things I pass even as a breeze. Above the Heavens am I, beyond the Earth, and what is the Great One, _that_ am I. I make holy the Great God Himself. For the Great Archer it is I bend the bow; it is I who stay evil in the name of the Destroyer. Few know me, yet near to all alike am I. God is he from whom Wisdom and Speech--after reaching Him--return.” Unravelling it all, what quaint teaching may we not piece together? That is true wisdom which puts man in touch with God--creature with Creator. And the same power of God refrains not from blessing the things that are of value to the Earth--the written, the spoken word, all arts and harmonies and science. Then, is it not a parable that the Goddess of Speech is primarily the Goddess of all Learning? Let the ignorant keep silence. The _Tulsi_ spirals stirred in the hot wind, and the great white red-throated Sarus flapped his wings as he walked about the women’s courtyard. The men of the house had taken the Image to the water, and we sat by the empty altar in the hour between the Twilights. “Tell me more about Wisdom,” said I to my Wisest of the Wise, and she told me of how Vishnu gave her as wife to Brahma, and how Brahma put a slight upon the Lady of Wisdom--a slight which she never forgave. A great sacrifice was going forward, and the Priest bade Brahma call his Lady. For is it not the wife, and she alone who must hold the sacred grass, must sprinkle the offerings. “But Saraswati is engaged in dressing,” was the answer. Then the Priest “without a wife what blessing can come?” So Brahma turned to Indra, and bade him find a substitute in hedge or highway. Indra soon returned, leading by the hand a milkmaid, beautiful and happy. She bore a jar of butter on her head. “She shall become the Mother of the Vedas,” said the Priest; and that is how Gayatri, the Milkmaid, was wed to the Great God Himself.