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Prayers and Hymns addressed to the source of light, exhortations to subdue the dark and sensuous element within, and the study of the marvellous book of Mani, constituted their devotion. Their manners were austere and ascetic; they tolerated, but only tolerated, marriage, and that only among the inferior orders. The theatre, the banquet, and even the bath, they severely proscribed.
It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always. I stumbled upon one curious character in the Island of Mani. He became a sore annoyance to me in the course of time. My first glimpse of him was in a sort of public room in the town of Lahaina.
The moment she set foot in the house Kamal took in hand the dressing of her sister-in-law's hair, for Surja Mukhi had neglected herself lately. Kamal said, "Shall I put in a flower or two?" Surja Mukhi pinched her cheek, and forbade it. So Kamal Mani did it slily. When people came in she said, "Do you see the old woman wearing flowers in her hair?"
Surja Mukhi had lost flesh; her figure, formerly straight as a pine, had become bent like a bow; her laughing eyes were sunk; her lily face had lost its roundness. Kamal Mani comprehended that the marriage was accomplished. She inquired, "When was it?" Surja Mukhi answered, "Yesterday." Then the two sat down together, neither speaking. Surja Mukhi hid her face in the other's lap, and wept.
I am not angry with her; she is now my younger sister." Only they two went. They were long away. At last Kamal Mani came out of Kunda's room with a countenance full of fear and distress, and in great haste sent for Nagendra. On his arrival the ladies told him he was wanted in Kunda's room. At the door he met Surja Mukhi weeping. "What has happened?" he asked. "Destruction!
Kamal came, bringing Kunda Nandini with her. The Boisnavi sang "I would die for this blooming thorn, I will steal its honied sweets, I go to seek where it doth bloom, This fresh young bud." Kamal Mani frowned, and said: "Boisnavi Didi, may ashes be thrown on your face! Can you not sing something else?" Haridasi asked, "Why?" Kamal, more angrily, said: "Why?
To have inquired the meaning of this would only have again resulted in the comprehensive information contained in "Um mani panee," so we rested in our ignorance, and passed on, much to the relief of the chaunter.
Their diet was of fruits and herbs; they shrank with abhorrence from animal food." Mani met with fierce hostility from West and East alike; and at last was entrapped by the Persian king Baharam, and "was flayed alive. His skin, stuffed with straw, was placed over the gate of the city of Shahpoor."
Kamal Mani understood the wretchedness of Surja Mukhi; Surja Mukhi comprehended that Kamal appreciated her suffering. They checked their sobs and ceased to weep. Surja Mukhi, setting her own affairs on one side, spoke of others, desired that Satish Babu should be brought, and talked to him. With Kamal she spoke long of Srish Chandra and of Satish, of the education of Satish and of his marriage.
On inquiring the origin of this new structure, which was built of stones and plaster, and decorated with red ochre, all we could get out of him was a fresh string of "Um mani panees," and a further series of moppings and mowings, accompanied by a sagacious expression of his fat countenance, indicative of the most entire satisfaction at the clearness of his explanations, and a sense of his own importance as a Lama and an expositor of the doctrines of Buddh.
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