a discussion at their great meetings calmly and composedly: some element of discord is always sure to arise. One of the pandits introduced a portion of the Nyaya shástras for discussion:-- "Smoke is the effect of fire, and this is a different substance from a water-jar." A pandit from Orissa thereupon remarked, "The water-jar is itself distinct from a mountain." "What is this, my friend, that you are saying?" asked a pandit from Kashigoya, "you surely have not paid proper attention to the sentence: he who regards a water-jar, clothes, and a mountain as the same as smoke from a fire, simply murders the famous Siromani." A pandit from Eastern Bengal said: "Smoke is an entirely different substance from a water-jar: smoke is the effect of fire: how then can there be smoke when there is no fire[41]?" And so the dispute went on, and at last, from simply glaring at each other, they got to a hand-to-hand scrimmage.
Thakchacha thought matters were looking serious and that he had better calm things down before they went any further; so going quietly up to them, he said: "I say, gentlemen, why are you making such minute enquiries about such trifles as a water-pot or a lamp? I will make you a much more valuable present; I will give you two water-pots apiece," A very sharp Brahman amongst the pandits at once got up and said, "Who are you, you low fellow? An infidel outcast present at the shraddha of a Hindu? This is not the shraddha of a she-ghost, that an apparition like you should be the superintendent of it." As he said this, everybody present began abusing Thakchacha, thumping him with their fists, pushing him about and beating him with sticks. Thereupon Bancharam Babu hurried up and said: "If you make a disturbance and interfere with the shraddha in this way, I will know the reason why: I will get a summons out against you at once from the High Court. I am not a man to be trifled with
