Sri Sri Ravishankar on the GM

The Gayatri mantra is one of the greatest prayers mankind has. What does it say? Let me soak in the Divine, and let the Divine destroy all my sins. The Divine light that burns all sin, let me adore and soak in that Divine light. And let the Divinity inspire my intellect. See, all our actions happen through our intellect, right? Thoughts comes and then you act. So you pray to the Divine to bring good thoughts into your mind. You pray to the Divine, 'Take over my intellect. Inspire my intellect'; dhiyo yonah prachodayat. Dhi means intellect. May my intellect be guided by, kindled by, and inspired by you (Divinity). When right thoughts come, your action will always be right. When intuitive thoughts come, your actions will be fruitful. So praying for the best thought. Let my mind, my whole life energy be soaked in Divinity. That is it. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sathya Sai Baba on the exalted GM 

Excerpted from an online article (Source : https://aravindb1982.blogspot.com/2018/01/power-of-gayatri-mantra-is-beyond-belief.html) 

It dawned on everyone that the girl’s father had died in the tragic terror attack and the explosion that occurred onboard the Air India flight enroute to India from Canada, off the western coast of Ireland. 

Towards the end of the interview, Swami turned towards Dr. Vijai Kumar and said in a matter-of-fact manner, "There were more than 250 passengers onboard Kanishka. Even if one had chanted the Gayatri Mantra, the accident could have been averted.”  Everyone in the interview room sat in silence absorbing the profundity of the statement. 

Many are the escapes that people have had by chanting the Gayatri Mantra. One of the most thrilling narratives of the same is the near-death experience of Sri Devesh Srivastava, the brother of Dr. Sailesh Srivastava (a teacher in Swami's school and university at Puttaparthi). 

Swami says, “Gayatri Chandasaam Matha (Gayatri is the mother of the Vedas)”. He goes on to explain that one can either peel and eat multiple fruits to derive nutrition and strength or one can drink mixed-fruit juice. “Gayatri Mantra is the fruit-mix concentrate”, He adds.  It embodies all the 4 Mahavakyas (great statements) of the Vedas. 

However, there are certain conditions that must be met to unlock the mantra’s great powers. 

Swami says that: 1. The person chanting the Gayatri mantra should not do it casually; it must be done with complete faith and reverence. 2. To ensure reverence, one must have purity. Purity comes from speaking the truth and having the unity of thought, word and deed.

To overcome issues with focusing, while chanting GM

 An email I sent to the Gayatri Parivar Yahoo group, over 11 yrs ago. 

While chanting Gayatri mantra, oftentimes I used to find myself

1) unable to focus on the spirit(meaning) of the mantra, as the mind was wandering hither and thither

2) unable to consistently do my spiritual activities due to various daily life hindrances

3) my chronic breathing problems interfered with my concentration

While experimenting with various ways on overcoming the above obstacles I found the below remedies helpful. Hence thought of sharing the same.

1) Prayers to Lord Ganesha (the God of obstacles) even a few minutes daily, asking him to help me overcome all kinds of obstacles in my spiritual practice, helped. But it has to be regular. Hence I've made it integral to my daily Sandhya worship. In fact, we do chant 'Shuklambaradharam...' which is a prayer to Ganesha only. While chanting the sloka we can pray to HIM to remove all kinds of obstacles and make us disciplined practitioners.

2) Hanuman Chalisa - I have found that chanting it gives me energy and drive to pursue intense spiritual activities. It's a truly powerful prayer. Sri Rama is the embodiment of Dharma and a worshipper of the Sun too. Hence I have found that prayers to Hanuman through hanuman chalisa asking him to give me strength, intelligence, knowledge (and avoidance of mistakes) and motivation towards overcoming all obstacles in my daily spiritual practice helped.

3) Chanting Aditya Hridayam stotra immediately after the Gayatri mantra chant has helped me overcome my breathing issues. It has also given me a lot of energy, vitality and drive.

