{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48909/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48909","id":"gutenberg_48909","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48909","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Fantasy fiction"],"text":"_Ah! wouldst thou then redream the love of yore?\n    Bind on thy heart the wings of Memory,\n  And hie thee to an unforgotten shore\n                      Across the sea._\n\n  _O hie thee to the land, where, constant still,\n    While golden distance hid the years to be,\n  We watched the suns go down behind the hill\n                      Across the sea._\n\n  _Now has our own Affection sunk to rest;\n    Set is the Sun of love for thee and me,\n  And rows of Clouds weep in the wild red West\n                      Across the sea._\n\n                                      BH\u00c1RGAWA\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Frontispiece]\n\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nASHES OF A GOD\n\n[Illustration: Hindu script]\n\nTRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT\n\nBY\n\nF. W. BAIN\n\n\n\n  _Never descrying an End in his Infinite\n    Beats as he may little Bird in the Blue._\n                                      W\u00c1MAN\n\n\n\nWITH A FRONTISPIECE\n\n\n\n  METHUEN & CO. LTD.\n  36 ESSEX STREET W.C.\n  LONDON\n\n\n\n\n_First Published in 1911_\n\n\n\n\n  DEDICATED\n  to\n  One that is taken\n  and Two that are left\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThat mischief-making deity, the god of Love, who delights in getting\nothers into trouble, got himself, once upon a time, if we may trust the\npoets, into trouble of no ordinary kind.  For seeing, as he thought,\nhis opportunity, he attempted to inflame Maheshwara himself with\npassion for the virgin Daughter of the Snow, who was standing shyly\njust in front of him, like an incarnation of irresistible seduction,\nraised to the highest power by the contrast between her coarse bark\ngarments and the perfect beauty of the figure they enclosed.  And then\nit was that the biter was bit, and Love himself was suddenly reduced to\nashes for his impudence by a pulverising glance from the angry\nMaheshwara's terrible third eye, that opened for an instant, for\nunhappy Love's discomfiture, like the door of a blast-furnace upon a\nmoth.  And the pale young Moon looked out upon it all, from the hair of\nthe angry god; the pale new Moon, that very Digit, who gives the title\nto our story, being therein described as so superlatively lovely, as to\nbe capable of causing the very god of Love to rise from his own ashes.\n\nFor it is to be remembered that Love's ashes are no common ashes: they\nhave in them something of the phoenix; they are always ready to revive.\nThe beautiful lament of Rati (Love's wife), over the ashes of her\nhusband (overheard by K\u00e1lid\u00e1s), was really, had she only known,\nsuperfluous.  He was sure to come to life again.  Or, to speak plain\nEnglish, a great passion is immortal: its very ashes are never\nabsolutely dead.  Breathe close upon them, and, as one of our own poets\nhas said, it may be flame will leap.  And this is the solid reason why\nthe old Hindoo sages denoted both Love and Recollection by one and the\nsame word.  Memory, remembrance, regret, reminiscence;--all these are\nclearly closely akin, near relatives of Love.  What is indifferent to\nus we soon forget; but we remember what we love, and the longer, in\nproportion as we love it more.  And thus it comes about, that the most\nformidable obstacle to the would-be sage, the candidate for honours, as\nwe might call him, in renunciation of the world, is his own\nrecollection, his memory of the past.  The object of the sage,\naccording to the old Hindoo doctrine, is to become absolute master of\nhimself (_jit\u00e1tm\u00e1_), to render himself completely superior, or rather\nindifferent, to the \"attachment\" of all mundane clogs.  The ordinary\nmortal is a prisoner, tied, bound in bondage, or _attached_ (_sakta_),\nto and by the objects of delusion and sense.  Whoever aims at\nemancipation must first, by a long and strenuous course of penance and\nausterity, sever these attachments, till even though he still remains\namong them, they run off him like water from a duck; and he goes on\nliving, according to the classic formula, like a wheel that continues\nto revolve when the original impetus has ceased, or like a branch that\ngoes on swaying after the departure of the bird.  He is awake, as\nopposed to those who still remain blinded by illusion; he is _free_, as\ncontrasted with the bound; his soul is unattached.  But now, there is\none thing, from which it may very well be doubted, whether even any\nsage, no matter what his elevation, was ever wholly free--regret.  The\nstrongest soul possesses the most powerful recollection, and unless\nmadness intervene, to cut the thread by obliterating memory, there are\nthings that refuse to be forgotten.  And where recollection is, there\nis sure to be were it but a vestige of regret; for memory is love.  And\nwhat, then, is it, that is of all things most peculiarly the object of\nregret; that laughs at all efforts to reduce it to oblivion and\nnonentity; that refuses to be driven into the _oubliettes_ of any soul?\nNeedless to say, a woman.  And therefore it is, that she is regarded,\nin Oriental mysticism, as beyond all other things the enemy of\nemancipation; the clog _par excellence_; the fetter of the soul; the\neverlastingly regretted, the unforgettable and unforgotten; the\nirreducible residuum; the inextinguishable spark among the ashes of the\npast.  Was it not Swift, among whose papers, after his death, was found\na packet, labelled in his own handwriting: _Only a woman's hair_?  And\ndid not Coriolanus find in this the thing to thwart him, the obstacle\nthat stood between his resolution and the overthrow of Rome?  But we\nneed not go to history or fiction to prove a thing endorsed by the\nexperience of almost every man and woman since the beginning of the\nworld.  Everybody knows, what one has said, that youth is a blunder:\nmanhood a struggle: old age a regret.  Death is preceded by a sigh; did\never anybody die, who had absolutely nothing to regret?  And regret, in\nthe language of the old Hindoos, is nothing but the ashes of dead love,\nnot utterly extinct; and therefore, since all love is more or less\ndivine, _the ashes of a god_.\n\n\nThe ethical value of India's beautiful mythology is not sufficiently\nappreciated in Europe, whose people seem to think that virtue was\ndiscovered by themselves, and have learned from Xenophanes and Plato,\nS. Paul, S. Augustine, and other shallow politicians to deny all\nmorality to polytheism,[1] condemning the whole of antiquity for the\nvices of the old metropolis of Rome, which itself was no worse than\nmany modern cities.  And India is a survival from antiquity.  But it is\nnot, as some suppose, a sink of immorality; nor a barbarous _tabula\nrasa_, as others seem to think, with everything to learn in ethics, on\nwhich anything may be written that you please.  The arrogance of\nignorance is the cause of these misunderstandings.  The Hindoos have a\nfable that the _chakora_, a legendary partridge, subsists on the beams\nof the moon: and the bird is no bad emblem of themselves.  In the ruin\nof all their ancient glories, the one thing that remains to them is the\nthesaurus of religion and mythology preserved, like pal\u00e6ozoic flies in\namber, in the crystal of their ancient tongue, whose presiding genius\nis the moon.  For with them it is not as with us.  Here, in the young\nnations of the West, literature and religion are not one thing, but\ntwo, with essences and origins altogether different and distinct,\nthough now and then, a Milton or a Dante may, by welding them together,\nproduce something more analogous to Indian poetry.  For in India\nreligion and literature are inseparable: they look back not to Greece\non the one hand and Jud\u00e6a on the other, but to a sacred compound of the\ntwo, all the nearer because it is their very own, whereas to us both\nGreece and Jud\u00e6a are foreign, not only the places but the tongues, and\nlikely in the immediate future to become still stranger than they are.\nThis is why nobody can possibly understand anything of India who is\nignorant of Sanskrit, which is the key to India, and from which all the\nmodern local idioms, be they Aryan or not, borrow almost everything\nliterary, religious, or philosophical that they contain.[2]  And this\nis just where all the missionaries stumble.  Few or none of them\nrealise what it is they have against them: an obstacle which even\nGanesha could hardly overcome.  You must obliterate the languages of\nIndia, ancient and modern, before you can alter its religion.  It will\nnot be easy, for when you have succeeded in consigning to oblivion both\nSanskrit and P\u00e1l\u00ed, which seems every day less probable, you will still\nhave to reckon with the vernaculars, with Tulsi Das and Tukar\u00e1m, Kabir,\nand a score of other Bibles of the Hindoo peoples, not to mention the\nlegion of their legends, stories, proverbs, festivals, and songs.  Fed,\nlike his own _chakora_, upon these, the Hindoo of good caste finds it\nimpossible to reconcile his traditional conception of saintliness,\nalways ascetic, and based on renunciation, with the spectacle of\ncomfortable missionaries, admirably housed, riding good horses and\npossessing coquettish wives whose ample wardrobes savour not of\nsanctity but of Paris.  Buddha, the missionary _par excellence_, was no\nlow-caste man, making a living out of his profession, but an aristocrat\nwho turned his back upon the world; and a dozen English dukes or earls\ncoming out to India to practise voluntary asceticism would do more to\nconvince the Hindoos of Christian religion and sincerity than any\nnumber of missionary conferences, in which the real obstacle to\nmissionary effort, the fact, well known to the Hindoo, that he is\ninvited to accede to a religion abandoned by the intelligence of\nEurope, is scrupulously hidden out of sight.  From every line of his\nold literature the Hindoo learns the essence of religion better than\nany missionary can teach him.  It is devotion: of a woman, to her\nhusband; of a man, to his duty, his _dharma_; his ancestors, his\nfamily, his mother-tongue.  Nothing ever will persuade a sane Hindoo of\nreputable family to belong to a religion which bids him, by injunction,\nsanction, or example, to abandon his ancestors, desert his family, eat\nbeef, drink spirits, and apply to the divorce court.  So it is that we\nsee in India at the present day the very same phenomenon that was\nexhibited in the agony of the ancient world, when Christianity was an\nasylum for the outcaste and the criminal and the pariah, a refuge for\nthe destitute, like Romulean Rome in Livy's legend.\n\nThis old Sanskrit language, then, in which dwells the spirit of a\nclassic paganism not less beautiful, and holier than Hellas,\npre-Christian, idolatrous,[3] preserves among other things opposed to\nWestern modernism an element of charm, which in Europe too much\nknowledge is destroying: the element of distance, of the unknown, of\nthat which is outside the map, beyond, afar.  For us, the time is gone,\nwhen, as Plutarch says, geographers filled up the emptinesses beyond\nthe limits known with bogs or deserts or wild beasts.  But Hindoo\nstories move in an enchanted land, a thing to dream over like \"the\nworld as known to Homer,\" or the scraps of mythological geography in\nPindar's Odes, when, for example, Rhodes was not an island, but lay\nlurking, before the gods divided earth, in the briny hollows of the\nsea.[4]  And as we pore on it, we feel ready to murmur with Voltaire,\nthat error has its worth as well as truth.  Did the discovery of\nAmerica make up for the lost mystery that brooded like the spirit over\nthe waters of the dim Atlantic, when even Hibernia was half a myth,\n_ultra quam ad occasum nulla invenitur habitabilis terra, nisi miranda\nloca qu\u00e6 vidit S. Brandanus in Oceano_?[5]  The old literature of\nIndia, its epics and _itihases_, are the very home of mythical\ngeography, of lotus lands, white islands, seas of milk, and distant\nhills behind which, far beyond the sea, the suns go down to die, which\nnever even Sindbad saw.  It is all one gigantic dream, fairy tale\nreduced to a kind of system, where wild imagination is reality, and the\ncommonplace is not.  Teach the Hindoo the earth goes round the sun; it\nmay be so: but in his heart there echoes some scrap of ancient poetry,\nwhere every sun descends to rest behind the western hill.  Would you\nblame him for choosing rather to err with K\u00e1lid\u00e1s and Walmiki, than go\nright with some elementary manual of geography?  For him, the dream is\nthe reality; and the spell is in the language in which these things are\nwritten: who does not know the language cannot understand the spell.\nYour Mill[6] and your Macaulay argue on these matters like blind men\nreasoning on colour.  Only that grows never old, which never lived.\nYou cannot kill a dream, because it is already dead.\n\n\nDown in the west of England, on the very edge of the sea, I know a\nhill, which had it been in India, pagan India, would have been sacred\nlong ago to the Daughter of the Snow; so exactly does its giant sweep\nof smooth green turf resemble the outline of a colossal woman's breast.\nAnd there on a yellow evening, I lay and mused.  And I said to my own\nsoul: This is not quite the golden glow of my Indian Eve, for it is\njust a little chilly; and yet, yonder is a hill worthy to be haunted by\nP\u00e1rwati herself.  Only the flowers would all be strange to her; for\ncertainly she would not recognise these primroses and buttercups, this\ngorse.  And yet, some things might deceive her; for surely she would\ntake Lundy Island for the very western mountain, behind which at this\nvery moment the sun is going down.\n\nAnd as I pondered on her and her husband, all at once I exclaimed: O\nWearer of the Moony Tire, who art thyself the Past, the Present, and\nthe Future, didst thou for all thy knowledge of Time's secrets ever\ndream, that one day thy worshippers would all fall under the direction\nof this misty little island in a far-off northern sea?  Was it irony in\nthe Creator, who makes and ruins even worlds in sport, to subject thy\ndreaming millions to the Western men of business, less like them than\nany other people on the surface of the earth?  Had India's gods\ndeserted her, as once Jud\u00e6a's did, or wert thou buried in a thousand\nyears of Y\u00f3g, when the Moguls and Mar\u00e1thas, the Clives and the Dupleix\nwere fighting for the heavy crown glittering with barbaric pearl and\ngold?  And yet, what use in asking, since doubtless thou art far away\namong thy own Him\u00e1laya's still undiscovered snows.\n\nAnd as I spoke, I looked, and lo! there before me was the almost\nimperceptible Digit of the Moon, hanging low in the evening sky just\nover Lundy Island and the sea.  And instantly I exclaimed: Aha!\nMaheshwara, I was wrong, and I utterly forgot thy quality of universal\npresence, for sure I am that where thy Digit is, thou art thyself not\nfar away.  So then tell me, was it thy wish to punish thy devotees, or\nwas it by thy negligence they fell?  