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At Mysore, with its beautiful climate Pandit Sastri had grown into a fine
youth. He had a very fair complexion and a good personality, and with his knowledge
of Sanskrit he became a good friend of even European scholars. Though he
had not read in a regular school he could talk some English, in which he
gained fluency by his contact with Englishmen.
In the year 189x he came into contact with Dr. Oppert in Madras and
received a good training from him in the Government Oriental Manuscripts
Library. Sri Subramanya Iyer, then a Justice of the Madras High Court
discovered talent in the young person Pandit Sastri and encouraged him to
go over to the Theosophical Society at Adyar. There Sastri taught Sanskrit
to such of those Englishmen who wanted to learn the language. This in turn
enabled him improve his knowledge of English. He was subsequently appointed
the Librarian of the Theosophical Society, which gave him the Inspiration
for his future activities.
Many manuscripts pass through his hands, most of them in a bad
condition. This made him think that unless vigorous efforts were made to
collect and preserve the valuable manuscripts lying in the huts and hovels
all over India, they might be lost forever to posterity. His stay in the
Adyar Library was a training ground for him. Between the year 1892 and 1901
he had collected about 12,000 manuscripts and indexed and arranged them in
a systematic way.
Adyar was not considered as part of Madras City in those days, separated
as it was from the busy portion of the city by vast areas of cocoanut
plantation. Travellers to Adyar were always afraid of going along the road
after dusk because of bandits who obtained shelter in the thick plantation.
But Pandit Sastri had known no fear from his boyhood. His work was his only
aim and on many a night he travelled back to Adyar in darkness with the
manuscripts, never worrying himself about his young wife and children he
had left at home.
Once some bandits stopped his bicycle, but when they saw the Pandit
talking to them freely, they calmed down and admitted that it was hunger
that made them pursue their nefarious activities. The Pandit tactfully
arranged with them that he would deliver some rice to them every month and
thereafter there were no thefts anywhere round about that place.
It was in Adyar the greatest tragedy in his life happened. He lost his
young wife who died after she gave birth to a child. This, of course, completely
changed his outlook in life. Leaving his young children to the care at his
elder brother, .he retired to the Himalayas. There he grew a beard and went
about his job of collecting manuscripts. Finally he was persuaded to take
another wife and he came back to the South.
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