May the blessings of divine mother Gayatri shine on us!

Regards,

Hari

Reciting the holy VSN, each time I visit a temple

For a long time I have been practising a unique Spiritual Sadhana - that of reciting the holy VSN in every temple as well as every place of scenic beauty that I visit.

From my study of the scriptures at a young age, especially of the Upanishads, Gita and the works of Sree Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda, I had formed a clear conviction that the entire world is nothing but Brahman alone, like a boundless ocean.

Brahman is the sole reality.  The variety we see in the universe is more or less like a shadow or minor part of that Brahman. The Upanishads give illustrations such as, the universe is like the Sun or the Moon, as seen reflected in small waterpools of mud.

Once a person acquires Chittasuddhi, he/she will be able to clearly perceive that Brahman, as the sole reality pervading everywhere. Many unimaginably Great Rishis of ancient and modern times have directly realized that Brahman. Vedic Rishis state "Vedahemetam Purusham Mahaantham".

So whenever I visit a temple, I will first identify a suitable corner to sit in, and then mentally bow to the omnipresent Brahman who is present there by default (even though invisible to me, since I am not presently endowed with spiritual perception), and recite the holy VSN, meditating on each naama as to a glory of that Brahman.

I don't recite the stotram seeking any worldly goals. I feel perfectly contented with whatever it is that the lord has blessed me with. I recite VSN only for the joy of connecting with that Brahman of supreme bliss. In some ancient temples there could be the presence of bodiless Siddhas too. While reciting, I seek their blessings too. 

Along with the recital, I will perform mudras like the Jnana, Sankha, Prana, Prithvi mudra. This way, I benefit in multiple ways, my time utilised well.  

Isn't nature a manifestation of the glory of the lord? So isn't it appropriate that we offer prayers to that Supreme One who created all this beauty for our eyes? Hence, I will also do this, in the places of scenic beauty I visit in my travels.

This practice has always given me great joy and peace. At the end of the japam, I might perhaps do a Pradakshinam in the temple, perhaps I might not. But I am not at all particular about getting "darshanam" of the deity, since I know that it is the same Brahman everywhere. What if I don't see the Vigraham with my eyes? Still he present in me, as well as everywhere near me. All that I need to do is to feel his existence everywhere. Asti Ityevopalabdhavyah (Katha Upanishad).

It doesn't matter which deity the temple is for - be it Shiva or Vishnu or Devi or whatever. All gods are forms of that Supreme One alone.

Visiting temples is primarily because I enjoy travelling and seeing places. As per Vedic astrology, mine is a Ubhaya lagnam, hence I will get maximum freedom and pleasure through travelling. Moreover, I tend to feel that temples are to a certain extent an extension of my home. I am allowed to sit, and spend some time there. It is something which I cannot expect to be allowed to do in another person's house. So I go to the temple, watch the people worshipping there, sit in my corner and recite VSN, just to enjoy myself. 

An interesting Buddhist poem

Life, personhood, pleasure and pain
— This is all that's bound together
In a single mental event
— A moment that quickly takes place.

Even the spirits who endure
For eighty-four thousand aeons
— Even these do not live the same
For any two moments of mind.

What ceases for one who is dead,
Or for one who's still standing here,
Are all just the same aggregates
— Gone, never to connect again.

The states which are vanishing now,
And those which will vanish some day,
Have characteristics no different
Than those which have vanished before.

With no production there's no birth;
With becoming present, one lives.
When grasped with the highest meaning,
The world is dead when the mind stops.

There's no hoarding what has vanished,
No piling up for the future;
Those who have been born are standing
Like a seed upon a needle.

The vanishing of all these states
That have become is not welcome,
Though dissolving phenomena stand
Uncombined from primordial time.

From the unseen, [states] come and go,
Glimpsed only as they're passing by;
Like lightning flashing in the sky
— They arise and then pass away.

