KASARAGOD	431
that yon need. Worshipping brass images and conceiving
hatred for man is not devotion. Be quick to repair your
gross blunder." Instantly Dwarkadas got up and going to
Kanda fell at his feet. Thereafter, until he left the ashram,
he was engaged in repeating God's Name and prostrating
before everyone, to whatever caste or creed he or she
belonged, who visited the ashram.
The call from the devotees from Maharashtra and
Northern India for Ramdas became insistent. At last he
could not resist it. Ram gave him the command to go out
and fulfil their wishes. Accordingly he wrote to Janardan
Pant asking him to come over and fetch him.
The news of Ramdas' intended departure created quite
a sensation amongst the adherents of the ashram. Of
them Krishna Bai was affected most. Till then she was
spending her nights with her children in the house in which
she resided. Now she insisted that he should permit her to
stay in the ashram for the nights. Mother Rukmabai in
spite of her ill-health remained in the ashram but as regards
Krishna Bai, he was not willing that she should keep away
from her children in the nights.
One evening as usual he had to remind her to return to
her house. In fact she used to be so much absorbed in the
service of the ashram that she would entirely forget to
mark the passage of time and to leave the ashram even
when the darkness of night was closing upon the world.
On this occasion she was most reluctant to leave for her
house. In so many ways she appealed to him to allow her to
remain in the ashram. But in view of her children he could
not agree to that. She left.
The following day, about eight o'clock, a cultivator
turned up bringing the news that Krishna Bai was found
lying down in a jungle at the top of the hill near the bhuta
sthana, one of her legs swollen and herself partly uncon-
scious. At once Ramdas with some others in the ashram ran
up to the place. They found her sitting beneath a tree, her