And what shall be the end?\n\nAnd as I gazed upon the Moon, I heard the laughter of the deity in the\nthunder of the waves.  And presently he said: Foolish Western, there\nare many other things thou hast forgotten, as well as my ubiquity.\nDost thou not remember what one of thy own philosophers has said:\n[Greek: The\u00f2s ana\u00edtios, ait\u00eda d helom\u00e9nou]?  Or hast thou actually\nforgotten the wisdom of all my own old Hindoo sages, that thou wouldst\nsaddle the responsibility for the ripening of the fruit of works, on\nme?  As my people's works have been, so is their condition: they are\nbut gathering the fruit of the tree of their own wrong-doing in a\nprevious existence.  And the crimes of a former birth dog them like\ndeath, and lie on them like a shadow: they only have themselves to\nblame, and now there is no help for it, but in themselves.  And they\nmust work out their own emancipation, not by petulance and violence,\nbut by penance and austerity.\n\nAnd I listened in silence to the deity, and when he finished, I looked\nup.  And after a while, I said to myself: Now, surely, that crystal\nmoon is the diadem of deity; and the voice of God is the murmur of the\nsea.\n\n_Christmas, 1910._\n\n\n\n[1] The old argument: there is immorality in the stones of the gods;\n_ergo_, the men must be the same, is a monotheist calumny.  Books like\nKingsley's _Roman and Teuton_, where all the vice is imputed to the\nRoman, and all the virtue to the Teuton, are merely an inversion of the\nfact.  \"The truth is,\" says Professor Lewis Campbell on \u00c6schylus, \"that\nwhile religious custom lay upon the Greeks with a weight almost as deep\nas life, the changing clouds of mythology rested lightly on their\nminds, and were in their very nature, to some extent, the sport of\nfancy and imagination.\"  This is equally true of the Hindoos.\n\n[2] The _dictum_ of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, whose India is merely a\nmisrepresented Anglo-India, that _there ain't no Ten Commandments_\nthere, is superficially a truism, and essentially a foolish libel.  No\nman has done more to caricature and misinterpret India, in the\ninterests of military vulgarity, than this popular writer, to whom\nHindoo India is a book with seven seals.\n\n[3] The observations of Mr. Theophilus G. Pinches, on the means by\nwhich, in ancient Babylon, \"an enlightened monotheism and the grossest\npolytheism could, and did, exist side by side,\" apply accurately to\nIndia.  (_The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records of\nAssyria and Babylonia_, p. 10.)\n\n[4] Olymp. vii.\n\n[5] _Apud Bocharti Phaleg_. p. 184.\n\n[6] James Mill's criticism of the Indian ethic is a criminal offence, a\nsin against literature.  The coryph\u00e6us of the Inductive Philosophy,\ndogmatising on a language of which he could not even read a single word!\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nA Mountain of Merit\n\nA Fetter of the Soul\n\nThe Waves of Time\n\n\n\n\nA MOUNTAIN OF MERIT\n\n\n\n\n  _Where the Snows that fall on the Icy Wall\n    Leave all the tall peaks bare,\n  I heard the Mountain Spirits call\n    That travel upon the air._\n                              CHAITYA\n\n\n\n\nA MOUNTAIN OF MERIT\n\nINVOCATION\n\n_Sinking in the waves of time, O skull-adorned demolisher of Daksha,[1]\nwe cling to the worship of the beauty of thy moony tire, whose silver\nlustre steals like a woman of good family fearfully through the shadows\nof the forest of thy hair, to fall at last like a blue and ashy\nbenediction upon the mountain-backs of the three great worlds, lying\nprostrate in a s\u00e1sht\u00e1nga[2] devotion at thy feet._\n\n\n\nI\n\nFar away in the northern quarter, half-hidden in Him\u00e1laya's shaggy\nsides, there lies a holy bathing-place and favoured haunt of Hara,\nwhere Gang\u00e1 leaps down through a rocky chasm in the Lord of Hills, and\nrushes out into the plain, white as it were with foamy laughter at the\nthought of her coming union with Yamun\u00e1 and the sea.  And there one\nevening long ago it happened, that two Brahmans were engaged in a\ndispute upon the bank of that very sacred stream, having quarrelled on\na question of precedence.  And long they wrangled idly, each claiming a\nsuperiority in status which neither would allow.  And finally one said:\nEnough of this absurdity!  Who but a blind man argues as to the shining\nof the sun at noon?  Or how can thy family contend in excellence with\nmine, which is in the _gotra_ of Agastya?  Then said the other\nscornfully: Thou art the proof of thy own asseveration, and as I think,\nthe very Bal\u00e1khilyas[3] must have been the original progenitors of such\na pigmy as thyself.  And the other answered angrily: Better the pigmy\nbody of Agastya than a pigmy soul enclosed in the worthless bulk of\nsuch a _pashu_[4] as thyself.  And immediately his opponent ran upon\nhim, and gave him a kick.  And he exclaimed: Ha! dost thou call me\n_pashu_? then taste my hoof.  But as to thy Agastya, a fig for him!\nWhat is he to me, who am just about to earn emancipation by a series of\nextraordinary penances, worthy to extort the admiration of Pashupati[5]\nhimself?\n\nSo as those boobies wrangled, it happened, by the decree of destiny,\nthat that very Lord of Creatures animate and inanimate was passing in\nthe air, only just above them, as he roamed towards Kail\u00e0s with Gauri\nin his arms, on his way back from a visit to Ujjayini, one of his\nearthly homes, whose palaces seem to laugh at their rivals in the sky.\nAnd as he listened to the squabble, all at once he uttered a solitary\nshout of laughter.  And instantly, those two very foolish disputants\ntook to their heels, and fled away at full speed in opposite\ndirections, taking his laughter for a thunderbolt.  And seeing them go,\nthe Daughter of the Mountain said to her lord: Well might thy laughter\nbe aroused by the exceedingly contemptible behaviour of that pair of\nsilly Brahmans.  Then said Maheshwara: Nay, it was not that which\ncaused my laughter.  For these ridiculous mortals commonly dispute in\nprecisely this manner, making use of abuse, and even blows, instead of\nreasoning, blinded by vanity and arrogance and passion.  And if I were\nto laugh at every instance of the kind, I should never stop laughing,\nnight or day.  For there is no end to just such arguments as these.\nThen said P\u00e1rwati: At what then didst thou laugh?  And the\nmoony-crested god said slowly: I laughed, to think of the amazing\nself-ignorance of that big boasting Brahman.  For he is the very man,\nwho in one of his former incarnations so egregiously failed, in exactly\nsuch an effort of asceticism as that which he described himself now\njust about to undergo, though he has utterly forgotten all about it,\nand never even dreams that he is travelling fast, not towards\nemancipation, but away from it: since all his acts in recent births are\nnothing but so many steps downward into the abyss of reincarnation, out\nof which he will not find it so easy, again to reascend.  For when a\nsoul is on the downward path, nothing in the world is so difficult as\nto alter its direction into that of the ascent, or even to stop at all;\nseeing that every fresh error adds weight to its burden, and impetus to\nits speed.  And if he only knew it, this down-goer would be utterly\nappalled at the prospect of the innumerable myriads of years that lie\nbefore him, stretching away like a never-ending desert of waterless\nsand, through which he must absolutely pass, in birth after birth, each\nterminated by a death, before he will succeed in changing his tendency\nto darkness.  For the waves of the sea of works are over his head, and\nhe resembles a stone, sinking continuously down, down, in a bottomless\nand clammy slough of evil, created by himself.\n\nThen said P\u00e1rwati: And what then was this old endeavour, the very\nrecollection of whose contrast with his brag so moved thy laughter?\nAnd the god said: It is a long story, and travelling at this pace, if I\nbegin it, we shall arrive at Kail\u00e0s long before it ends.  But if, as it\nseems, I must absolutely tell thee all about it, I will regulate the\nspeed of our advance, so as to keep pace with the movement of the tale,\nordering matters so, as to arrive at Kail\u00e0s and the conclusion of the\ntale exactly at the same moment.  Moreover, it would be a shame to\nhurry.  For I love to watch the lustre of my moon, noiselessly stealing\nlike a thief into the shadowy gorges of thy father's huge valleys, and\nstripping from his sides that carpet of rich colour which the setting\nsun bestows upon them, to spread over them instead that cold and\nmelancholy pallor of her own, which resembles an atmosphere of the\ncamphor of death.\n\n\n\nII\n\nKnow then, O thou Snowy One, that long ago, in a former birth, this\nboaster was a Brahman, and his name was Trishodadhi,[6] and he was, by\nhereditary descent, the minister of a king, named Ruru.  And as it\nhappened, King Ruru was a spoiled child.  And then, being betrayed by\nhis queen in his youth, he fell into a violent hatred of all women,\nthat, strange to say! exhibited itself in the form of love.  For\nwishing as it were to wreak his vengeance on the whole sex for the\ncrime of one, he began like a mad bee to rove furiously from flower to\nflower, making love to every woman in the world that took his fancy,\nand then throwing her away as soon as won--taking all possible pains to\nobtain the love of each, only to flout her, the moment it was his.  And\nlike a deadly plague, he gradually corrupted the women of his kingdom,\nwho nearly all found him irresistible, not merely because he was a\nking, but still more because of his extraordinary beauty, being as he\nwas a good thing changed and converted into evil by the misconduct of\nhis wife.  And he was dreaded by the husbands and fathers of his\nkingdom, and above all by his minister, Trishodadhi.  For Trishodadhi\npossessed a wife much younger than himself, and recently married, named\nWatsatar\u00ed.[7]  And she was well named, resembling, in youth and beauty,\nthe horns of the new moon; and she hovered between the charm of the\nwoman and the child, as the moon does between the two incomparable\nmoments of delicate epiphany and round perfection.  And yet, unlike the\nmoon, she was always invisible to everybody, save only himself.  For\nhis natural jealousy, which was extreme, was accentuated by her\nextraordinary beauty, and his own age.  And fearing all the men in the\nworld, above all he feared the king, and passed his life perpetually\ntrembling lest Ruru should set eyes on her; and he kept her very\nscrupulously hidden, like a priceless pearl, from all eyes but his own.\nAnd though he doted on her, yet against his will he was obliged to\nleave her much alone, for all the burden of the state was thrown upon\nhis shoulders by the king, who utterly neglected all affairs, intent on\nnothing but pursuing his amours.  And being thus preoccupied,\nTrishodadhi had only his intervals of leisure for his wife.  And yet,\nall the while he was not near her, he was everlastingly tormented by\nhis jealousy and fear, which like busy painters drew him endless rows\nof pictures of his wife, surrounded in his absence by innumerable\nlovers, created out of nothing by his own imagination, and all, as it\nwere, but so many copies of the king; as if, like the slayer of\nKamsa,[8] King Ruru possessed the power of self-multiplication,\nappearing in just as many bodies as he pleased.  And though Watsatar\u00ed\nwas in reality purer than a tear, he was haunted by a swarm of\nsuspicions, which like bees buzzed for ever in the ear of his uneasy\nsoul, and drove him almost into madness, while like a gardener he\nstrove to preserve his blue honey-laden lotus from the onslaughts of\ntheir importunate and greedy troops.  And in order to place her as far\nas possible beyond the reach of any danger, he kept her in a residence\nthat resembled a fortress, and shut her in a garden, surrounded by a\nlofty wall.  And he never went to see her without quivering with\nanxiety, lest he should discover, on arriving, that what he was always\nfearing had actually come to pass.  And so in fact it did.  For one\nday, returning from his duties long before he was accustomed, as if\ndestiny had determined to gratify his apprehensions, when he entered\nthe garden, where his wife was in the habit of wandering for her\ndiversion, he looked, and saw her, in the very arms of the king.\n\nSo when he saw it, Trishodadhi stood for a single instant, silent,\ngazing at that pair with eyes that were suddenly filled to the very\nbrim, first with amazement, and then with anguish, and next with anger,\nand finally with ice.  And then he turned away, saying slowly to\nhimself: Miserable wretches, what after all is the use of astonishment,\nor pity for myself, or even wrath with you?  It is not you that are to\nblame, obeying as ye do the incorrigible instincts of your sex and your\ndepravity, and rewarding one who has loaded both of you with benefits\nwith the blackness of ingratitude.  But it is rather I myself who am to\nblame, for putting any faith whatever, were it fleeting as a jot of\ntime, in this treacherous and unsubstantial world, filled full to the\nvery brim with lovers and women, snakes and tigers, and betrayers and\nbetrayed; on which I will this very instant turn my back for ever, as\nindeed, had I not been utterly blinded by passion and delusion, I\nshould have done already, long ago.  And even as he said, so he did.\nAnd he went straight away, there and then, never to return.  And\nabandoning his wife and his office and his home, counting them all as\ngrass, he threw away his skin, like a snake, and becoming a pilgrim,\nturned his steps, without losing a single instant, to the wilderness of\nthe Windhya hills.\n\nAnd as he went along, that very miserable Brahman said angrily to\nhimself, with tears in his eyes: Ha! what was the Creator about, in\ncreating such a world as this, where evil-doers prosper, and virtue\ncomes to ruin, and fidelity and service and devotion gain nothing in\nreward, but villainous ingratitude, and bitter disappointment?  Surely\nit was a blunder; and why, then, do the rulers of the world allow it to\ncontinue?  And all at once, rage rushed into his soul against the very\nconstitution of the world,[9] as if that, rather than himself, were the\nauthor of his misery.  And he exclaimed, in an ecstasy of grief: Ha!\nDid not Wishwamitra, when he found this world not according to his\ntaste, create another of his own?  And by what means did he acquire the\npower that enabled him to perform his extraordinary feats of\nworld-creating and other such miracles, but by penance and asceticism?\nDid he not prove, by his own example, that nothing is impossible to\nperfect asceticism?  And cannot others do what he did, by the very\nselfsame means, provided only that their resolution is thorough and\ncomplete?  So then, now, I also will rival and surpass him, and by\nmeans of the intensity of my extraordinary penance bend the very gods\nto my will, and compel them to obey me, and change the established\nconstitution of the world, whether they will or no.  Aye, my resolution\nis fixed, and adamantine, and inalterable.  