Source: "Guhatthaka-suttaniddeso: Upon the Tip of a Needle" (Nm 2.4), translated from the Pali by Andrew Olendzki. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 2 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/nm/nm.2.04.olen.html .

Sri BV Krishnan on the greatness of Sandhya worship and specifically on the exalted GM

Dear Sir,


Thank you for your most enlightening mail on
prerequisites of chanting mantras by males/females. I
have a few queries in this context. Would appreciate
it if you could reply to them.
1) I had my upanayanam and initiation to Gayatri
mantra through my father, at the age of 12. I didn't
know the significance of the mantra then, and so
probably took the whole thing in a playful way and
didn't do Sandhyavandana and gayatri japam regularly.
Now, 15 years later if I start doing it regularly,
would I still benefit from 'learning the mantra though
Gurumukha'?
2) As you have mentioned, nobody can trace the mantras
to their origin and nobody to this day knows who
originally pronounced them. Doesn't this mean, the way
the mantra is chanted now, could be different from the
way it was originally intended to be? I remember
reading an excerpt from Swami Vivekananda's Collected
works where he says that in Samadhi he had a vision in
which he saw an old man reciting the Gayatri in a tone
markedly different from the way we recite them now. If
we go by this vision, then could that mean even the
way we chant the Gayatri mantra is wrong?
Regards,
Member

Response From Mr B. V. Krishnan
Dear Sir,
You are not alone in your dilemma. So many of my generation and your
generation are facing the same problem. Our parents conducted Upanayana and
gave us "Brahmopadesam" (incidentally it is significant that it is called
"brahmopadesam"!), but due to various circumstances we stopped practising
Gayathri japam. Now an entire generation has lost the benefits of this
price-less heritage which was only available to Brahmins.
I really do not know whether anybody can be competent to give correct answer
to your question: whether after a 15 year break, can one restart the mantra
and still hope to get the same power from it? Anyhow, I am not competent
for this.
Only our acharyas (like Shankaracharya, for instance) can give correct
directions. But I can suggest something:
1. First start doing Sandhya Vandana without fail every day. Whether there
is material result or not, I find Sandhya Vandana very enjoyable because, it
is a multifunction ritual:
a) It first cleans your mind & body (mantras like Apohishta, Suryashcha
mamanuscha etc.)
b) By arghyapradanam and tharpanam, it gives you an opportunity to offer
oblations not only to Surya, but also to all Navagrahas and
to Lord Vishu also., every day.
c) Prana Yamam, it has been found, is a very effective tool for
preventing heart and lung ailments. Moreover, during prana yama, you
learn to calm your mind. Mental calmness is half the battle won in our day
to day work.
d) Gayatrhi Japam is nothing but Transcendantal Meditation.
e) After this we offer namaskarams to the lords of four disas (prachyai
dise namah etc).so that they bless us during our
days endeavours, and finally,
f) We offer all our karma phalas to Lord, thus escaping from the bondage
of our karmas.
It is well and truly a great procedure, and once we start doing it after
understanding its purport, we can really enjoy doing it.
I intend doing a small write-up on Sandhya vandanam which I hope to post in
this site shortly.
2. After doing regular Gayathri Japam, but before "upasthanam" you do one
more sankalpam "Aneka kala vicchinna Gayathri manthra japa
prayaschidhardham, ........... samkhya gayathri mantra japam karishye") and
then once more do the allotted numbers of gayathri japa. You can yourself
decide the number of gayathris you do for this, according to your choice.
But let it not be less than 16 at least. More the better. After this you
can do upasthanam etc. and continue.
3. You know before beginning the Gayathri japam, there is a mantra "Ojosi
Sahosi Balamasi". When uttering this mantra, you strongly suggest to your
mind that Gayathri devi is going to come to you during the japa and empower
you. Do this everyday whenever you do Gayathri Japa. Slowly you will find
that your mantra will become more and more powerful.
I am only giving these suggestions from the very small and limited purview
of my knowledge. However, I am sure it will do no harm to try it. Best of
luck.
Answering your second query, I am on surer grounds. I have no doubt in my
mind that the mantras are being chanted the way it was done from the
beginning (whenever it was), for the following reasons:
a. The veda mantras conform to a very accurate and exact grammatic regimen.
These are so clear cut and accurate that not a single shabda or letter can
be found out of place or incorrect in any of the veda samhitas. In some
brahmanas like Araynayka etc. you may find some of these non-conformities,
but they are very minor, but in the samhithas, i.e. the main texts, not a
single letter, word or phonetic syllable is incorrect, i.e. they all conform
exactly to the same regimen without a single exception. In fact, the
mantras contain their own phonetic codes (swaras) which give different
meanings to the words also. In the entire text of veda, you cannot find a
single out of place swara! Even today this applies to the veda mantras as
we know them, therefore they could not have undergone any change. You know
sanskrit has been found to be the best suited language for computers, and
one of the reasons for this is that its structure is so precise.
b) When I wanted to start my "adhyayana" of Yajur Veda in 1986 or so, I was
searching for a Thaithireeya Samhita text. I did not then know the Granthi
lipi, and hence I could rely only on Sanskrit text. I enquired and heard
that one Satwalekar was publishing Thaithireeya Samhita in deva nagiri
(sanskrit) lipi from an ashram in Paradi in Gujarat I sent money to the
ashram and received a copy of the text book "Krishna Yajur Vedeeya
Thaithireeya Samhita" in devanagiri script. I took it to my Ghanapadikal
and started my adhyayanam. My guru, the Ghanapadikal, had mastered the
samhita solely from his teacher in Kumbakonam. There was no way his master
could ever have seen this sanskrit text, or vice versa. But, when I started
the adhyayanam, I found that every syllable, every letter,every word, every
swara, uttered by my Ghanapadikal (he was not using any book), was exactly
as per what was printed in the devanagiri script book I had received from
Sri Satwalekar. Therefore it is clear that the vedas being chanted in every
part of India all had one, and only one source. The methods of adhyayana
contained several pre-cautions to ensure that the mantras were passed on
exactly the same way from generation to generation, and it is wonderful to
know that the system works even now. That is why I exort everyone to utter
the mantras with swaram after learning from a Guru who in turn had taken
upadesa from another guru.
Sorry for being lengthy. Trust I have allayed some of your doubts.
Regards
B V KRISHNAN

