The Ashes of a God

And then at last, being pleased with his perseverance, such as it was, I appeared to him one day in the guise of a digambara,[¹⁹] and granted him a boon. Thereupon that indomitable Trishodadhi replied: O Shankara, I ask for absolutely nothing, but permission to continue my devotions. If therefore I must perforce select a boon, grant me as much time as I require, so as to continue, muttering on, till I abandon my assiduity of my own accord. So I left him, muttering diligently away, just as before, though I foresaw the end, and knew that he carried within him, unsuspected by himself, the seed of the fruit of his own undoing, which time would ripen, dooming him to undergo the punishment that lies in wait for all, who plunge, without due consideration, into enterprises above their strength.[²⁰] And so the boon I offered him was wasted, and the chance was thrown away. For had he only had knowledge of himself, it might have saved him after all, by ensuring him oblivion of the past. For his memory was his ruin, as the story will show thee, O Daughter of the Snow.

And he in the meantime muttered on unflaggingly, wholly intent on nothing else, till at length the mound of his accumulated merit began to rival in dimension yonder hill, whose top the evening sun is now touching with the colour of affection, as if loth to leave it to be swallowed by the dark.

III

And then at last one day it happened, that Mátali arrived in Indra's palace, having returned to heaven from a visit to the earth. And as soon as he entered, he exclaimed: O punisher of Páka,[²¹] and the rest, what are you all about? Are you asleep, or have you actually abandoned all care whether of your own pre-eminence or the established order of the world? For away below on earth, there is an old Brahman, in a deserted cemetery in the forest of the Windhya hills, who by his interminable muttering continued through the centuries has accumulated so gigantic a heap of merit,[²²] that it threatens destruction to the three worlds. And now, unless something is done very speedily to stop him, and reduce it, this merit of his, beyond a doubt, will disturb the equilibrium of the universe, and wreck the established order of the worlds, and hurl you from your thrones.

And hearing him, Indra said: There is no difficulty in this. I will go myself, and bribe him to discontinue his proceedings. And he went down himself accordingly to earth, to examine and investigate that Brahman, and see what could be done. And after considering him awhile, and admiring his extraordinary obstinacy, he set to work to tempt him, and induce him, by offering bribes of various descriptions, to desist. And he offered him accordingly mountains of gold, and oceans of jewels, and everlasting youth, and many kinds of magic power, and finally he racked his brains, to find something or other that would move that obdurate Trishodadhi, and draw him from his vow. But in vain. For Trishodadhi paid no more attention to his offers and himself, than the moon does to the barking of a dog; continuing to mutter, all the time he spoke, just as if he was not there.

So finding all his efforts vain, after a while, that baffled lover of Ahalyá[²³] returned to heaven. And summoning the gods, he laid the case before them, and requested their advice. And after deliberation, they determined to seduce him by sending down a heavenly nymph, saying to themselves: Did not Menaká, and Tilottamá, and others of their kind, prove too strong for the asceticism of even mighty sages, so that their merit melted, like a lump of snow, in the flame of their desire, and their self-control vanished like stubble in a forest conflagration? Nay, did not even Brahma assume his name,[²⁴] becoming four-faced, in order to gratify his intolerable thirst to behold the beauty of Tilottamá performing a pradakshina around him, though he would not turn his head? Therefore it is not to be doubted that in this case also, the irresistible amber of feminine attraction will prove its power, and draw this grass in the form of a Brahman any way it will, snapping like thread the resolution which would chain him to his muttering, as soon as it is seen.

And accordingly they drew up before them in a row the chorus of Indra's heavenly dancers. And they chose out of them all that Apsaras who seemed to them the least easily to be resisted, by reason of her rounded arms and dainty ankles, and sent her down to earth with suitable instructions, to seduce that Brahman from his muttering as quickly as she could. But she, to her amazement, found on her arrival, that, do what she might, she could not even so much as succeed in inducing him to look at her sideways even for a moment. So, after a while, she left him, and flew back to heaven in a pet. And they sent instead of her another, who presently returned, having found herself as ineffectual as the first. And they tried again, and sent, one after another, the whole of Indra's chorus, pelting as it were that stony-hearted old ascetic with a very shower of celestial flowers, and gaining the very opposite of the end at which they aimed. For inasmuch as he never ceased muttering even for a moment, all their efforts to corrupt him and reduce his stock of merit only added to its heap, making its mountainous proportions more formidable than before.

