Before he parted company with the Koothumpas and their guru, the
Brahmachari found that they were going to attend a festival held on the
banks of the Lake of Manasarawara, and that thence they intended to
proceed to the Kailas mountains.
The above statement was on several occasions repeated by the Brahmachari
in the presence (among others) of Babu Dwijender Nath Tagore of
Jorasanko, Calcutta; Babu Cally Mohan Ghose of the Trigonometrical
Surcey of India, Dehradun; Babu Cally Cumar Chatterij of the same
place; Babu Gopi Mohan Ghosh of Dacca; Babu Priya Nath Sastri, clerk to
Babu Devender Nath Tagore, and the writer. Comments would here seem
almost superfluous, and the facts might very well have been left to
speak for themselves to a fair and intelligent jury. But the averseness
of people to enlarge their field of experience and the wilful
misrepresentation of designing persons know no bounds. The nature of
the evidence here adduced is of an unexceptional character. Both
witnesses were met quite accidentally. Even if it be granted, which we
certainly do not for a moment grant, that the Tibetan pedlar, Sundook,
had been interviewed by some interested person, and induced to tell an
untruth, what can be conceived to have been the motive of the
Brahmachari, one belonging to a religious body noted for their
truthfulness, and having no idea as to the interest the writer took in
such things, in inventing a romance, and how could he make it fit
exactly with the statements of the Tibetan pedlar at the other end of
the country? Uneducated persons are no doubt liable to deceive
themselves in many matters, but these statements dealt only with such
disunited facts as fell within the range of the narrator's eyes and
ears, and had nothing to do with his judgment or opinion.
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