Dear Member,

Let me first appreciate your readiness to perform
sandhyavandana despite a long gap.

I am not an authority in Sastras,but from smriti
granthas i have read , the prayaschitta suggested for
not performing sandhyavandana continuosly for a week
is punarupanayana(re-upanayana).

However for performing
punarupanayana you need not call your relatives and
friends for a feast!.It is a simple ritual .Since due
to many reasons it may not be practical today to
perform a re-upanayana,you can restart performing
sandhyavandanam as you have the right mindset to do
that.Performing sandhyavandana cannot at any point
harm you.

The mantras are apourusheya as they were visualised by
Rishis by the grace of Paramatma or brahman.However
the corresponding rishis are the Manthradrashta or
person who envisioned it.The mantras have got
variations in chanting in different veda samhitas of
the same veda itself.for example the rudraadhyaya is
different in Taittiriya samhita , kapistala kada ,
kadaka and maithrayani of Krishna yajurveda as well as
Kanva and Madhyandina samhitas of Sukla yajurveda.

Pratishakya helps one to find the differences in
chanting within the same samhita (the different
opinions followed by acharyas in chanting taittiriya
samhita can be found in taittiriya pratisakhya and the
commentators follow one recension as the favourable
one while commenting the sutras).Hence there is a
considerable difference in the way vedas are chanted
even within one sakha itself.

