Venkatanaatha goes to Madurai

Soon, relatives who had gathered in TB’s house start leaving. Naani too leaves. V is much sad that Naani had to leave. He tries hard to stop him but Naani says that him being a bachelor, he should not be in that house which is yet to see a number of happy celebrations. Finally Naani too bids adieu.

V and Gopikamba both dream about TB. While latter dreams about TB taking away V, V dreams about TB informing him to study hard and excel in life. Days pass with both Gopika and V remembering life with TB.

Finally, noticing that V needs a change of place, V’s sister offers to take him to his house in Madurai. But at Madurai too, V is desolate and sad. So, one day V’s sister’s husband offers to take V to Vidyapeeta so that V can spend some time with children of his age. In vidyapeeta, there are lot of educated people discussing about Literature and Scriptures. V asks some spiritual questions like ‘What is Dharma?’ etc and is interested in the wide variety of response.

Meanwhile, Gopika is too sad herself. She is once alone in the house and she feels too lonely. So she shouts at TB’s soul to take her away too so that she can be once again be united with him. Hearing her shout, Gururaja and his wife come and console her.

V is now keeping himself busy. He visits temples and asks priests theosophical questions. He once asks why Durga is called so. The priest responds thus:

Once upon a time there was a demon called Durgama. Durgama tries to understand why demons don’t have power whereas the Demi-gods (devatas) had. He realizes that it is due to Vedas. Since demi-gods have Vedas, they are powerful than Demons. So, Durgama does penance for years together and finally Brahma is forced to fulfill Durgama’s wishes. Durgama asks for Vedas which Brahma is forced to give. After doing so, world comes to a standstill as the demi-gods lose their power. Rivers run dry, scorching heat everywhere, famine, etc. When demi-gods pray for Goddess Lakshmi, she saves the world. She approaches Durgama and unleashes all her Anger Power and kills Durgama. Hence she is called Durga devi. Also, since she gives (shakahaari) vegetarian food to saints before the death of Durgama, she was also called Shaakambari (story needs to be validated).

Meanwhile, messengers are sent from Vijayandra Theertha Swamy to Gopikamba to ask Gururaja to visit their shrine soon.