And finally Indra exclaimed in despair: We are conquered by this awatár of obstinacy in the form of an ascetic, on whose rock the waves of this very sea of beauty beat in vain. And now there is no refuge for us but in the sole of the foot of the Burner[²⁵] of the Bodiless God. For he alone is stronger than Love, whose power seems to fail us in this pinch, rendered nugatory by the intractable composition of this exasperating mutterer. And if even he can devise no remedy for this disease, it is incurable; and then will this incorruptible old devotee have us all at his mercy,[²⁶] and bring heaven to its knees, and turn, if he pleases, the three worlds upside down.

And then, led by Indra, they came altogether in a body to me; and placing the difficulty before me, they waited with anxiety to hear what I should say. And I looked there and then into the future, and saw in its dark mirror, like a picture, the ruin of that old ambitious Brahman, and the means by which it was destined to be accomplished. And after a while, I said slowly: All diseases are not able to be remedied by the same medicine, and notwithstanding the omnipotence of feminine attraction, this is a case wherein heavenly nymphs are impotent, and utterly without avail. For all these heavenly nymphs do nothing but dance and sing and attitudinise and ogle, imagining that as in the case of Menaká Tilottamá, Rambhá, and the rest, they have only to show themselves to gain at once their end, trusting only to the body and its beauty, and very shallow coquetry and artifices to sharpen the edge of its effect, such as wind that stirs their clothing, or water that causes it to cling to the outline of their limbs and reveal, as if by accident, the thing that it pretends and is intended to conceal, and other such devices. But this Trishodadhi is a fish that, as I perceive, will not easily be caught by the bait of mere meretricious beauty, and in his case, the hook must be hidden in a lure of quite another kind. But there is a Daitya, named Aparapaksha,[²⁷] living at the very bottom of the sea, who has a hundred daughters. And were beauty the necessary weapon in this instance, any one of them would serve the turn, since all of them have bodies formed as it were of ocean-foam, with lips of coral, and eyes like pools, and hair longer than themselves, and voices like the echo of the waves; and only lately I heard them singing all together as I passed, on an island shore, and was myself all but bewitched, so that unawares I paused, hanging in the air to listen, waylaid as it were by the magic and the spell of that melancholy sound, forgetting my journey for the sake of their refrain. But now, since something more is necessary, you must abandon all the others, and betake you to the youngest of them all, who is rightly named Kalánidhi, though she is the ugliest and cleverest woman in the three worlds, for she is a very ocean of craft and trickery and guile,[²⁸] and very knavish in disposition, as full of deception and caprice as the element in which she lives. And if you can get her to assist you, I do not doubt you will succeed. And perhaps, if you tell her that this is a matter in which all the heavenly nymphs have failed, she will help you out of spite; for she is very jealous of them all, and this is a glorious opportunity for her to show herself able to accomplish a thing which has baffled the ingenuity and beauty of everybody else. But certainly, if she either cannot or will not overcome this obstacle, I think that even the elephant-headed Lord of Obstacles himself would fail. For though beauty is a power stronger than any other, it may nevertheless sometimes be successfully resisted. But feminine ingenuity is a far more formidable antagonist, which no man has ever yet successfully encountered since the beginning of the world, since it is half protected by his own innumerable scruples in its favour, being utterly destitute of any sort of scruple of its own. And so, should Kalánidhi assist you, and fail after all, there is nothing to be done: and under the weight of this Brahman's mountain of accumulated merit, you must sink to the very bottom of the ocean of defeat, like an earth bereft of the tortoise to save it on its back.

IV

So then, led by the lover of Ahalyá, the gods went off in a body to the bottom of the sea, to look for Kalánidhi, in such a hurry that they even forgot to worship me. And they found her father's residence, but not himself, for he happened to be away from home. And roaming here and there among his hundred daughters, all at once they came upon Kalánidhi, lying dreaming, curled in a bed formed by her own hair, in a giant oyster shell. And very suitable indeed seemed that shell to be her cradle, for her bosom resembled an enormous double pearl, not dead but living, keeping time slowly to the echo of the sea. And her body, that resembled a foaming wave, was hung all over with gems, picked up at random from the ocean floor, and her lips resembled sprigs that had fallen from the coral tree whose branches spread above her head in and out of the green water that moved her weedy tresses quietly to and fro. And as she opened her eyes and looked towards them, Indra said within himself: Maheshwara was right, and she is hideous, for all her beauty; for her eyes are like sea caves, out of which other eyes like those of an ajagara seem to freeze you with their chill, and the smile on her thin lips resembles the sinister and silent laughter of a skull.