In this instance Gayathri itself is chanted different
for the 3 vedas as yajurvedins alone follow "Nichrut
Gayatri" Chandas(23 letters.Nichrut chandas being one
letter lesser than original one).Many pandits
themselves get confused about the

phenomenon where veda say"Tripada gayatri"(Taithiriya
brahmana portion for
darsapurnamaseshti-vatsaapakarana).Gayatri consists of
3 padas or 3 lines and normally gayatri chandas have 6
letters in one line and comprises of four lines. We
can see from Sounaka pratisakya that tripada gayatri
chandas will have astaksharas in each (8 letters in
one line)pada.

And for other vedas Gayatri mantra is
recited in Gayatri Chandas itself as 24 lettered
mantra.Hence you need to chant the Gaythri mantra
belonging to your veda shakha.

The mail by B V Krishnan was very much
informative,however the book edited by Sripad Damodar
Satavlekar for the Taithiriya samhita in Sanskrit
script itself mentions in the preface about
Daakshinaatya (South Indian) pada and uttara(North
Indian) pada where in the Phonetical rules differ.The
first anuvaka of Taittiriya samhita itself has this
example,where in "rakshah" is pronounced(and hence
printed) as "raKHshah" in dakshinatya pada and
"rakshah" in uttara pada.(The difference is that 2nd
KH is used in dakshinatya pada and 1st K in uttara
padas).this law applies in many places.

It could have
been so minor that the difference may not have been
noticed properly while pronouncing it.Such pada bedas
are common and is followed based on the pratisakhya
and siksha rules followed locally.

Also the daakshinatya pada books show deergha svaritas
also whereas the uttara pada books show only svarita.
The book edited by sri Satavlekar contains rishi
chandas and devata for the anuvakas whereas the other
north indian publications like anandashram samstha
pune ,as well as south Indian publications(New
heritage India ,Mylapore) doesnt have these.

We are missing the tradition of vedas as today just
studying veda samhita itself is considered as veda
padana,whereas it will be only complete if it is
studied with vedangas.

I have represented my understanding from books(and not
from one specific guru).

Kindly share your opinions in this regards and correct
me if the understanding is wrong.
thanks and regards,
Ganesh.

Andre-Louis learns, and becomes an expert, in fencing - a Quote from the novel Scaramouche

At the end of a ten minutes' bout, M. des Amis offered him the situation, and explained it. In addition to imparting the rudiments of the art to beginners, he was to brush out the fencing-room every morning, keep the foils furbished, assist the gentlemen who came for lessons to dress and undress, and make himself generally useful. His wages for the present were to be forty livres a month, and he might sleep in an alcove behind the fencing-room if he had no other lodging.

The position, you see, had its humiliations. But, if André-Louis would hope to dine, he must begin by eating his pride as an hors d'oeuvre.

"And so," he said, controlling a grimace, "the robe yields not only to the sword, but to the broom as well. Be it so. I stay."

It is characteristic of him that, having made that choice, he should have thrown himself into the work with enthusiasm. It was ever his way to do whatever he did with all the resources of his mind and energies of his body. When he was not instructing very young gentlemen in the elements of the art, showing them the elaborate and intricate salute—which with a few days' hard practice he had mastered to perfection—and the eight guards, he was himself hard at work on those same guards, exercising eye, wrist, and knees.

Perceiving his enthusiasm, and seeing the obvious possibilities it opened out of turning him into a really effective assistant, M. des Amis presently took him more seriously in hand.

"Your application and zeal, my friend, are deserving of more than forty livres a month," the master informed him at the end of a week. "For the present, however, I will make up what else I consider due to you by imparting to you secrets of this noble art. Your future depends upon how you profit by your exceptional good fortune in receiving instruction from me."