I will begin this very\nmoment, and heap up for myself a very mountain of merit, till its\ntowering mass shall overbalance and obliterate the united forces of the\ninhabitants of heaven.\n\nSo then he resolved, in the bitter agony of disappointment.  And like\none looking down into a forest pool created by a shower of rain, and\nmistaking its shallowness for an infinity of depth, deceived by the\nimitation of the illimitable abyss of heaven in the mirror of its\nglass, so he mistook his own pique at the world arising from the wound\ninflicted by the conduct of his wife, and proving, by its very\nviolence, the strength of his attachment to the objects of sense that\nhe pretended to despise, for real renunciation based on perfect\nknowledge, and undertook rashly, in imitation of that bull among\nascetics, Wishwamitra, a task beyond the limits of his strength; not\nhaving understood, that those only are equal to the terrible strain of\ntrue renunciation whose soul is pure, unstained by any tincture of\negoism, and resembling a well of the crystal liquor of perfect mastery\nof self.  And yet even so, he commenced his undertaking confidently,\nand counting beforehand on success, and burning with the fire of\npreliminary zeal, ignorant of the presence of that element in his soul,\nwhich was destined in the future to upset his calculations, and bring\nabout his utter destruction, on the very brink of ultimate success.\nAnd going to the farthest recesses of the forest, he discovered in its\nheart a remote and lonely cemetery,[10] on the outskirts of a long\ndeserted and forgotten town.  And he entered it, and having discovered\na suitable spot, he remained and dwelt there, as motionless as a tree.\nAnd collecting from the relics of burning funeral pyres a quantity of\nbare and empty skulls, divested of their flesh by fire, and time, and\nthe troops of night-walking, flesh-devouring wild beasts and R\u00e1kshasas\nand Wet\u00e1las,[11] by which that gloomy cemetery was infested, he made of\nthem a rosary for himself, like mine,[12] and began to mutter spells.\nAnd so he continued, night and day, year after year, muttering\nincessantly, living all the while like a serpent on nothing but air and\nhis own undaunted resolution, till at last he had completed a century\nof years.\n\nAnd then at last, being pleased with his perseverance, such as it was,\nI appeared to him one day in the guise of a _digambara_,[13] and\ngranted him a boon.  Thereupon that indomitable Trishodadhi replied: O\nShankara, I ask for absolutely nothing, but permission to continue my\ndevotions.  If therefore I must perforce select a boon, grant me as\nmuch time as I require, so as to continue, muttering on, till I abandon\nmy assiduity of my own accord.  So I left him, muttering diligently\naway, just as before, though I foresaw the end, and knew that he\ncarried within him, unsuspected by himself, the seed of the fruit of\nhis own undoing, which time would ripen, dooming him to undergo the\npunishment that lies in wait for all, who plunge, without due\nconsideration, into enterprises above their strength.[14]  And so the\nboon I offered him was wasted, and the chance was thrown away.  For had\nhe only had knowledge of himself, it might have saved him after all, by\nensuring him oblivion of the past.  For his memory was his ruin, as the\nstory will show thee, O Daughter of the Snow.\n\nAnd he in the meantime muttered on unflaggingly, wholly intent on\nnothing else, till at length the mound of his accumulated merit began\nto rival in dimension yonder hill, whose top the evening sun is now\ntouching with the colour of affection, as if loth to leave it to be\nswallowed by the dark.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAnd then at last one day it happened, that M\u00e1tali arrived in Indra's\npalace, having returned to heaven from a visit to the earth.  And as\nsoon as he entered, he exclaimed: O punisher of P\u00e1ka,[15] and the rest,\nwhat are you all about?  Are you asleep, or have you actually abandoned\nall care whether of your own pre-eminence or the established order of\nthe world?  For away below on earth, there is an old Brahman, in a\ndeserted cemetery in the forest of the Windhya hills, who by his\ninterminable muttering continued through the centuries has accumulated\nso gigantic a heap of merit,[16] that it threatens destruction to the\nthree worlds.  And now, unless something is done very speedily to stop\nhim, and reduce it, this merit of his, beyond a doubt, will disturb the\nequilibrium of the universe, and wreck the established order of the\nworlds, and hurl you from your thrones.\n\nAnd hearing him, Indra said: There is no difficulty in this.  I will go\nmyself, and bribe him to discontinue his proceedings.  And he went down\nhimself accordingly to earth, to examine and investigate that Brahman,\nand see what could be done.  And after considering him awhile, and\nadmiring his extraordinary obstinacy, he set to work to tempt him, and\ninduce him, by offering bribes of various descriptions, to desist.  And\nhe offered him accordingly mountains of gold, and oceans of jewels, and\neverlasting youth, and many kinds of magic power, and finally he racked\nhis brains, to find something or other that would move that obdurate\nTrishodadhi, and draw him from his vow.  But in vain.  For Trishodadhi\npaid no more attention to his offers and himself, than the moon does to\nthe barking of a dog; continuing to mutter, all the time he spoke, just\nas if he was not there.\n\nSo finding all his efforts vain, after a while, that baffled lover of\nAhaly\u00e1[17] returned to heaven.  And summoning the gods, he laid the\ncase before them, and requested their advice.  And after deliberation,\nthey determined to seduce him by sending down a heavenly nymph, saying\nto themselves: Did not Menak\u00e1, and Tilottam\u00e1, and others of their kind,\nprove too strong for the asceticism of even mighty sages, so that their\nmerit melted, like a lump of snow, in the flame of their desire, and\ntheir self-control vanished like stubble in a forest conflagration?\nNay, did not even Brahma assume his name,[18] becoming four-faced, in\norder to gratify his intolerable thirst to behold the beauty of\nTilottam\u00e1 performing a pradakshina around him, though he would not turn\nhis head?  Therefore it is not to be doubted that in this case also,\nthe irresistible amber of feminine attraction will prove its power, and\ndraw this grass in the form of a Brahman any way it will, snapping like\nthread the resolution which would chain him to his muttering, as soon\nas it is seen.\n\nAnd accordingly they drew up before them in a row the chorus of Indra's\nheavenly dancers.  And they chose out of them all that Apsaras who\nseemed to them the least easily to be resisted, by reason of her\nrounded arms and dainty ankles, and sent her down to earth with\nsuitable instructions, to seduce that Brahman from his muttering as\nquickly as she could.  But she, to her amazement, found on her arrival,\nthat, do what she might, she could not even so much as succeed in\ninducing him to look at her sideways even for a moment.  So, after a\nwhile, she left him, and flew back to heaven in a pet.  And they sent\ninstead of her another, who presently returned, having found herself as\nineffectual as the first.  And they tried again, and sent, one after\nanother, the whole of Indra's chorus, pelting as it were that\nstony-hearted old ascetic with a very shower of celestial flowers, and\ngaining the very opposite of the end at which they aimed.  For inasmuch\nas he never ceased muttering even for a moment, all their efforts to\ncorrupt him and reduce his stock of merit only added to its heap,\nmaking its mountainous proportions more formidable than before.\n\nAnd finally Indra exclaimed in despair: We are conquered by this\n_awat\u00e1r_ of obstinacy in the form of an ascetic, on whose rock the\nwaves of this very sea of beauty beat in vain.  And now there is no\nrefuge for us but in the sole of the foot of the Burner[19] of the\nBodiless God.  For he alone is stronger than Love, whose power seems to\nfail us in this pinch, rendered nugatory by the intractable composition\nof this exasperating mutterer.  And if even he can devise no remedy for\nthis disease, it is incurable; and then will this incorruptible old\ndevotee have us all at his mercy,[20] and bring heaven to its knees,\nand turn, if he pleases, the three worlds upside down.\n\nAnd then, led by Indra, they came altogether in a body to me; and\nplacing the difficulty before me, they waited with anxiety to hear what\nI should say.  And I looked there and then into the future, and saw in\nits dark mirror, like a picture, the ruin of that old ambitious\nBrahman, and the means by which it was destined to be accomplished.\nAnd after a while, I said slowly: All diseases are not able to be\nremedied by the same medicine, and notwithstanding the omnipotence of\nfeminine attraction, this is a case wherein heavenly nymphs are\nimpotent, and utterly without avail.  For all these heavenly nymphs do\nnothing but dance and sing and attitudinise and ogle, imagining that as\nin the case of Menak\u00e1 Tilottam\u00e1, Rambh\u00e1, and the rest, they have only\nto show themselves to gain at once their end, trusting only to the body\nand its beauty, and very shallow coquetry and artifices to sharpen the\nedge of its effect, such as wind that stirs their clothing, or water\nthat causes it to cling to the outline of their limbs and reveal, as if\nby accident, the thing that it pretends and is intended to conceal, and\nother such devices.  But this Trishodadhi is a fish that, as I\nperceive, will not easily be caught by the bait of mere meretricious\nbeauty, and in his case, the hook must be hidden in a lure of quite\nanother kind.  But there is a Daitya, named Aparapaksha,[21] living at\nthe very bottom of the sea, who has a hundred daughters.  And were\nbeauty the necessary weapon in this instance, any one of them would\nserve the turn, since all of them have bodies formed as it were of\nocean-foam, with lips of coral, and eyes like pools, and hair longer\nthan themselves, and voices like the echo of the waves; and only lately\nI heard them singing all together as I passed, on an island shore, and\nwas myself all but bewitched, so that unawares I paused, hanging in the\nair to listen, waylaid as it were by the magic and the spell of that\nmelancholy sound, forgetting my journey for the sake of their refrain.\nBut now, since something more is necessary, you must abandon all the\nothers, and betake you to the youngest of them all, who is rightly\nnamed Kal\u00e1nidhi, though she is the ugliest and cleverest woman in the\nthree worlds, for she is a very ocean of craft and trickery and\nguile,[22] and very knavish in disposition, as full of deception and\ncaprice as the element in which she lives.  And if you can get her to\nassist you, I do not doubt you will succeed.  And perhaps, if you tell\nher that this is a matter in which all the heavenly nymphs have failed,\nshe will help you out of spite; for she is very jealous of them all,\nand this is a glorious opportunity for her to show herself able to\naccomplish a thing which has baffled the ingenuity and beauty of\neverybody else.  But certainly, if she either cannot or will not\novercome this obstacle, I think that even the elephant-headed Lord of\nObstacles himself would fail.  For though beauty is a power stronger\nthan any other, it may nevertheless sometimes be successfully resisted.\nBut feminine ingenuity is a far more formidable antagonist, which no\nman has ever yet successfully encountered since the beginning of the\nworld, since it is half protected by his own innumerable scruples in\nits favour, being utterly destitute of any sort of scruple of its own.\nAnd so, should Kal\u00e1nidhi assist you, and fail after all, there is\nnothing to be done: and under the weight of this Brahman's mountain of\naccumulated merit, you must sink to the very bottom of the ocean of\ndefeat, like an earth bereft of the tortoise to save it on its back.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nSo then, led by the lover of Ahaly\u00e1, the gods went off in a body to the\nbottom of the sea, to look for Kal\u00e1nidhi, in such a hurry that they\neven forgot to worship me.  And they found her father's residence, but\nnot himself, for he happened to be away from home.  And roaming here\nand there among his hundred daughters, all at once they came upon\nKal\u00e1nidhi, lying dreaming, curled in a bed formed by her own hair, in a\ngiant oyster shell.  And very suitable indeed seemed that shell to be\nher cradle, for her bosom resembled an enormous double pearl, not dead\nbut living, keeping time slowly to the echo of the sea.  And her body,\nthat resembled a foaming wave, was hung all over with gems, picked up\nat random from the ocean floor, and her lips resembled sprigs that had\nfallen from the coral tree whose branches spread above her head in and\nout of the green water that moved her weedy tresses quietly to and fro.\nAnd as she opened her eyes and looked towards them, Indra said within\nhimself: Maheshwara was right, and she is hideous, for all her beauty;\nfor her eyes are like sea caves, out of which other eyes like those of\nan _ajagara_ seem to freeze you with their chill, and the smile on her\nthin lips resembles the sinister and silent laughter of a skull.\n\nSo as they came towards her, Kal\u00e1nidhi gazed at them sleepily in\nwonder, and murmured softly to herself: What in the world can the gods\nwant, so badly, as to bring them here, all together in a lump?  For\nthese must be the gods, since their eyelids do not wink.  Something\nmust surely have gone amiss in heaven, and beyond a doubt, sore indeed\nmust be the need that drives them, for instead of sending M\u00e1tali, they\nhave actually come themselves.  And now it is very fortunate that my\nfather is away.  For he is far too simple[23] to drive a bargain with\nthe gods, or anybody else, and would make no use of his opportunity.\n\nAnd then she arose politely, and listened in silence, while Indra told\nher the whole story.  And when he ended, she looked at him for a while\nironically, and then she said: For centuries have we lived here, my\nfather and my sisters and myself, and yet not even one of the gods ever\nvisited us before.  What honour, for a daughter of the Daityas!  But\nwhat could be the services of such a thing as me, where even heavenly\nmaidens fail?  Moreover, I do not like cemeteries, seeing that every\ncemetery is the home of mouldering and evil-smelling bones and skulls,\nand flesh-eating R\u00e1kshasas and Wet\u00e1las and ghosts.  But inasmuch as you\nhave come here, not as friends or guests, but as merchants seeking to\nengage me in an enterprise for your own advantage, this is after all a\nmatter on a mere commercial footing.  And what then is to be the price\nof my assistance, and if I am successful, what is to be my appropriate\nreward?\n\nThen said Maghawan:[24] I will give thee a crore of elephants, black as\nink, with golden tusks; or if thou wilt, raiment woven out of the beams\nof the rising or the setting sun, or crystal vats of camphor strained\nfrom the midnight moon, or endless strings of jewels, or anything thou\nwilt.  Then said Kal\u00e1nidhi: What is the use of elephants, even black as\nink with golden tusks, at the very bottom of the sea?  