Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c6.s2.19

c6.s2.19

The fond parents were at first averse to sending the boy to school for fear that learning would lead him to ascetic life, and he was allowed to grow wild at will. Later on, he was sent to one Viṣṇu Paṇḍita and Sudarśana for elementary education, and then to Gaṅgādāsa, who was chiefly a grammarian,¹ for more advanced studies. Pious imagination invests him with extraodinary precocity of intellect and makes him a youthful prodigy, mastering all branches of Sanskrit learning at the age of fifteen; but it is probable that he displayed in his younger days a keenness and intelligence much above the average. He does not appear, however, to have, at any period of his life, cared much for deep or wide scholarship; and it is not necessary to present him as a great scholar when his real greatness lies in other directions. His education was certainly that of a well-born Brahman boy at such a centre of learning as Navadvīpa, but his studies appear to have been chiefly confined to Grammar, especially Kalāpa Grammar, and possibly some literature and Rhetoric to which allusion is made².