Thereafter every morning before the opening of the academy, the master would fence for half an hour with his new assistant. Under this really excellent tuition André-Louis improved at a rate that both astounded and flattered M. des Amis. He would have been less flattered and more astounded had he known that at least half the secret of André-Louis' amazing progress lay in the fact that he was devouring the contents of the master's library, which was made up of a dozen or so treatises on fencing by such great masters as La Bessière, Danet, and the syndic of the King's Academy, Augustin Rousseau. To M. des Amis, whose swordsmanship was all based on practice and not at all on theory, who was indeed no theorist or student in any sense, that little library was merely a suitable adjunct to a fencing-academy, a proper piece of decorative furniture. The books themselves meant nothing to him in any other sense. He had not the type of mind that could have read them with profit nor could he understand that another should do so. André-Louis, on the contrary, a man with the habit of study, with the acquired faculty of learning from books, read those works with enormous profit, kept their precepts in mind, critically set off those of one master against those of another, and made for himself a choice which he proceeded to put into practice.

At the end of a month it suddenly dawned upon M. des Amis that his assistant had developed into a fencer of very considerable force, a man in a bout with whom it became necessary to exert himself if he were to escape defeat.

"I said from the first," he told him one day, "that Nature designed you for a swordsman. See how justified I was, and see also how well I have known how to mould the material with which Nature has equipped you."

"To the master be the glory," said André-Louis.

His relations with M. des Amis had meanwhile become of the friendliest, and he was now beginning to receive from him other pupils than mere beginners. In fact André-Louis was becoming an assistant in a much fuller sense of the word. M. des Amis, a chivalrous, open-handed fellow, far from taking advantage of what he had guessed to be the young man's difficulties, rewarded his zeal by increasing his wages to four louis a month.

From the earnest and thoughtful study of the theories of others, it followed now—as not uncommonly happens—that André-Louis came to develop theories of his own. He lay one June morning on his little truckle bed in the alcove behind the academy, considering a passage that he had read last night in Danet on double and triple feints. It had seemed to him when reading it that Danet had stopped short on the threshold of a great discovery in the art of fencing. Essentially a theorist, André-Louis perceived the theory suggested, which Danet himself in suggesting it had not perceived. He lay now on his back, surveying the cracks in the ceiling and considering this matter further with the lucidity that early morning often brings to an acute intelligence. You are to remember that for close upon two months now the sword had been André-Louis' daily exercise and almost hourly thought. Protracted concentration upon the subject was giving him an extraordinary penetration of vision. Swordsmanship as he learnt and taught and saw it daily practised consisted of a series of attacks and parries, a series of disengages from one line into another. But always a limited series. A half-dozen disengages on either side was, strictly speaking, usually as far as any engagement went. Then one recommenced. But even so, these disengages were fortuitous. What if from first to last they should be calculated?

That was part of the thought—one of the two legs on which his theory was to stand; the other was: what would happen if one so elaborated Danet's ideas on the triple feint as to merge them into a series of actual calculated disengages to culminate at the fourth or fifth or even sixth disengage? That is to say, if one were to make a series of attacks inviting ripostes again to be countered, each of which was not intended to go home, but simply to play the opponent's blade into a line that must open him ultimately, and as predetermined, for an irresistible lunge. Each counter of the opponent's would have to be preconsidered in this widening of his guard, a widening so gradual that he should himself be unconscious of it, and throughout intent upon getting home his own point on one of those counters.

André-Louis had been in his time a chess-player of some force, and at chess he had excelled by virtue of his capacity for thinking ahead. That virtue applied to fencing should all but revolutionize the art. It was so applied already, of course, but only in an elementary and very limited fashion, in mere feints, single, double, or triple. But even the triple feint should be a clumsy device compared with this method upon which he theorized.

He considered further, and the conviction grew that he held the key of a discovery. He was impatient to put his theory to the test.

That morning he was given a pupil of some force, against whom usually he was hard put to it to defend himself. Coming on guard, he made up his mind to hit him on the fourth disengage, predetermining the four passes that should lead up to it. They engaged in tierce, and André-Louis led the attack by a beat and a straightening of the arm. Came the demi-contre he expected, which he promptly countered by a thrust in quinte; this being countered again, he reëntered still lower, and being again correctly parried, as he had calculated, he lunged swirling his point into carte, and got home full upon his opponent's breast. The ease of it surprised him.