And as for\njewels, the sea floor is their very home, and I find them strewn at my\nvery feet.  And as for clothing, what do I want but my own hair?  Then\nsaid Indra: Choose, then, for thyself, what I shall give thee.  And\nKal\u00e1nidhi smiled.  And she said: What if I were to require of thee a\ncushion, stuffed with the down that grows on the breast of Brahma's\nswan, or a fan, to cool me, made of the feathers of Saraswati's\npeacock's tail?  And Indra said: Both shall be thine, and the bargain\nis complete.  Then said Kal\u00e1nidhi: Nay, there is no hurry.  For what if\nI asked for a crore of crystal jars, filled to the very brim with\n_amrita_, which, never having tasted, I am curious to taste?  And Indra\nsaid: That also shall be thine, and so the bargain is complete.  Then\nsaid Kal\u00e1nidhi: Nay, for there might still be something lacking.  What\nif I should say, that I long for a single blossom of Wishnu's\n_p\u00e1rij\u00e1ta_ tree?  For when I am in the cemetery, how should I endure to\nstay, even for a single moment, without its odour as an antidote to the\nreek of burning bodies and the stench of dying pyres?  And Indra said:\nFor that also I will answer, and now the bargain is complete.  Then\nsaid Kal\u00e1nidhi: Nay, be not hasty, in a matter of such importance.  And\nnow that I come to think of it, this Brahman must be very old and ugly,\nand exceedingly repulsive by reason of his long austerity.  And what if\nI should ask thee for a lamp, that I might examine him from a distance,\nmade of a single splinter chipped from Wishnu's _kaustubha_, and filled\nnot with oil, but the ooze of Shiwa's moon, squeezed from the\nmoonstones hanging on the trellises in Alak\u00e1, so that setting it in\nimitation of Maheshwara, like a diadem in my hair, I might be suitably\nequipped for reconnoitring your Brahman, in that gloomy home of ghosts?\nAnd Indra said: I will guarantee it thine, and the bargain is complete.\n\nAnd then, Kal\u00e1nidhi looked craftily at the eager god, out of the very\ncorner of her eye.  And all at once she began to laugh, and she\nexclaimed: Ha! lover of Ahaly\u00e1, thy need must surely be extreme, seeing\nthat thou art as it seems ready to strip the very deities of their\nnecessary attributes, to lure me to thy task.  But now, learn that I\ndid but play with thee and thy anxiety, to measure the degree of thy\nextremity; nor do I stand in need of any of those things that I have\nmentioned, nor of anything at all.  For my assistance will be\ndetermined, not by bribes, but my own good pleasure and caprice.  And\nit may be I will go and try my skill against this old malignant\nmutterer, merely because I choose, and for no reward at all, and to\nshow that I can be of use, when all the nymphs of heaven are more\nworthless than a straw.  But in the meantime something more is\nnecessary, without which I cannot even tell whether there is anything\nwhatever to be done at all, even by myself.  Tell me, then, the whole\nstory of this Brahman, beginning from his very birth, omitting\nabsolutely nothing; so that I may first of all discover, what is the\nstrength or weakness of this enemy, whom thou wouldst have me engage\nand overthrow.\n\nAnd Indra told her as she asked, beginning from the beginning,\neverything there was to know.  And when he ended, Kal\u00e1nidhi remained a\nwhile, buried in meditation.  And suddenly she laughed, and said: O\nMaghawan, thy nymphs are surely very stupid, resembling beautiful\nbodies that are destitute of souls.  Is it really possible that with\nsuch weapons in their hands, they could not so much as make the shadow\nof an impression on this Brahman?  Come now, we will go together, for I\nshall need thee to assist me, and overthrow this mutterer, together\nwith the mountain of his merit, by the favour of the Elephant-headed\ndeity; for I think, that there will be very little difficulty in\ndiverting his attention from his penance, after all: so little, that as\nI will show thee by experiment, it is not I that will upset him, but,\naided by me, he will simply overturn himself.  And when I have\nsucceeded, I will ask thee for absolutely nothing in return; but thou\nshall cause me to be worshipped by all the nymphs in heaven in a body,\nperforming a _pradakshina_ around me in due form.\n\nAnd Indra said within himself: Well said the Moony-crested, that\njealousy alone would induce her to comply.  And he exclaimed aloud, in\nan ecstasy of delight: O daughter of Aparapaksha, do but succeed in\ncorrupting this ascetic, and I vow to thee, I will myself perform a\n_pradakshina_ about thee, at the head of all my nymphs!\n\n\n\n[1] _i.e._ Maheshwara.\n\n[2] That is, so as to touch the ground _with all eight parts of the\nbody_ at once.\n\n[3] Legendary dwarfs.  Agastya was a very little man.\n\n[4] _i.e._ an animal, a brute; a synonym for the absence of all culture\nand intelligence.\n\n[5] The Lord of Animals, _i.e._ Shiwa, is the ascetic _par excellence_.\n\n[6] _i.e._ an ocean of thirst.  This thirst, _trish\u00e1_, is the technical\nname for what Schopenhauer calls the _will to live_ (_vitai semper\nhiantes_).\n\n[7] _Watsa_ is a term of endearment, equivalent to our \"darling\"; the\nwhole word means \"a heifer.\"  [Pronounce each _a_ like the _u_ in hut.]\n\n[8] _i.e._ Krishna; who solved Plato's old difficulty of the One and\nthe Many, by \"keeping company\" with each of his love-sick milkmaids at\nonce.\n\n[9] _Sthiti_, the established world-order, is one of the three terms of\nthe universe, as opposed to _sarga_, its creation, and _pralaya_, its\ndestruction and end.\n\n[10] The _smash\u00e1na_ is rather a burning-ground than a cemetery.  But it\nis often called _pitrigriha_--\"the home of the fathers,\" and thus\ncemetery may stand, as an equivalent.\n\n[11] _i.e._ goblins and vampires.\n\n[12] Maheshwara, who is speaking, wears a necklace of skulls.\n\n[13] _i.e._ a naked mendicant ascetic.\n\n[14] _Nemo potest supra seipsum_, said the Schoolmen--a profound\nobservation exactly in harmony with old Hindoo ideas on moral force.\n\n[15] _i.e._ Indra.  M\u00e1tali is his messenger, the Hindoo Mercury.\n\n[16] This singular idea, familiar now to Europe, in the form of the\nprayer-wheels of Tibet, is not wholly without parallels in the West.\nThe only difference is, that the Hindoos are a very logical people, and\ncarry the absurd to its extreme.\n\n[17] The wife of the sage Gautama, with whom Indra had an intrigue that\ncovered him with shame, in more ways than one.\n\n[18] _Chaturmukha_.\n\n[19] _i.e._ Maheshwara himself, who burned Love with fire from his eye.\n\n[20] Max M\u00fcller, to whom students of the Rig-Weda owe so much, was\nnevertheless essentially mistaken in saying that the word weda means\n_knowledge_.  It does not mean knowledge, in our sense of the word,\nscientific, Baconian, Aristotelian; an idea quite alien to that of the\nold _hotris_.  By _weda_ they meant _magical knowledge_, _spells_;\nwhich being sung or muttered had power to compel the deities: thus the\nBrahman who possessed the \"knowledge\" (in the phrase of the Brahmanas,\n_yah ewam weda_) was the master of the world.\n\n[21] _i.e._ the dark half of the lunar month.\n\n[22] There is a pun in her name, which as applied to the moon, means _a\nstore of digits_, but also signifies _an ocean of wiles_.\n\n[23] It is singular that R\u00e1kshasas in Hindoo story, like Ogres in the\nWest, are always represented as simpletons and ninnies.\n\n[24] _i.e._ Indra.\n\n\n\n\nA FETTER OF THE SOUL\n\n\n\n\n        _Up my longing eyes I tossed\n          Heaven to seek me in the skies:\n        Then I found them, and was lost\n          Gazing down, in other eyes.\n  But was it Heaven they found, or was it Hell?\n  Lord of the Moony Tire, I cannot tell._\n                                        RUDRA\n\n\n\n\nA FETTER OF THE SOUL\n\nI\n\nNow in the meanwhile, Trishodadhi remained in that cemetery, in a\nposture of devotion.  And as the interminable pattering of rain, drop\nafter drop, fills up a lake, so did his everlasting muttering keep\nadding grain by grain to the mountain of his merit, till gazing at it,\neven Meru began to shudder for his own pre-eminence.  And on he\nlaboured diligently, pausing every now and then only when necessity\ncompelled him to repair his rosary[1] of skulls, some of which from\ntime to time wore out and fell to pieces, colliding with one another as\nhe told them each in turn in the uninterrupted exercise of his\ndevotions, till at length he sat surrounded by a very hill of bones,\nthat resembled his own accumulated merit in another form.  And\nsometimes, as he looked at them, he murmured to himself: Now, as it\nseems, the termination of my penance is approaching, and the beginning\nis drawing to an end, and very soon, I shall have amassed a sufficient\nstock of merit to allow me to commence operations against the citadel\nof heaven, whose inhabitants are now at length beginning, not without a\ncause, to take fright at my proceedings, if I may form an opinion by\ntheir own.  For not only did Indra come hither in person, and endeavour\nunsuccessfully to turn me from my purpose by offering me every kind of\nbribe, but latterly I have noticed heavenly maidens, coming, one by\none, like a stream of stars falling from the sky, into this dismal\nearthly burning-ground, seeking to seduce me by their charms.  But let\nthem come, even all together; they shall find my resolution proof, and\nadd against their will to the virtue they seek to undermine.  Aye, my\nsublime determination is a rock, against which the sea of feminine\ncajolery shall hurl itself in vain.\n\nSo as he spoke, he struck violently one of his skulls against another,\nand it broke, and escaping from the string, rolled away out of his\nhand.  And he raised his head, and cast a glance around him, with the\nobject of discovering another to replace it.  And as he did so, he\nstarted, and exclaimed within himself: Ha! just as I anticipated, there\nis as it seems yet another of these snares in the form of women, coming\nto entice me by the bait of her lascivious beauty, and hoping, more\nsuccessful than her sisters, to roll my resolution, like a wheel, out\nof its deep and self-determined rut.  But now, I will not even look at\nher at all.  And very soon, growing like all her predecessors weary of\nthe vain endeavour to attract my notice and distract my concentration,\nshe will give it up of her own accord, and go back to her employers in\ndisgust.  And he stooped accordingly close over his beads, and muttered\non, with his head bent towards the ground, and his eyes fixed on the\nbroken skull within his hand, waiting to repair the injury till she\nshould go away.\n\nBut in the meanwhile Kal\u00e1nidhi, for she it was, having arrived at the\ncemetery, and exploring it, discovered Trishodadhi at his devotions,\ncame, as he had perceived, close up to him, and standing just beside\nhim, began to examine him attentively, like a general considering a\nfortress, in order to determine the proper method of attack.  And after\na while, she said softly to herself: Ha! very miserable indeed is this\nold skeleton of a Brahman, who, as he sits muttering, looks exactly\nlike a number of the bones by which he is surrounded, that have somehow\nor other joined themselves together, and become tenanted by a passing\ndisembodied soul.  And little do I relish, as I look at him, the\nbusiness I have in hand.  But if I now abandon it, I shall become a\nlaughing-stock, and they will think that I found myself unable to\nperform what I had promised, failing, like those miserable boobies, the\nheavenly nymphs, to keep my word.  Moreover, the great in soul never\ndream of abandoning an enterprise, once they have begun it, till they\nhave crowned it with success.  And now, therefore, very soon it will be\nseen, which of us two, this loathsome old ascetic, or myself, will have\nto confess himself defeated, and give up his endeavour unachieved, like\na bridge begun to span a great river that never reaches the farther\nshore.  And she stopped to examine him, and said again: Doubtless, for\nall his busy muttering, he has long ago become aware of my presence,\nand as his attitude declares, is nerving himself for opposition and\ndesperate resistance, expecting me to assault him point-blank, like all\nthose very silly nymphs, by attitudinising, and giving him glimpses of\nmy beauty, and practising other such tricks of coquetry before him.\nAnd beyond a doubt, he is flattering himself beforehand on his power of\nself-control, and already triumphing at the prospect of my ignominious\ndefeat.  But he will find himself very much mistaken, and unless I\ndeceive myself, he will fall straight into the trap that I have set for\nhim, never so much as suspecting it to be a trap at all, just because I\nshall set it where he is not looking for a snare.  And to begin with,\nwe shall see, whether even his curiosity will be proof.  For I will\ntake care to irritate and excite it, by doing all behind his back, so\nthat he will not even be able to see anything at all, except by\nexpressly turning round his head, which I imagine he will do, before\nvery long.  And he shall be attacked, not as he anticipates, but by\nthat very avenue along which he least looks for danger, and one which,\nfor all that, is the weakest and least guarded, and the best and the\nstraightest way by which to reach and penetrate his soul--his ears.\nFor sight can be assaulted only by what is present; but the ears are a\npassage by which I shall steal like a snake into the past, and pierce\nhis very heart.\n\n\n\nII\n\nSo, then, as that suspicious yet unsuspicious old Brahman sat waiting,\nwith his face turned towards the east, expecting every moment the\nassault of some temptation in the form of a sudden vision of\nintoxicating female beauty, time wore away, little by little, and hour\nsucceeded hour, and he saw absolutely nothing.  And the day slowly\ndied, and the sun travelled onwards over his head, till his shadow\ncrept silently from behind him and began to stretch out gradually\nlonger and longer before his eyes.  And as the sun set, the moon rose,\nand that cemetery became as it were a battleground in which the silver\nand the golden light engaged, and struggled silently for mastery; while\nnight, their common enemy, took as it were advantage of their quarrel\nto bring up a host of shadows that threatened to destroy them both.\nAnd in the stillness of that epiphany of dusk, he listened, and heard\nabsolutely nothing, but the beating of his own heart.  And after a\nwhile, he said to himself: All is quiet in the forest: and now, as I\nthought, this last ineffectual temptress has taken herself off, having\ndiscovered the futility of her efforts to inveigle me, like all the\nrest before.\n\nAnd at that very moment, he heard at a distance among the forest trees\nthe noise of breaking branches, and the crashing of twigs and leaves.\nAnd he listened again, and said: Some large animal is forcing, as it\nseems, a way through the denseness of the wood and coming gradually\nnearer.  And he waited, and after a while, all at once there entered\nthe cemetery from out of the wall of trees a tall royal elephant, with\ngreat yellow tusks that almost reached the ground.  