History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c97.3.1

v7.c97.3.1

I was born on 7th May 1880 in a village called Pelhem or Paraśurāma [because it has a large and famous temple of Paraśurāma, an *avatāra* of Viṣṇu and the patron saint of several brāhmaṇa sub-castes (such as the Citpāvana)] near Chiplun in the Ratnagiri District at my maternal uncle's house My father belonged to a priestly family in a village called Murdem near Khed in the Ratnagiri District. My father had learnt by heart a great deal of the Ṛgveda and was being trained for priesthood till the age of 18. He did not like the profession of a priest and left for Poona to learn English along with a friend of his boyhood, the late Shankar Balkrishna Dixit, who later on became famous for his Marathi work on Indian Astronomy which was admired by Dr. Thibaut. Mr. Dixit and my father passed the Matriculation Examination of the Bombay University in 1873 My father studied for the Pleader's examination held in those days by the Bombay High Court, passed it and began to practise as a Taluka lawyer at Dapoli in the Ratnagiri District from 1878. Besides Vedic lore, my father studied the principal Upaniṣads and the Gītā and had many of the former by heart. He practised as a lawyer for about forty years, then retired and passed away in 1925. We were nine children, six brothers and three sisters. I was the eldest of the sons and one sister was older than myself.