They began again. This time he resolved to go in on the fifth disengage, and in on that he went with the same ease. Then, complicating the matter further, he decided to try the sixth, and worked out in his mind the combination of the five preliminary engages. Yet again he succeeded as easily as before.

The young gentleman opposed to him laughed with just a tinge of mortification in his voice.

"I am all to pieces this morning," he said.

"You are not of your usual force," André-Louis politely agreed. And then greatly daring, always to test that theory of his to the uttermost: "So much so," he added, "that I could almost be sure of hitting you as and when I declare."

The capable pupil looked at him with a half-sneer. "Ah, that, no," said he.

"Let us try. On the fourth disengage I shall touch you. Allons! En garde!"

And as he promised, so it happened.

The young gentleman who, hitherto, had held no great opinion of André-Louis' swordsmanship, accounting him well enough for purposes of practice when the master was otherwise engaged, opened wide his eyes. In a burst of mingled generosity and intoxication, André-Louis was almost for disclosing his method—a method which a little later was to become a commonplace of the fencing-rooms. Betimes he checked himself. To reveal his secret would be to destroy the prestige that must accrue to him from exercising it.

At noon, the academy being empty, M. des Amis called André-Louis to one of the occasional lessons which he still received. And for the first time in all his experience with André-Louis, M. des Amis received from him a full hit in the course of the first bout. He laughed, well pleased, like the generous fellow he was.

"Aha! You are improving very fast, my friend."

He still laughed, though not so well pleased, when he was hit in the second bout. After that he settled down to fight in earnest with the result that André-Louis was hit three times in succession. The speed and accuracy of the fencing-master when fully exerting himself disconcerted André-Louis' theory, which for want of being exercised in practice still demanded too much consideration.

But that his theory was sound he accounted fully established, and with that, for the moment, he was content. It remained only to perfect by practice the application of it. To this he now devoted himself with the passionate enthusiasm of the discoverer. He confined himself to a half-dozen combinations, which he practised assiduously until each had become almost automatic. And he proved their infallibility upon the best among M. des Amis' pupils.

Finally, a week or so after that last bout of his with des Amis, the master called him once more to practice.

Hit again in the first bout, the master set himself to exert all his skill against his assistant. But to-day it availed him nothing before André-Louis' impetuous attacks.

After the third hit, M. des Amis stepped back and pulled off his mask.

"What's this?" he asked. He was pale, and his dark brows were contracted in a frown. Not in years had he been so wounded in his self-love. "Have you been taught a secret botte?"

He had always boasted that he knew too much about the sword to believe any nonsense about secret bottes; but this performance of André-Louis' had shaken his convictions on that score.

"No," said André-Louis. "I have been working hard; and it happens that I fence with my brains."

"So I perceive. Well, well, I think I have taught you enough, my friend. I have no intention of having an assistant who is superior to myself."

"Little danger of that," said André-Louis, smiling pleasantly. "You have been fencing hard all morning, and you are tired, whilst I, having done little, am entirely fresh. That is the only secret of my momentary success."

His tact and the fundamental good-nature of M. des Amis prevented the matter from going farther along the road it was almost threatening to take. And thereafter, when they fenced together, André-Louis, who continued daily to perfect his theory into an almost infallible system, saw to it that M. des Amis always scored against him at least two hits for every one of his own. So much he would grant to discretion, but no more. He desired that M. des Amis should be conscious of his strength, without, however, discovering so much of its real extent as would have excited in him an unnecessary degree of jealousy.

And so well did he contrive that whilst he became ever of greater assistance to the master—for his style and general fencing, too, had materially improved—he was also a source of pride to him as the most brilliant of all the pupils that had ever passed through his academy. Never did André-Louis disillusion him by revealing the fact that his skill was due far more to M. des Amis' library and his own mother wit than to any lessons received.