And he went slowly\nand wearily, for he seemed very old, and his skin hung in folds about\nhim, and his body was all muddy, and crusted with the slime collected\nfrom the forest pools in which he wallowed, dried on him by the sun.\nAnd he came towards Trishodadhi, and passed him, paying absolutely no\nregard to him at all, and went wandering about here and there in the\nmoonlight, as if he were looking in the cemetery for something that he\ncould not find.  And all at once, he stopped, close beside a pippala[2]\ntree, and spoke with a human voice, and said aloud in deep tones: O\npippala, art thou at last the pippala I am looking for, or only a\ncommon tree?\n\nAnd as Trishodadhi heard him, stupor came upon him, and he said to\nhimself in amazement: Ha! what is this wonder, that an elephant should\nspeak with an intelligible voice, and that I should understand him?\nAnd then, all at once, he exclaimed, in an ecstasy of delight: Ha!  I\nunderstand.  I can understand the language of the beasts.  Now, beyond\na doubt, this is a fruit of the tree of my asceticism, whose\napproaching term is the cause of my comprehension of his words.  And\nhis heart swelled with vanity and triumph, at the thought of his own\nforthcoming perfections.  And as he listened eagerly for more, hardly\ncrediting his own ears, which stood as it were on tiptoe with the\nintensity of their curiosity, all at once there came out of that\npippala tree a voice.  And it said, softly, like a sigh: O king of\nelephants, and art thou then the elephant at last, appointed me to meet?\n\nAnd instantly, the elephant trumpeted with joy.  And he exclaimed: O\nlong-expected pippala, I could dance like a very peacock at the sight\nof thee!  Can it be, and have I found thee?  Then listen, without\nwasting any time, while I tell thee my story, and end it, and so at\nlast free myself from the curse, and this hateful body of an elephant,\nin which I have been imprisoned for a _yuga_.\n\nThen said the pippala: O elephant, thy voice is very loud.  Dost thou\nnot see that old ascetic, sitting plunged in meditation, surrounded by\na heap of bones, whose soul is doubtless absent far away, on some\ncelestial errand?  Know, that I love him, for year by year I have\nwatched him sitting by me as I grew, almost as motionless as I myself:\nand I will not have his soul disturbed.  Moreover, if thy tones disturb\nhim, he will probably awake in wrath, and lay on thee another curse.\nCome round me, therefore, to my other side, and let my trunk conceal\nthee, and screen thy harsh voice; and do thou speak very low.  And the\nelephant obeyed, doing as the pippala said.  But Trishodadhi, when he\nheard it, almost abandoned the body in vexation.  And he said within\nhimself: Out upon this pippala, and her affection for myself!  Now,\nvery probably, I shall not hear.  And he strained his ears to catch, if\npossible, the matter of their conversation, utterly forgetting to\nmutter, for the time.\n\nThen said the elephant: O holy tree, the sight of thee is like water to\none dying in the sand.  For long ago, when I fell into this form, by\nreason of a curse, pronounced upon me for a sin, this meeting with\nthyself was fixed as the termination of the curse.  And I have wandered\nup and down, as I think for a very _kalpa_, asking every pippala that I\nsaw the very question that never received an answer till this moment;\nso that, hearing it, I almost leaped out of the body in my joy.  Now\nlisten, and so at last, emerging from this dungeon of an elephant, I\nshall again become a man, as soon as I have told thee of my crime;\nsince this is the condition of the fulfilment and abolition of the\ncurse.[3]\n\nThen the pippala sighed again: Dear elephant, speak lower, lest the end\nof one curse be only the beginning of another, in perhaps a lower form\nthan thine.  And Trishodadhi, as he listened, shook with anger and\nirritation.  And the elephant said: O pippala, I will do my best.  But\nthis voice of mine is my natural tone, appointed for my species.  And\nafter all, I do not think it will disturb the sage.  For though his\nbody is so near us, it never moves, and beyond a doubt his soul is far\naway, attending to its own affairs.  And how, then, should the empty\nbody overhear us, in the absence of its soul?\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAnd the pippala said: Speak on.  Then said the elephant: O pippala,\nknow, that long ago, in my former birth, I was a king, named Ruru.  And\nI had for my minister, a Brahman, named Trishodadhi.  And he had an\nincomparable wife, by name Watsatar\u00ed, a very paragon of beauty and\ndevotion to her husband.[4] And she it was, whose virtue was the cause\nof my falling into this body of an elephant, by reason of a curse.\n\nSo as he spoke, the heart of Trishodadhi, as he listened, almost jumped\nfrom his body with amazement.  And he said to himself: Ha! what!  Am I\ndreaming, or can it actually be, that this is my old master, King Ruru,\nin the semblance of an elephant?  And suddenly, that old life which he\nhad so long forgotten and abandoned, rose up and stood before him, like\na picture in a dream.  And like a flash of lightning, he flew back into\nthe past.  And all at once, a pang shot into his heart, keen as long\nago, at that moment of intolerable agony, when he looked and saw his\nwife, for the very last time, in the arms of the King.  And suddenly, a\nthirst like fire rose up out of his soul, and took him by the throat.\nAnd he gasped, not knowing what he did, and at that moment, wonder\nchanged into a very fever of fierce curiosity, and he murmured to\nhimself: Ha! what!  Was she then, after all, not guilty, but as he says\nvirtuous?  Ha! then, now I shall discover the whole truth, and learn,\nwhat I never knew, the story of her fall, if indeed she fell, and what\noccurred after I went away, never so much as bidding her farewell.\n\nAnd lo! strange! as he thought of her again, there ran as it were a\nsword into his soul.  And like flame, that suddenly bursts out anew in\nthe ashes of a fire extinct, so all at once grief, and fierce regret,\nand a passionate yearning for the wife that played him false, surged\nand struggled in the dark oblivion of his ocean of recollection, so\nthat he swayed and tottered as he sat.  And utterly forgetting all, he\nlet his rosary suddenly drop out of his hand, and turned abruptly\nround, to see as well as hear.  And when he looked, he saw the\nelephant, standing still with drooping ears, leaning against the\npippala's trunk.  And then again, no sooner had he turned, than he\nexclaimed within himself: Ha! now again, I have come within a little of\nspoiling all, by betraying to them that I am a party to their\ninterview, and moreover, not a bystander indifferent, but one very much\nconcerned indeed.  And instantly he turned back, resuming his old\nattitude, and remained, still as a tree, almost dying with\napprehension, lest he should lose even a single word of their discourse.\n\nSo as he sat listening, all at once the pippala said: O king of\nelephants, why, after commencing thy narration, hast thou suddenly\nbroken off, no sooner than begun?  Then the elephant sighed deeply.\nAnd he said: Holy tree, I stopped, as it were against my will, at the\nthought of her innocence, and my own evil conduct, and the terrible\nretribution, that overtook me in the shape of this elephant's skin,\nwhich is as it were nothing but the consequence of my own works in a\nbrutal form.  Truly have the sages said: What is the cause of the\nmisery of soul, if not the envelope of body?  And whence arises the\nenvelope of body, but from works?  And from what do works originate, if\nnot from passion, and this again, from pride, itself the fruit of the\ntree of a want of discrimination, and the black night of ignorance?\nAlas! while I thought myself a king, what was I but a chip, tossed upon\nthe waves of time; a very bubble, rolling from side to side, like the\ndrop of rain water on the leaf of a blue lotus; more momentary than the\nlightning playing on the clouds; unsubstantial, fleeting, and unsteady\nas the shadow of a foolish moth, fluttering about the flame of a\nflickering torch agitated by sighing gusts of wind?\n\nThen said the pippala: O elephant, thou speakest the very truth;\nnevertheless, thy reflections only delay the progress of the tale, and\nthy own release from the very thing that thou deplorest; and at this\nrate, the sun will return to us long before thy story is half told.\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, I have done.  Listen, then, to the\nstory of my crime, and may its memory desert me, together with this\nskin of a forest elephant, as soon as it is told.  For even the body of\na brute is not so great a punishment to the evil-doer, as the remorse\nwhich never leaves him, in the form of the recollection of his crime.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nFor long ago, being, as I told thee, a king, named Ruru, I was married\nin my youth to a queen.  And she was beautiful, with a beauty that\nresembled the beauty of a panther, for it was fierce and spotted and\ntreacherous and crafty, and I was a prey to it, for I was very young,\nand I knew not anything of woman but her shell.  And I was devoted to\nmy wife, and trusted her implicitly, and had never suspected her\nfidelity even in a dream.  And I returned suddenly one evening at\nnightfall into my palace, and looked, and lo! she was fondling another\nman, a Rajpoot, whom she had brought into the palace through a window\nby a ladder, having fallen in love with him as she saw him in the\nstreet.\n\nSo when I saw her, I uttered a cry, and stood.  But they, seeing me,\nseparated like a flash of lightning, and fled, he back into the street,\nand she to her own apartments.  And where he went, or what she did, I\nknow not.  But when the dawn was breaking, I looked, and again I saw\nher coming back with stealthy step.  And all at once, as she came, she\nlooked, and saw me standing, exactly where I stood before, never having\nmoved, all night long.  And instantly, she stopped short, and gazed at\nme with eyes that were filled with amazement, which changed, as I\nwatched her, into the extremity of fear.  And all at once, I uttered a\nterrible cry.  And instantly she sank to the ground, bereft of reason.\nBut I turned, and ran away, and went out into the street.\n\nAnd I wandered up and down in the darkness that was just becoming\ndaylight, with a soul on fire, not knowing where I went or what I did;\nand I came suddenly upon a miserable wretch in ragged garments, and I\nsaid to him: Change now very quickly thy garments for my own.  And he,\nlooking at me, very rapidly agreed, and we changed, and I gave him all\nmy jewels, and put on his very loathsome rags; and so he went away.\nAnd I said to myself: Now will I leave my palace and my kingdom, and\nbecome a _sanny\u00e1si_, turning my back upon the world.  And lo! almost as\nI spoke, another man suddenly came upon me, a little old man with grey\nhair that escaped from his handkerchief,[5] and keen eyes like those of\na weasel.  And he said to me: Ha! night-walker, who art thou?  And I\nlaughed, guessing him to be a thief; and I said: Mahar\u00e1j,[6] I am a\nrobber, like thyself.  Then said that old man: I am the chief of all\nthe robbers in this city, and I know thee not.  And I said: How\nshouldst know me, who am but just arrived in the city, having fled here\nby reason of trouble in my own?  And he said: Wilt thou come and be of\nmine?  And I said: Aye! with thee or any other rascal.  What does it\nmatter?  And I laughed in bitterness, not caring if I died.  Then that\nlittle old man came up close, and looked at me narrowly for a while;\nand he said: Thou art very young and handsome, and as I think, no thief\nat all.  And whence comes the trouble of the young but from women?  And\nI said: O king of robbers, thou art subtle; for I am indeed the victim\nof a woman, and my life is at an end.\n\nAnd then suddenly, that strange old man struck me a blow with his open\nhand upon my shoulder, so hard, that it hurt.  And he exclaimed: Fool!\nart thou actually grieving for the loss of a woman?  What! dost thou\nnot know, that he who loses one, can find without any difficulty a\nhundred other women, just as good or better than herself?  And as he\nspoke, all at once I began to laugh, and as I laughed, I cried.  And I\nexclaimed: Ha! old thief, I am obliged to thee; and like a good\nphysician, thou hast cured my malady, with words that are sharper than\na knife.  But beware! for if I ever meet thee again, I will have thee\nthrown to be trampled by an elephant.  And then I turned my back upon\nhim, and went away, and left him standing, saying to myself as I went:\nHe is right.  And now, then, I will go back into my palace, and make\nall the other women in the three worlds pay for the conduct of my wife.\nHa!  I should indeed have been a fool, to become a _sanny\u00e1si_, for such\na thing as her; and this old rascal has raised me as it were from the\ndead, and replaced the _danda_[7] in my hand.\n\nAnd then, O pippala, as I said, so I did.  And laying the burden of the\nstate upon the shoulders of my minister, Trishodadhi, I ran wild among\nthe women of my kingdom, and I became an object of dread to every one\nof my subjects that had either a daughter or a sister or a wife.\n\nAnd as he listened, Trishodadhi said within himself: Aye! robber of a\nking, so it was; and little dost thou dream how close to thee is a\nliving witness to the truth of thy words.  And all forgetful of his\nmuttering, he listened eagerly for the remainder of the tale.\n\n\n\nV\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, as it happened, I had for my _wita_[8]\na very incarnation of malignity and craft, on whom I laid the duty of\ndiscovering every woman in my kingdom or elsewhere, whose beauty might\nmake her worthy of my regard.  And this _wita_, while bringing to my\nnotice every day the treasures of others, never told me of his own, but\nkept me scrupulously ignorant.  But one day there came to me one of his\nagents, to whom he had done some injury or other, and he said: O\nMahar\u00e1j, thy _wita_ is offering thee husks, and keeping back the\nkernel; possessing as he does a daughter more beautiful than the moon.\nAnd hearing this, I flew into a rage.  And I sent for the _wita_, and\ncompelled him, under penalty of death, to produce his daughter; and I\ntook her away from him, disregarding all his prayers.  So at last,\nfinding all his supplications useless, all at once that _wita_ yielded,\nand acquiesced in his dishonour, like an elephant tamed.  Ha! had I\nonly known him, I should have put him instantly to death; for he was\nbut waiting till he saw his opportunity.  And the consequence of my\naction in this matter of the _wita_ and his daughter lay waiting: till\nthe time came, when it rose up suddenly like a cobra, and bit me in the\nheel.\n\nBut in the meantime, careless of the _wita_ and his vengeance, I lived\nlike a mad bee, intent upon nothing but ruining the lotuses that I\nrifled of their honey, remaining beside each, only so long as was\nnecessary to destroy it, after sipping its sweet.  And gradually my\nkingdom began to assume the semblance of a garden, in which every tree\nwas mourning, bewailing the fate of its loveliest blossoms, which lay\non the ground, trampled as it were into the mud.  