The Mouse on the Shiva Murti

A boy sat up all night on Shivratri, fasting, watching the image of Shiva, waiting for something.

What he saw was a mouse climb onto the murti and eat the offerings, and run about on the god's face.

He was fourteen. He asked his father why the god did not defend himself against a mouse.

He did not get an answer he could accept. And the question stayed with him for the rest of his life.

The long search

Dayananda was born Mool Shankar Tiwari on the 12th of February, 1824, at Tankara in Gujarat.

At twenty-two, faced with a marriage he had not chosen, he left.

And he spent the next twenty-odd years as a wandering ascetic. From about 1845 to 1869.