So as they came towards her, Kalánidhi gazed at them sleepily in wonder, and murmured softly to herself: What in the world can the gods want, so badly, as to bring them here, all together in a lump? For these must be the gods, since their eyelids do not wink. Something must surely have gone amiss in heaven, and beyond a doubt, sore indeed must be the need that drives them, for instead of sending Mátali, they have actually come themselves. And now it is very fortunate that my father is away. For he is far too simple[²⁹] to drive a bargain with the gods, or anybody else, and would make no use of his opportunity.

And then she arose politely, and listened in silence, while Indra told her the whole story. And when he ended, she looked at him for a while ironically, and then she said: For centuries have we lived here, my father and my sisters and myself, and yet not even one of the gods ever visited us before. What honour, for a daughter of the Daityas! But what could be the services of such a thing as me, where even heavenly maidens fail? Moreover, I do not like cemeteries, seeing that every cemetery is the home of mouldering and evil-smelling bones and skulls, and flesh-eating Rákshasas and Wetálas and ghosts. But inasmuch as you have come here, not as friends or guests, but as merchants seeking to engage me in an enterprise for your own advantage, this is after all a matter on a mere commercial footing. And what then is to be the price of my assistance, and if I am successful, what is to be my appropriate reward?

Then said Maghawan:[³⁰] I will give thee a crore of elephants, black as ink, with golden tusks; or if thou wilt, raiment woven out of the beams of the rising or the setting sun, or crystal vats of camphor strained from the midnight moon, or endless strings of jewels, or anything thou wilt. Then said Kalánidhi: What is the use of elephants, even black as ink with golden tusks, at the very bottom of the sea? And as for jewels, the sea floor is their very home, and I find them strewn at my very feet. And as for clothing, what do I want but my own hair? Then said Indra: Choose, then, for thyself, what I shall give thee. And Kalánidhi smiled. And she said: What if I were to require of thee a cushion, stuffed with the down that grows on the breast of Brahma's swan, or a fan, to cool me, made of the feathers of Saraswati's peacock's tail? And Indra said: Both shall be thine, and the bargain is complete. Then said Kalánidhi: Nay, there is no hurry. For what if I asked for a crore of crystal jars, filled to the very brim with amrita, which, never having tasted, I am curious to taste? And Indra said: That also shall be thine, and so the bargain is complete. Then said Kalánidhi: Nay, for there might still be something lacking. What if I should say, that I long for a single blossom of Wishnu's párijáta tree? For when I am in the cemetery, how should I endure to stay, even for a single moment, without its odour as an antidote to the reek of burning bodies and the stench of dying pyres? And Indra said: For that also I will answer, and now the bargain is complete. Then said Kalánidhi: Nay, be not hasty, in a matter of such importance. And now that I come to think of it, this Brahman must be very old and ugly, and exceedingly repulsive by reason of his long austerity. And what if I should ask thee for a lamp, that I might examine him from a distance, made of a single splinter chipped from Wishnu's kaustubha, and filled not with oil, but the ooze of Shiwa's moon, squeezed from the moonstones hanging on the trellises in Alaká, so that setting it in imitation of Maheshwara, like a diadem in my hair, I might be suitably equipped for reconnoitring your Brahman, in that gloomy home of ghosts? And Indra said: I will guarantee it thine, and the bargain is complete.

And then, Kalánidhi looked craftily at the eager god, out of the very corner of her eye. And all at once she began to laugh, and she exclaimed: Ha! lover of Ahalyá, thy need must surely be extreme, seeing that thou art as it seems ready to strip the very deities of their necessary attributes, to lure me to thy task. But now, learn that I did but play with thee and thy anxiety, to measure the degree of thy extremity; nor do I stand in need of any of those things that I have mentioned, nor of anything at all. For my assistance will be determined, not by bribes, but my own good pleasure and caprice. And it may be I will go and try my skill against this old malignant mutterer, merely because I choose, and for no reward at all, and to show that I can be of use, when all the nymphs of heaven are more worthless than a straw. But in the meantime something more is necessary, without which I cannot even tell whether there is anything whatever to be done at all, even by myself. Tell me, then, the whole story of this Brahman, beginning from his very birth, omitting absolutely nothing; so that I may first of all discover, what is the strength or weakness of this enemy, whom thou wouldst have me engage and overthrow.

And Indra told her as she asked, beginning from the beginning, everything there was to know. And when he ended, Kalánidhi remained a while, buried in meditation. And suddenly she laughed, and said: O Maghawan, thy nymphs are surely very stupid, resembling beautiful bodies that are destitute of souls. Is it really possible that with such weapons in their hands, they could not so much as make the shadow of an impression on this Brahman? Come now, we will go together, for I shall need thee to assist me, and overthrow this mutterer, together with the mountain of his merit, by the favour of the Elephant-headed deity; for I think, that there will be very little difficulty in diverting his attention from his penance, after all: so little, that as I will show thee by experiment, it is not I that will upset him, but, aided by me, he will simply overturn himself. And when I have succeeded, I will ask thee for absolutely nothing in return; but thou shall cause me to be worshipped by all the nymphs in heaven in a body, performing a pradakshina around me in due form.