Enough! for why\nshould I detain thee and delay my own emancipation from this carcase of\nan elephant by enumerating details that are not to the point.  Know,\nthat there came a day, when having left as usual the burden of the\nkingdom on the shoulders of my minister, I went out into the forest to\nhunt.  And after a while, growing weary of the chase, I dismissed my\nattendants, and came slowly home alone, wandering after them on foot.\nAnd I lingered as I went, listening to the noise of the canes, singing\nin the breeze; aye! well do I remember the music that they made, as if\nprognosticating by their exquisite melody the sweetness of the meeting\nthat was just on the very point of crossing my steps, to plunge my\nsoul, in the twinkling of an eye, as it were into a vat, and change its\ndye, turning it first into red, and finally into deep and inalterable\nblue.[9]\n\nFor as I rambled slowly on, it happened, by destiny's decree, that a\nnecklace of great pearls, that I always wore around my neck, its clasp\ncoming open, slipped off, and fell upon the ground.  And at that very\nmoment, a bird of the race of hawks pounced suddenly upon it, and\ncarried it away, attracted by its glitter, or who knows?  For I think\nthat the very god of Love took, it may be, that form of a bird, to\nbring about his end.  And I ran after it, as it were awaking from my\nmusing, with a shout, and the bird, after flying a little way, becoming\nfrightened, or it may be, by express design, let fall the necklace from\nhis claws, and flew away.  And seeing it fall, I ran towards it, and\nall at once, I found my way blocked by a very high wall, on the farther\nside of which the necklace fell.  And I went up to that wall, and as I\ndid so, I listened, and heard the noise of steps beyond the wall.  And\ninstantly I called aloud: O thou, whoever thou art, beyond the wall,\nknow, that the necklace is mine.  And hearing no answer, I looked\nabout, and seeing a tree standing near, I swung myself up, by means of\nits branches, upon the wall, and looked over.  And when I did so, lo!\nthere below me in the garden stood a young woman, looking up towards\nme; and on the ground was the necklace, lying at her very feet.\n\nAnd as I looked down at her, O pippala, all at once the necklace, the\nvery object of my coming, vanished clean out of my mind, obliterated in\nan instant, and swept into oblivion by the wonder of her eyes.  And yet\nit was not merely their beauty that amazed me, pools of lapis lazuli\nthough they were, to whose brink that bird had brought me, as if to\ndrown me, dizzy at their very depth.  But strange! fixed as they were,\nupturned towards me, bent and as it were pointed full upon my own, they\nnever wavered, and I was puzzled by their gaze.  For there was no\ncuriosity at all in them, nor any trace of timidity or fear, far less\nof challenge, or anger, or agitation, or any tumult of emotion, but\nrather an ocean, and as it were an atmosphere of silence, and shadowy\npeace, and a spirit of unutterable quiet and repose, like that of some\nunviolated water, bound by a spell of secrecy and lying hidden in the\nmiddle of a forest, on whose dark film the dead leaves lie, unmoved by\nanimals that drink, or winds that blow.  And so little did I seem to be\nthe target of those motionless unfathomable eyes, that I would have\nturned my head, to discover what thing other than myself it was that\nshe regarded, but that I could not look away from them at all.  And she\nstood with her head, a little bent, like one that listens rather than\nthat looks, and thrown just a very little back upon her shoulders, so\nthat all unknown to her the round bosses of her wide and glorious bosom\nstretched out and up towards me, as if dying to express that curiosity\nand agitation which was wanting in her eyes, while her slender figure,\nlike a stalk, stood still and seemed to sway, as if with anxiety, lest\nthe weight that it supported should snap it in the middle.  And as I\nsat gazing, lost in a sea of perplexity and admiration, all at once she\nspoke, and said in a low voice that resembled a caress rendered audible\nto the ear: Who art thou, if, as I guess, thou hast climbed upon the\nwall, and what is thy intention?\n\nAnd I said, with confusion and surprise: I came upon the wall, O lady\nof the lovely eyes, to recover yonder necklace which is lying at thy\nfeet.  Then she said: Dost thou see it lying?  And I said: Surely I see\nit very plainly, as thou dost also.  Then she said: Come down, then,\nand take it, and begone.  For I cannot do it for thee, seeing that I am\nblind.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, groaned within himself.  And he\nmurmured: Aye! indeed! alas! so she was; and these were her very eyes:\nand now well I know that the story of this elephant is true.  And all\noblivious of his muttering, he listened to the tale.\n\n\n\nVI\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, when I heard her, I came within a\nlittle of falling from the wall, struck by the shock of pity and\namazement at her words.  And I exclaimed: Blind, O thou beautiful and\nunfortunate!  But thou art surely jesting.  What! can such eyes as\nthine, more lovely than the pool in which the lotuses delight, O, which\nput to shame the very heaven at midnight with its stars, be really\nblind?  And she said, quietly: Yet is it as I say.  And I struck my\nhands together, and groaned aloud, almost weeping, for remorse and\ndespair.  And I exclaimed: Out, out on the Creator, who could be guilty\nof so criminal a blunder as to make such eyes as thine, and yet forget\nto give them sight, which he has been so careful to remember in the\ncase of every common eye!  Then she said gently: Nay, utter no blame of\nthe Creator.  Blame rather me myself, since doubtless this my blindness\nis a punishment deserved, for sins committed by myself, in some\nforgotten former birth, and the fruit of a tree I and no other planted.\nOr rather, blame not anything at all, since thy business is neither\nwith my eyes, nor me, at all, but rather with thy necklace.  Come, as I\nsaid, and take it quickly, and begone.\n\nAnd I looked at her for a moment in agitation, and I said, with\nemphasis: Take thou the necklace; it is no longer mine, having fallen\nat the feet of its proper owner: and wise was the bird that stole it\nfrom me, to lay it where it is.  This only I regret that alas! thou\ncanst not see it, for it is worthy of beauty such as thine.  And she\nsmiled, looking at me, as it were, with those eyes that did not falter,\nand she said: Stranger, what have I to do with thee or with thy\nnecklace?  Come, now, cease talking nonsense on the wall, to one that\nmust not listen; but take thy necklace and begone.\n\nO pippala, I know not if I tell thee what befel, so as to make thee\ncomprehend.  But know, that in that moment since I came upon the wall,\nI was changed.  For her voice completed what her eyes began, and her\nsmile took my heart and set it shaking like a leaf with an ecstasy of\nrapture and anxiety, causing me to tremble with so violent an agitation\nthat I could hardly keep my place upon the wall.  And I knew that I was\nlooking at a woman of a kind that I had never seen before, and I tossed\naway my past in the twinkling of an eye.  And I said to myself,\nquivering with the extremity of delight and the fever of determination:\nHa! then as it seems, destiny waited till this moment, to show me\nperfection in the form of the woman of my dreams.  And what!  O thou\nmatchless, intoxicating beauty, now that I have found thee, dost thou\nbid me go away, and leave thee as soon as found?  Nay, nay; not for the\nthree great worlds with all that they contain, will I consent ever to\npart from thee again.  And now, thou shalt be my wife and queen,\nwhether thou wilt or no.\n\nAnd at that moment, I think that the very god of Love himself put a\nthought into my heart.  And I looked at her with fierce affection, as\nshe stood waiting quietly below, and said softly to myself: I will\nstay, O peremptory beauty, in despite of thee, and all the powers of\nearth and heaven combined.  And I said to her aloud: Since then I must,\nand thou permittest, I will descend, and take it, and begone.  And I\nleaped from the wall towards her, awkward by express design, intending\nto feign injury to myself, and with so good a will, that as it\nhappened, I actually did the very thing I meant to feign.  And fell\nheavily, bruising my foot upon the ground beside her, so that she drew\nback in alarm.  And I uttered a moan that was anything but feigned.\nAnd immediately she said, with commiseration in her voice: Alas! now I\nfear my impotence has been a cause of injury to thyself.  Art thou\nhurt?  And I said: Nay, it is nothing.  Let me rest for but a moment,\nand so I will depart.  And she hesitated, and said with indecision:\nThis is a misfortune and a difficulty.  For I know thee not, being\nutterly in the dark about thee; and I dare not stay beside thee, not\nknowing who thou art.  And yet, if thy voice is any indication of thy\nquality, I think I need not fear thee.  And I said hastily: Fear\nabsolutely nothing; and I will tell thee my family and name, in\nexchange for thy own.  And easy is it to perceive that thou art no\ncommon person's wife.  Then she said: I am called Watsatar\u00ed, and my\nhusband is the minister of the king, of whom doubtless thou hast\nheard,[10] since everybody knows him, not only in this city, but\nelsewhere.\n\nAnd once again I started and exclaimed: What! the wife of Trishodadhi?\nThen she said: I see, thou knowest.  And I said again: What! can it be?\nTrishodadhi?  And as I spoke, I looked at her in absolute dismay.  And\nI murmured to myself: Alas! alas!  Had she only been the wife of any\nother husband in the three wide worlds, only not of him.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, exclaimed within himself: Ah! yes,\nindeed; thou art right.  Had it only been any other husband than\nmyself, indeed it had been well.  And oblivious of his muttering, he\nlistened in agitation to the tale.\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, as I gazed at her, struck by the\nthunderbolt of astonishment and dismay, my heart smote me: for all\nunintentionally, I found myself playing the traitor to my minister, and\nbecoming, as indeed I was already, the worshipper of his wife.  And\nwell I knew, that love would prove stronger than gratitude, and more\npowerful than friendship, and that he was already doomed.  And I said\nto myself: Ha! now destiny and the deity of Love have combined, to\nthrow me, as it were against my will, into the company of one whom I\nhad determined to avoid, and are driving me to injure, one, whom I\nwould rather wish to honour and regard.  But now it is too late, and\nwell I see, that will happen which must happen, and she and I and her\nhusband are but puppets, dancing to the bidding of powers that are\ngreater than our own.  And once again I murmured: Watsatar\u00ed;\nTrishodadhi; it cannot be.  Then she said: Who art thou, to be so well\nacquainted, as it seems thou art, both with my husband and myself, and\nwhat is there in the circumstances that arouses in thee such surprise?\n\nAnd as I looked at her, I trembled, saying to myself: Now perhaps it is\nas well, she cannot see.  And now I dare not tell her who I am, for\nthat would be utter ruin, since doubtless rumour has told her all about\nme.  And I thought for a moment, and then all at once I laughed aloud.\nAnd I exclaimed: O wife of Trishodadhi, if one should have commissioned\nthee, saying, Go at dead of night to the very middle of the sea, and\nthere catch in its immensity a single little _mina_[11] that has\nswallowed such-and-such a ring; and thou going accordingly and grasping\nblindly in its water shouldst find that very fish enclosed in thy hand,\nsay, would it not surprise thee also, to find chance putting into thy\nclutch a thing no ingenuity could ever have discovered?  And she said\nwith a smile: Who then is the fish; is it I, or is it he?  And I said:\nIt is thy own pretty neck which is the fish; for yonder necklace was\ncommissioned to encircle it.  And now let me tell thee, since I see\nthou art suspicious of myself, fearing no doubt the anger of thy\nhusband, should he discover thee in my society, that he would hardly\nhave excused thee for sending me away, as presently he himself will\ntell thee, as soon as he returns.  For know that I am a Rajpoot, and\nthe confidential agent of a neighbouring king, to whom thy husband\nlately rendered by his policy an inestimable service.  And since he\nabsolutely refused reward, the king my master said to me: Gratitude,\nlike a river, dammed in one direction, will find an outlet in another;\nand since I may do nothing for Trishodadhi, I will at least do\nsomething for his wife.  For I have heard, that she is of incomparable\nbeauty.  Take, then, this necklace, and answer for its safety with thy\nhead.  And ride night and day, going towards the capital of Ruru, and\nseek out his minister, and ask for Watsatar\u00ed his wife.  And when she is\nactually before thee, put with thy own hands the necklace on her neck,\nand say: King Chandradatta bids thee know, by this emblem, that the\nchain of obligation to thee and to thy husband is on his neck, and when\nthere is a difficulty, send him this; and he will overcome it.  And\nnow, right glad I am to find thee; for I have not slept since I\nstarted, for fear of losing the necklace, and forfeiting my head.  And\nsurely the bird which filched it from me to carry it to thee was some\ndeity in disguise; for how could a mere bird know, for whom it was\ndesigned?  So take thou the necklace, and when thy husband sees it,\nsummon me: and I will tell him also, and depart.\n\nAnd she listened attentively, looking as it were straight at me as I\nlied, till I trembled, rejoicing, and yet hardly crediting, that she\ncould not see me; and when I ended, she stood meditating, while I\nwatched her, in ecstasy at having hit upon a clever lie, by means of\nwhich I hoped to prolong our conversation, and look at her with\nimpunity, careless of what might come of it at last.  And presently she\nsaid: Where then is the necklace?  And I placed it in the lotus of the\nhand she held toward me, stealing guilty undetected glances at her\ncreeper of an arm; and she took it, and felt it all over, telling every\npearl, exactly as yonder old ascetic told his beads as I passed him;\nwhile I stood gazing at her, hardly able to draw breath.  And after a\nwhile she said: Surely these pearls are very large?  And I said: There\nare no others equal to them, even in the sea.  And she sighed a very\nlittle, and she said with regret: Their beauty is for other eyes than\nmine.  And I watched her eagerly, saying to myself: Ha! can it be that\nthis delicious beauty resembles all her far inferior sisters, and is\ntempted by the pearls she cannot see?  O pippala, I tell thee, that\nthough it made for my advantage, it was a grief to me to find her, as I\nthought, like other women.  Ha! but I did her wrong, and did not know\nher, for she had something in her soul that I did not understand.\n\nAnd all at once, half, as I conjectured, in derision, and half, it may\nbe, tempted by the shadow of a wish to try them on her neck, she took\nthe necklace by both ends in her hands, and hung it up around her\nthroat, letting those lucky pearls rest for a single instant on the\nmargin of her swelling breast.  