Mother: A boy named Dinu, from Mukundapur, a distant nephew of the Master used to stay with him. The Master loved the boy very much. He had picked the flowers and the Bilva leaves for the worship. Hriday had made all the other arrangements. There was nobody except the Master when the actual worship began. At the close of it, Hriday came in.
Ram Babu has mentioned in his book
1 that the Shodasi Puja took place at Jayrambati. Ah me! People in that part of the country are so gossipy. As it is, they used to comment, "To whom have you given the girl in marriage? A crazy, insane man!" Now imagine what would have been the consequences of worshipping a woman there!
After the worship, I continued to stay at Dakshineswar for a year. Then I fell ill and returned to Jayrambati. At Dakshineswar, Sambhu Babu (Sambhunath Mallick) had arranged for my treatment by the physician Prasad Babu.
Disciple: .Were you at Dakshineswar when the Master's mother passed away (27th February, 1875)?
Mother: No, I was ill at Jayrambati then. I had returned after suffering for a year at Dakshineswar. For treatment of the spleen trouble, I went to the Siva temple at Badanganj where it was singed.
2 After I had visited Dakshineswar twice or thrice, Captain (Viswanath
Upadhyay) gave Sal wood. Sambhu Babu constructed
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1 The biography of Sri Ramakrishna in Bengali, written by Sri Ramachandra Datta.
2 Badanganj is about 4 miles off Jayrambati. This process of scorching was a painful remedy of those days. After ablution, the patient was made to lie on the ground and held down by three or four persons, so that he might not run away because of the unbearable pain. Then a person would take in hand a burning piece of jujube wood and rub it on a plantain leaf laid over the region of the spleen. The skin would get burnt, and the patient would shriek and scream.
When the Mother came for the treatment after ablutions, some persons came forward to hold her down. But she said. "Nobody need hold me; I shall myself lie down quietly." And in fact she went through that ordeal in silence. The people in those regions believed that this treatment cured malaria. It is said that the Master too had once submitted to this remedy.