And Indra said within himself: Well said the Moony-crested, that jealousy alone would induce her to comply. And he exclaimed aloud, in an ecstasy of delight: O daughter of Aparapaksha, do but succeed in corrupting this ascetic, and I vow to thee, I will myself perform a pradakshina about thee, at the head of all my nymphs!

A FETTER OF THE SOUL

 
            Up my longing eyes I tossed                
Heaven to seek me in the skies:            
Then I found them, and was lost                
Gazing down, in other eyes.
But was it Heaven they found, or was it Hell?
Lord of the Moony Tire, I cannot tell.
 

RUDRA

A FETTER OF THE SOUL

I

Now in the meanwhile, Trishodadhi remained in that cemetery, in a posture of devotion. And as the interminable pattering of rain, drop after drop, fills up a lake, so did his everlasting muttering keep adding grain by grain to the mountain of his merit, till gazing at it, even Meru began to shudder for his own pre-eminence. And on he laboured diligently, pausing every now and then only when necessity compelled him to repair his rosary[³¹] of skulls, some of which from time to time wore out and fell to pieces, colliding with one another as he told them each in turn in the uninterrupted exercise of his devotions, till at length he sat surrounded by a very hill of bones, that resembled his own accumulated merit in another form. And sometimes, as he looked at them, he murmured to himself: Now, as it seems, the termination of my penance is approaching, and the beginning is drawing to an end, and very soon, I shall have amassed a sufficient stock of merit to allow me to commence operations against the citadel of heaven, whose inhabitants are now at length beginning, not without a cause, to take fright at my proceedings, if I may form an opinion by their own. For not only did Indra come hither in person, and endeavour unsuccessfully to turn me from my purpose by offering me every kind of bribe, but latterly I have noticed heavenly maidens, coming, one by one, like a stream of stars falling from the sky, into this dismal earthly burning-ground, seeking to seduce me by their charms. But let them come, even all together; they shall find my resolution proof, and add against their will to the virtue they seek to undermine. Aye, my sublime determination is a rock, against which the sea of feminine cajolery shall hurl itself in vain.

So as he spoke, he struck violently one of his skulls against another, and it broke, and escaping from the string, rolled away out of his hand. And he raised his head, and cast a glance around him, with the object of discovering another to replace it. And as he did so, he started, and exclaimed within himself: Ha! just as I anticipated, there is as it seems yet another of these snares in the form of women, coming to entice me by the bait of her lascivious beauty, and hoping, more successful than her sisters, to roll my resolution, like a wheel, out of its deep and self-determined rut. But now, I will not even look at her at all. And very soon, growing like all her predecessors weary of the vain endeavour to attract my notice and distract my concentration, she will give it up of her own accord, and go back to her employers in disgust. And he stooped accordingly close over his beads, and muttered on, with his head bent towards the ground, and his eyes fixed on the broken skull within his hand, waiting to repair the injury till she should go away.

But in the meanwhile Kalánidhi, for she it was, having arrived at the cemetery, and exploring it, discovered Trishodadhi at his devotions, came, as he had perceived, close up to him, and standing just beside him, began to examine him attentively, like a general considering a fortress, in order to determine the proper method of attack. And after a while, she said softly to herself: Ha! very miserable indeed is this old skeleton of a Brahman, who, as he sits muttering, looks exactly like a number of the bones by which he is surrounded, that have somehow or other joined themselves together, and become tenanted by a passing disembodied soul. And little do I relish, as I look at him, the business I have in hand. But if I now abandon it, I shall become a laughing-stock, and they will think that I found myself unable to perform what I had promised, failing, like those miserable boobies, the heavenly nymphs, to keep my word. Moreover, the great in soul never dream of abandoning an enterprise, once they have begun it, till they have crowned it with success. And now, therefore, very soon it will be seen, which of us two, this loathsome old ascetic, or myself, will have to confess himself defeated, and give up his endeavour unachieved, like a bridge begun to span a great river that never reaches the farther shore. And she stopped to examine him, and said again: Doubtless, for all his busy muttering, he has long ago become aware of my presence, and as his attitude declares, is nerving himself for opposition and desperate resistance, expecting me to assault him point-blank, like all those very silly nymphs, by attitudinising, and giving him glimpses of my beauty, and practising other such tricks of coquetry before him. And beyond a doubt, he is flattering himself beforehand on his power of self-control, and already triumphing at the prospect of my ignominious defeat. But he will find himself very much mistaken, and unless I deceive myself, he will fall straight into the trap that I have set for him, never so much as suspecting it to be a trap at all, just because I shall set it where he is not looking for a snare. And to begin with, we shall see, whether even his curiosity will be proof. For I will take care to irritate and excite it, by doing all behind his back, so that he will not even be able to see anything at all, except by expressly turning round his head, which I imagine he will do, before very long. And he shall be attacked, not as he anticipates, but by that very avenue along which he least looks for danger, and one which, for all that, is the weakest and least guarded, and the best and the straightest way by which to reach and penetrate his soul – his ears. For sight can be assaulted only by what is present; but the ears are a passage by which I shall steal like a snake into the past, and pierce his very heart.