And utterly bewildered, instantly I\nforgot my self-control.  And I stepped forward, saying hastily: Nay,\nthou dost not know the secret of its clasp.  And before she could\nprevent me, for blind as she was, she knew not what I meditated, I put\nmy two arms, that trembled with intoxication and timidity, and wonder\nat their own audacity, suddenly around her neck, and took the two ends\nof the necklace in my hands, and placing them together, was just about\nto clasp them.  And at that very moment, I looked, and lo! there, at a\ndistance in the garden, stood Trishodadhi her husband, looking at me\nwith eyes that resembled caverns, filled with black and shining water\nin the form of unutterable despair.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, groaned within himself, writhing as he\nsat at the reminiscence of that moment, which shot into his heart like\na flame.  And utterly oblivious of his muttering, he listened eagerly\nfor the remainder of the tale.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, when my eyes met his, I stood\nabsolutely still, like a bird fascinated by the glare of a snake,\naltogether forgetting what it was that I was doing, and what it was\nthat I was holding in my arms.  And all at once he turned and went\naway, without ever looking round.  And at that very instant Watsatar\u00ed,\nall ignorant of his presence and the cause of my behaviour, pushed me\nsuddenly away, with such force as all but to overthrow me.  And as I\ngazed at her like one dreaming, intent on nothing but her husband's\ninterruption, I saw an angry flush rise like dawn upon her face, and\nstanding like a queen, she knitted her bow-like brows in wrath, and\nexclaimed, in a voice that shook with indignation: Dastard, dost thou\ndare to take such cowardly advantage of my incapacity?  Get thee gone,\nand approach me, if at all, at the bidding of my husband.  And she took\nthe necklace, and tearing it from her neck, still unfastened as it was,\nshe threw it violently away, not caring where it fell.  And I in my\nagitation, cowed by her vehemence and the apparition of her husband,\ninstantly obeyed her.  And I exclaimed: O wife of Trishodadhi, thou art\nmistaken and unjust, but I obey thee.  And I climbed the wall, not so\nmuch as even remembering the necklace, and hastened home, saying to\nmyself: Now, very likely, he will kill her.  And if so, I myself shall\nmiserably perish, unable to endure my life without her; and what is to\nbe done?  And I sent hastily, as soon as I arrived, for Trishodadhi,\nnot knowing what to say to him when he should arrive.  But very soon my\nmessengers returned, saying: Mahar\u00e1j, Trishodadhi is nowhere to be\nfound.  And I sent them back, with orders to bring him as soon as he\ncould come.  And all that night I waited in anxiety, sleepless, haunted\nby the picture of Watsatar\u00ed, and fearing for her life.  Then in the\nmorning, those messengers returned again, saying: Mahar\u00e1j, Trishodadhi\nhas disappeared; and no one can tell us anything about him, or whither\nhe has gone.\n\nSo when I heard it, I said within myself: Now, beyond a doubt, he has\nhidden himself somewhere, fearing for his life.  And I sent everywhere\nto search for him; and in the meanwhile, I went back secretly once more\nto that garden, and climbed upon the wall, only to find it empty, for\nWatsatar\u00ed was gone.  And after a while I came away, sick with\ndisappointment, only to discover that still Trishodadhi was nowhere to\nbe found.  And so for many days it continued; and every day I went in\nvain to look for Watsatar\u00ed in the garden, and it seemed as though\nTrishodadhi and she had plotted to disappear together, without leaving\nany trace.  But after a while, finding by inquiry that the wife of\nTrishodadhi was looking for him, exactly like myself, I sent her a\nmessage from the King, saying: Thy husband has vanished, and much I\nfear, that some enemy has made away with him, leaving the affairs of my\nkingdom in confusion, for want of his sagacity.  But know, that I am\nmoving heaven and earth to find him, and do not be alarmed.  For it may\nbe that he is absent in pursuit of some object of his policy, of his\nown accord.\n\nAnd then at last, parched with intolerable thirst, and unable any\nlonger to endure separation from its cause, I went one day as usual to\nthe garden, and mounted on the wall, and looked.  And lo! there she was\nagain, looking up towards me on the wall, and listening, exactly as she\ndid before.  And at the sight of her, my heart almost leaped out of my\nbody with delight.  And instantly, without waiting for permission, I\nsprang from the wall, and went towards her; and as I did so, something\nmoved under my foot.  And I looked, and it was the necklace, that had\nlain there where she threw it, ever since.  And I left it lying, and\nexclaimed: O wife of Trishodadhi, as it appears, I have discovered thee\nat last.  Listen now, without losing any time; and even as it is, I\nfear, lest we should be overheard by spies.  And she said quietly: What\nis the matter?  Then I said: Thou knowest that thy husband has been\nmissing, ever since I saw thee first.  And she said: I know.  Then I\nsaid: Dost thou know where he is gone?  And she said: No.  And I said:\nI am here to tell thee.  For no sooner had I left thee than I went to\nhim; and I found him on the very point of setting out upon a journey.\nAnd I told him of our meeting in the garden; and he listened, and when\nI ended, he said quickly: This is no time for necklaces of pearls.  For\nknow, that I have just discovered, by certain information, that King\nRuru, having somehow or other cast eyes upon my wife, has fallen so\nviolently in love with her, that he cannot even sleep.  And well I know\nwhat he will do, since only too often has he exhibited specimens of his\nbehaviour, in the case of other wives than mine.  And therefore, while\nyet time suffers, I am escaping, since if he catches me, well he knows,\nand I know, that he will catch Watsatar\u00ed as well.  For where I am, she\nwill be also, seeing that a good wife such as she is cannot desert her\nhusband, even in a dream.  But if, as I am now about to do, I can only\nplace myself beyond his reach, she also will be safe.  For he will not\ndare openly to carry her away, at least for a little while, and in the\ninterval, I will remove her secretly myself.  And now the deity has\nsent thee to me, in the very nick of time; and I place her in thy\nhands, more valuable than any necklace.  Go to her quickly, for no one\nwill suspect thee, and bring her, telling absolutely no one, for I\ncannot trust any of my household, who fear the king, and are, it may\nbe, in his pay.  But thou shalt help me to cheat him of his prey.  And\nthen he told me of his hiding-place, and went away; and ever since, I\nhave sought thee in this garden, day by day, striving to discover thee,\nwithout letting any even of his household know.  And now at last I find\nthee, and nothing more remains, but to make arrangements, how and when\nI shall come to thee, to carry thee away.  And now, delay not, for the\nking's eye is on thee; and every future hour may be too late.  And the\nvery necklace may be to thee a pledge of my fidelity.  For yonder it\nlies, exactly where it fell from thy hand, though I had only to lift\nit, to carry it away and make it mine.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, ground his teeth together, and\nexclaimed within himself: Ah! perjured king and royal liar, well didst\nthou deserve to fall, not only into that body of an elephant, but\nsomething lower still.\n\n\n\nIX\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, when I ended, all at once that lady of\nthe steady eyes laughed as it were in my very face.  And while I stood\nconfounded and astounded by her laughter, which poured from her like a\nstream, she broke off abruptly, and she said: O King Ruru, I\ncongratulate thee from my heart on thy extraordinary talent for deceit.\nAnd I waited, just to hear what further artifice thou hadst concocted,\nin order to beguile me.  And I admire thy roguery, and as I think, King\nBhartrihari[12] was but a novice in comparison with thee, such a master\nart thou of thy trade, and all the arts of cozening my sex.  But now,\ncease wallowing like a hog in the mire of lying and deceit, and tell me\ntruly, what thou hast done with my husband.  For know, that thou\nwouldst never have found me here to-day to meet thee, but for my\ndetermination to ask of thee this very question.  Hast thou murdered\nhim, or stolen him away, or what?\n\nAnd as she spoke, I staggered, like one that has received a blow.  And\nI ejaculated: O lady, art thou dreaming, or what is this delusion?  And\nthen, angrily she stamped her little foot upon the ground.  And she\nsaid sternly, yet with derision: O King, has not thy own experience yet\ntaught thee, that kings are harder to conceal than the very sun at\nnoon?  And has thy dealing with such multitudes of women not yet shown\nthee, that even a king, versed in trickery and every diplomatic art,\nmight take lessons in intrigue from any woman, aye, even from so\nincomplete a specimen of womankind as me?  Hast thou allowed thyself to\nbe outwitted even by the blind?  And she laughed, while I gazed at her,\nastounded by her exaltation, arising like a storm in such gentleness as\nhers, and helpless in my anger, which was impotent, being swallowed by\nadmiration for her beauty and her craft.  And presently she said: What!\nart thou dumb at last, and has thy voluble eloquence deserted thee,\nwhen truth was wanted rather than a lie?  Know, that I suspected thee,\nfrom the very first, for thy voice betrayed thee, carrying in it as it\nwere an echo of command.  And for this very reason was it that I\nfingered thy necklace, by express design, to ascertain whether thou\nwert speaking truth about its value.  And I said privately to myself,\nas I handled it: This is surely the ornament of no other than a king.\nAnd as to thy story of the bird that brought it hither, well I\nunderstand that it was a fable, like thy fish; and thy necklace was\nnothing but a snare, by means of which thou didst hope to bribe me,\ncunning in thy knowledge of my sex.  And thereafter, all unknown to\nthee, I caused myself to be carried in a palanquin, a day or two ago,\nwhere I could listen to the voice of the king, and lo! it was thy own.\nSo drop thy mask, for it is only too transparent, since even the blind\ncan easily see through it.  And tell me, what hast thou done with my\nhusband?  Hast thou murdered the husband, as a stepping-stone to the\nembraces of the wife?\n\nAnd I said hastily: O admirable lady, I swear to thee, that I am as\ninnocent of thy husband's disappearance as thyself.  Nay, I have\nstriven to discover him, without avail, and his going is a mystery I\ncannot fathom.  Then she said: Thou art prevaricating, and if thou art\nignorant of the reason of his absence, I am not.  For certain I am,\nthat it is somehow or other connected with thy design upon myself, with\nwhich it coincides in the time of its occurrence, though I cannot\nunderstand it.\n\nPippala, as she spoke, I wondered at her sagacity, for blind as she\nwas, not having seen him as I did in the garden, she came within but a\nlittle of the truth.  And I said: Watsatar\u00ed, I swear to thee, that thy\nhusband has made himself invisible absolutely of his own accord, and I\nam absolutely guiltless of any practices against him, as indeed my\nkingdom suffers by his absence.  Then she said: Partly I believe thee,\nthough not relying on thy own asseveration.  For thou hast forfeited\nall claim to be believed, in anything whatever.  But even if thou hast\nnot actually removed him, thy action it is, which has driven him away.\nFor beyond a doubt, he must somehow or other have penetrated thy\ndesign, and gone away accordingly, and O that this may be all.  For\nbitterly do I reproach myself, for having, in a moment of curiosity,\nlent a colour to his suspicion; and even though he was not there, yet\nas thou didst place thy arms about my neck, on pretext of fastening the\nnecklace, taking a cowardly advantage of my impotence of sight, I felt\nmyself a criminal.  And when he comes again, I will confess it, and\ntake his forgiveness for my fault, into which I fell by my own\nblindness, and thy abominable treachery.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, exclaimed within himself: Ha! very\nwonderful is the intuition of women pure in soul; for she hit upon the\nvery truth.  Ah! that I should have doubted her, even in a dream!  And\noblivious of his muttering, he listened to the tale.\n\n\n\nX\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, I gazed at her in silence, utterly\nunable to find anything to say.  And yet, alas for her! convicted as I\nwas, by everything she said, she did but add to the volume of my\npassion, like one that pours oil upon a flame.  For her anger and her\ngrief and her repentance, and her extraordinary subtlety, only made her\nmore beautiful than ever, and my own evil conduct resembled the\nradiance of a lamp, that was thrown back from the opal of her purity in\nshowers of incomparable colour on myself.  And all at once she seated\nherself upon the ground.  And she said: Stand thou there before me, and\nlisten.  For my husband having gone away, no matter how or where, what\nis it thy intention to do now?  Here am I a prey to thee, and utterly\ndefenceless; and now there is absolutely nothing to prevent thee from\ncompleting thy design.  Tell me, then, what thou art proposing to do.\nAnd she waited, while I answered her absolutely nothing, watching her\nwith intoxication, and lurking as it were under the protection of her\nblindness.  And presently she said again: Why art thou silent?  Art\nthou meditating in what manner to appropriate me?  Save thyself the\ntrouble, for I myself will tell thee of my own accord.  Art thou not a\nking, with agents about thee for any base design?  Send them secretly\nat night, and steal me, and thy business is done.  And she laughed\nagain, and said: Or didst thou think me one, like others, doubtless,\nsuch as thou hast known, to be flattered by the vanity of having a\nlover in the king?  Then why didst thou endeavour to hide from me thy\nrank?  Surely thou wast deserted by thy reason.  Art thou not aware,\nthat women, as a rule, flutter round a king like silly moths about a\ntorch, ready to burn up, not only the wings of their reputation, but\neven their very souls in the form of the honour of their husbands, so\nthat only they may bathe for a moment in his glitter, before\nshrivelling in its flame?  Or didst thou trust in thy favour as a man;\nfor I have heard that no man in thy kingdom can compare with thee: not\nconsidering that I was blind, and unable either to admire or dislike\nthee, even though thy ugliness were such as to frighten me away?  Aye,\nand verily I think, that if thy exterior correspond to what thou art\nwithin, thou art surely very ugly; and I rejoice, for the first time in\nmy life, I cannot see.  And again she laughed, like one in a fever of\ndesperation, while all the while I stood before her silent, wroth with\nher and with myself, yet attracted to her rather than repelled, by\neverything she said.