There was an ancient city named Kaivalyam, in the Pandiya country,
and in that city there lived a dancing girl named Muttumohana. She was
an excellent gem of womankind, for though born of the dancing-girls'
caste, she was a very learned and pious woman, and never would she
taste her food without first going and worshipping in the temple of
Siva. She moved in the society of kings, ministers, and Brahmins, and
never mingled with low people, however rich they might be. She had a
daughter named Chandralekha, whom she put to school with the sons of
kings, ministers and Brahmins. Chandralekha showed signs of very great
intelligence, even when she was beginning her alphabet, so that the
master took the greatest care with her tuition, and in less than four
years she began her lessons and became a great pandita. [92] However,
as she was only a dancing-girl by birth, there was no objection to her
attending to her studies in open school till she attained to maturity,
and, accordingly, up to that age she attended the school and mastered
the four Vedas and Sastras and the sixty-four varieties of knowledge.