II

So, then, as that suspicious yet unsuspicious old Brahman sat waiting, with his face turned towards the east, expecting every moment the assault of some temptation in the form of a sudden vision of intoxicating female beauty, time wore away, little by little, and hour succeeded hour, and he saw absolutely nothing. And the day slowly died, and the sun travelled onwards over his head, till his shadow crept silently from behind him and began to stretch out gradually longer and longer before his eyes. And as the sun set, the moon rose, and that cemetery became as it were a battleground in which the silver and the golden light engaged, and struggled silently for mastery; while night, their common enemy, took as it were advantage of their quarrel to bring up a host of shadows that threatened to destroy them both. And in the stillness of that epiphany of dusk, he listened, and heard absolutely nothing, but the beating of his own heart. And after a while, he said to himself: All is quiet in the forest: and now, as I thought, this last ineffectual temptress has taken herself off, having discovered the futility of her efforts to inveigle me, like all the rest before.

And at that very moment, he heard at a distance among the forest trees the noise of breaking branches, and the crashing of twigs and leaves. And he listened again, and said: Some large animal is forcing, as it seems, a way through the denseness of the wood and coming gradually nearer. And he waited, and after a while, all at once there entered the cemetery from out of the wall of trees a tall royal elephant, with great yellow tusks that almost reached the ground. And he went slowly and wearily, for he seemed very old, and his skin hung in folds about him, and his body was all muddy, and crusted with the slime collected from the forest pools in which he wallowed, dried on him by the sun. And he came towards Trishodadhi, and passed him, paying absolutely no regard to him at all, and went wandering about here and there in the moonlight, as if he were looking in the cemetery for something that he could not find. And all at once, he stopped, close beside a pippala[³²] tree, and spoke with a human voice, and said aloud in deep tones: O pippala, art thou at last the pippala I am looking for, or only a common tree?

And as Trishodadhi heard him, stupor came upon him, and he said to himself in amazement: Ha! what is this wonder, that an elephant should speak with an intelligible voice, and that I should understand him? And then, all at once, he exclaimed, in an ecstasy of delight: Ha! I understand. I can understand the language of the beasts. Now, beyond a doubt, this is a fruit of the tree of my asceticism, whose approaching term is the cause of my comprehension of his words. And his heart swelled with vanity and triumph, at the thought of his own forthcoming perfections. And as he listened eagerly for more, hardly crediting his own ears, which stood as it were on tiptoe with the intensity of their curiosity, all at once there came out of that pippala tree a voice. And it said, softly, like a sigh: O king of elephants, and art thou then the elephant at last, appointed me to meet?

And instantly, the elephant trumpeted with joy. And he exclaimed: O long-expected pippala, I could dance like a very peacock at the sight of thee! Can it be, and have I found thee? Then listen, without wasting any time, while I tell thee my story, and end it, and so at last free myself from the curse, and this hateful body of an elephant, in which I have been imprisoned for a yuga.

Then said the pippala: O elephant, thy voice is very loud. Dost thou not see that old ascetic, sitting plunged in meditation, surrounded by a heap of bones, whose soul is doubtless absent far away, on some celestial errand? Know, that I love him, for year by year I have watched him sitting by me as I grew, almost as motionless as I myself: and I will not have his soul disturbed. Moreover, if thy tones disturb him, he will probably awake in wrath, and lay on thee another curse. Come round me, therefore, to my other side, and let my trunk conceal thee, and screen thy harsh voice; and do thou speak very low. And the elephant obeyed, doing as the pippala said. But Trishodadhi, when he heard it, almost abandoned the body in vexation. And he said within himself: Out upon this pippala, and her affection for myself! Now, very probably, I shall not hear. And he strained his ears to catch, if possible, the matter of their conversation, utterly forgetting to mutter, for the time.