\n\nAnd all at once she said: Say, Mahar\u00e1j, what was thy object in\noriginally pursuing me?  Come, tell me frankly.  Is it not my love that\nthou wouldst have?  And I exclaimed: Aye! it is thy love indeed; and\nfor it I would cast my kingdom into the very bottom of a well.  Then\nshe said: See, now, every way thou hast acted like a fool.  What! gain\na woman's love by murdering her husband!  Then what a monster must have\nbeen the woman thou art ready to adore!  And I said hastily: I am no\nmurderer of thy husband, as I told thee.  And moreover, O thou angry\nbeauty, not every woman loves her husband; and thine is far too old for\nthee, and leaves thee, moreover, deserted and alone.  And instantly,\nshe put up her two hands to stop her ears, exclaiming: Say not a word\nagainst my husband, or I will become deaf as well as blind.  Why didst\nthou not rather endeavour to persuade me, he had deserted me in favour\nof thyself?  For had I only been the woman thou art taking me to be,\nnothing could have been better to the point.  Or why didst thou not try\nto buy me from him?  Thou art rich.  Was it that it was only too well\nknown to thee, he would not sell me, even for a very mountain of pure\ngold?  Then what art thou but a thief, seeking underhand to rob him of\nthe thing he would not sell?\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, murmured to himself: Aha! well said,\nwell done!  O irrefutable wife, well might he stand before thee, in\nsilence and abashed.  And oblivious of his muttering, he listened to\nthe tale.\n\n\n\nXI\n\nAnd the elephant said: O pippala, little as she knew it, she was but\npleading against herself, and losing her own cause, even in the winning\nof it, by making herself ever more and more the mistress of my soul.\nAnd all the while she was reducing me as it were to ashes, by the fire\nof her scorn; strange! she was but raising out of those very ashes\nother and far fiercer fire than hers, so unutterably beautiful was the\nbody and the soul of my despiser.  And then all at once, as if driven\nto despair by the consciousness of her own forlorn position, she burst\nfrom laughter into tears.  And she wept, rocking herself to and fro\nbefore me as she sat, while I watched her with a heart that almost\nbroke, in despair that I should grieve her, yet fiercely determined to\nwin her for my own.  Ha! very terrible is the cruelty of love, piercing\nwith marble heart the very thing it loves with swords; and very\nwonderful the conduct of a lover, treating as if with hatred, and\npitilessly torturing, the thing for which he longs to give his life.\nFor I would have given my kingdom, only to take her in my arms and\nsoothe her; and yet my heart was adamant to her reproaches, intent on\nnothing but breaking her determination, and bending her to my will.\nAnd so I stood, waiting till the tempest of her sorrow should abate,\nand allow her to bring about herself a change in a situation, with\nwhich I myself was powerless to deal.  And at last she raised her head,\nand said: O King, thou seest that I am absolutely at thy mercy.  And\nhast thou then no pity or compassion?  Is it my love that thou aimest\nat possessing?  Then how will it advantage thee to take by force, what\nhas value only when it is given of its own accord?  Or what can be the\nvalue of a body, dead and without a soul?  Wilt thou love a corpse, or\nwill a corpse relove thee?  Callest thou love, such a union with the\ndead?  I tell thee, such love would turn to hatred in a day.\n\nAnd I exclaimed: Ah!  Watsatar\u00ed; say not, say not, thou canst not love\nme; and speak not of thyself as dead, who art my life, and as it were,\nthe very soul and self of me.  Nay, rather is it I, who am altogether\ndead, without thee.  Aye! all these years I have been dead, having only\nnow at last begun to live, since first I climbed upon the wall, to see\nmy life at last, in thee below.  Alas!  Watsatar\u00ed, and dost thou talk\nof pity or compassion, that hast thyself no grain of either in that\nheart of thine, that, as I think, is harder than a stone?  Or being\nblind thyself, dost thou imagine all others also blind?  And O that I\nmyself were blind indeed, and could not see thee, for as it is, the\nsight of thee is poison more fell than any _k\u00e1lakuta_,[13] since that\nat least was drinkable, but thy blue bewildering beauty is fatal even\nat a distance, showing the traveller a mocking picture in the desert,\nonly to whet his thirst, without allowing him to drink at all.  Aye!\nsurely thou art an incarnation of illusion, more bitter even than the\nocean with its brine; for thou art salt not only to the taste but to\nthe sight.  And why, then, didst thou allure me with the mystery and\ndepth of thy still unfathomable eyes, or lull my senses and dash my\nreason from its rock by the surge of the wave that throbs in the motion\nof thy tantalising breast, only to drive me from thee by menaces of\ndeath?  Did the Creator mould thee to such incomparable form, or bestow\non every movement of thy body so delicate and characteristically\nfeminine a grace, only for my destruction?  Did he fill me with\npassionate longing for exactly such a perfect model of the soft and\nseductive sweetness of a woman as thyself, only to show me the reality\nin derision, and say to me as soon as I had found it, Forget it, and go\naway, and leave it to another.  Nay, but I will not go away, and I tell\nthee, that in vain dost thou endeavour to deprive me of thyself.\nRather will I bind thee to myself, making thee a part of me, as is\nGauri of Maheshwara, and thou shall be the complement and the other\nhalf of me, and shrine me in thy heart and thee in mine.\n\nAnd she said: Nay, but it is impossible, for my husband is between; and\nit is not thou, but he, who is the idol and the dweller in my shrine.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, said softly to himself: Out, out upon\nthe husband that could doubt her, even in a dream!  And oblivious of\nhis muttering, he listened on, for the remainder of the tale.\n\n\n\nXII\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, when she spoke, I uttered a cry.  And I\nexclaimed: Ha! the husband!  O alas!  I had forgotten him.  Then she\nsaid quietly: But I had not.  And I cried: O alas! alas!  Out, out upon\nthis husband, for he was born only for my ruin and despair.  Now, like\na cloud of pitchy black, he stands between my soul, and the digit of\nthe moon that I adore.  Aye! but for him, I might be hanging like a\nmoonstone bathed in the nectar camphor of its beams.  O why did fate\nsuffer him to come between us! why did I not meet thee first, before he\never saw thee?  Ha! what would it cost the Creator to obliterate a\nsingle husband, and strike him from the roll of entities, making him\nabsolutely nothing and a thing that has never been, thinner than the\nmemory of a forgotten dream?  Alas!  I am cheated by the Creator and\nthis husband, and coming just too late, I am robbed of the very fruit\nof this untimely birth.  And after all, what is this husband?  Is he a\nhusband who goes away and leaves thee, like a flower dropped\nnegligently upon the road, and have I not found thee, made ownerless by\nhis absence, and picked thee up, to wear thee in my hair?  Can he be\nthy owner, of whom it is not even certain that he lives?  Aye!\ndoubtless he is dead, and thou hast not any longer the pretext of a\nhusband, to bar thee from my claim.  And instantly she said: Then, if\nhe is really dead, it is my duty to follow him through the fire, which,\ncould I only learn his death with certainty, I would do without delay.\nAnd I exclaimed: Nay, nay, dare not to dream of fire, for how knowest\nthou he is dead?  Beyond a doubt, he is not dead, but only hidden; and\nwouldst thou dream of such criminal impiety as to take it on thyself to\nprecede him into the other world.  I tell thee, it is thy duty to await\nhim.  And she said: Then if he is not dead, I am no widow, but his wife.\n\nAnd I exclaimed with tears: Alas! dead or alive, he blocks the way, and\nI am lost.  But what then, if he never should return?  What if year\nfollows year, and still he chooses to be absent, while all the time the\nlotus of thy beauty fades, and envious wrinkles crawl slowly, one by\none, to feed like worms on thy soft delicious skin, and occupy the\ncorner beneath thy little ear, turning thy dark tresses white, as if\nwith fear of the shadow of approaching age and death?  Am I to stand\nidly by, like a spectator, and watch the river of my happiness flow by\nme, in the form of thy decaying charm?  And she said in a low voice:\nEach night and day I will expect him, and when he comes, let it be when\nit may, he shall never catch me unprepared, but find me waiting, sad by\nreason of his absence, and joyous like a city hung with banners to\nreceive its lord, at the moment of his return.\n\nAnd I gazed at her for a little, poised as it were between affection\nand despair; for as she spoke, the colour rose and stood upon her\ncheek, and her lip trembled, and her steady eyes seemed to gaze into\nthe distance, seeing not me, but that absent husband: and I knew that\nas she said, so would she do.  And I wrung my hands, and wept for\nsorrow.  And I exclaimed: Ha! it is unjust, and I am the plaything of a\ndestiny that I fastened on myself by sins committed in a former birth,\nin the form of this dark shadow of a husband, who is present even in\nhis absence, though as it seems, time and space have swallowed him, as\nthe ocean swallows up a little stone, dropped from the feather of a\npassing swan into the very middle of the sea.  And know, O pippala,\nthat it was exactly as I said.  For that husband of hers returned no\nmore, but vanished, and neither I nor any other ever saw him more, or\nknew where he had gone.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, said within himself: Ha! little does\nthis elephant imagine who it is, that sits and listens to him now.  And\noblivious of his muttering, he listened on, eager for the remainder of\nthe tale.\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, as I stood before her, like an\nincarnation of the struggle between adoration and dismay, she spoke and\nsaid: O King Ruru, thou seest it is useless.  Cease, then, thy pleading\nand persuasion, and go away; for all that thou canst urge is wasted\nbreath, and thou art like one striving by reiterated throwing to fix a\nstone in air, which notwithstanding returns in spite of thee invariably\nto the ground--as does my heart to the memory of its lord.\n\nAnd I said: Ha! now I see, I have offended the deity of Love, and the\nLord of Obstacles is angry.  For the one has turned his back on me, and\nthe other has cast before me this mountain of an obstacle, thy husband,\nthrowing even at a distance a blighting shadow in the form of\nreminiscence, by which I am buried in blackness and hidden from thy\nheart.  O that thy eyes could see me, for then it might be that through\nthem I might effect an entrance; but alas! the door to thee is shut.\nOr had I only been blind as well as thou, thou never couldst have\nentered mine.  What! is it right of thee to occupy my heart, and yet\nbar me from thy own?  And she said: My heart is full, and poor, and\nnarrow, and far too small for thee, containing as it does room for only\none, and not like thine, royal, and a palace, with chambers for\ninnumerable guests.\n\nAnd I said, with emotion: Ah!  Watsatar\u00ed, thy words are very sharp, and\nlike a dagger in my heart; and now I see, that every man is punished by\nhimself, being followed to eternity by actions of his own, black dogs,\nfrom which in vain he will endeavour to escape.  Aye! thou art right, I\nturned my heart into a caravanserai, to which I welcomed every\nworthless guest; but now I swear to thee, the very sight of thee has\ncleansed it like a pure river, which, ousting everything, has left\nthere nothing, but the crystal of itself.  Then she said: O King, they\nsay of thee in the bazaar, that thou wast bent like a golden bar from\nstraight to crooked, by the evil behaviour of thy queen.  And is it\ntrue?  And I said, eagerly: Aye! she it was that turned me, as thou\nsayest, aside, into the jungle of depravity.  And instantly she said,\nquietly: What! then art thou not ashamed?  For what art thou doing now,\nbut striving to make me such another as thy queen, whom, according to\nthyself, thou blamest, as the cause of thy unhappiness?  Thou art\nthyself the judge.  And should I listen to thee, thou tellest me\nbeforehand, I should be utterly worthless in thy eyes, and a discredit\nto myself, and my husband, and my sex.  For the three worlds shudder at\nthe spectacle of a woman that is traitor to her lord.  Go then away\nvery quickly, and forget that thou hast ever seen my face.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, exclaimed in ecstasy to himself: Ha!\ngood wife and subtle argument.  Now she has slain him, as it were, with\nhis very own sword.  And utterly oblivious of his muttering, he\nlistened eagerly for the remainder of the tale.\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, as I gazed at her, I almost shrank\nbefore her tranquil eyes, half believing she could see me, so utterly\nhad she crushed me by her unanswerable words.  And yet, the less I\ncould reply, the more intense became my admiration of herself, and the\nstronger my unwillingness to obey her, and go away and leave her.  And\nas if her beauty was not enough, her very virtue came to reinforce it,\nmaking her attraction a hundred times more powerful than ever.  O\npippala, what is this mystery of love, and who is there who can sound\nit?  For what was I doing, but endeavouring to persuade her? and yet,\nhad she been persuaded, I should actually have grieved at my success;\nas I actually rejoiced at her refusal, loving her the better, the less\nshe could be persuaded to love me.  And I exclaimed, as if in defiance\nof despair: No matter, O thou incomparable beauty, what I was, for I am\nchanged, and by thee, in the twinkling of an eye.  And what does it\nmatter what they say in the bazaar, for the world is but a straw to me,\nin comparison with thee?  See, I cannot live without thee, and I will\ncarry thee away, to a distance from the world, and be to thee\ninfinitely more than a thousand husbands such as thine.  For he\nneglected thee, and left thee to thyself, not valuing his pearl.  But I\nwill be thy other self; see, thou art blind, but I will be thy eyes,\nand by means of me, thou shall utterly forget thy want of sight.  And\nif thou wilt, I will take thee clean away, turning my back upon my\nkingdom and the world, like yonder necklace which I have left for thy\nsake lying unregarded in the grass, and asking of thee in return\nnothing but thyself.  Dost thou not know, what fate awaits thee here?\nCanst thou endure to live, deserted by thy husband, who is either dead\nor gone, the object of the scorn and derision and hard usage of the\nworld, a very target for the arrows of contempt?[14]  What then will\nthou resemble but a blue delicious lotus, trampled in the mire of a\ncity street by the foot of every passer-by; a lotus, whose appropriate\nposition is either the pool in the silence of the forest, or the head\nof a king?  But come with me, O lotus, and thou shall gain at one\nstroke both the forest and the king.  For here am I, a king, and beside\nus is the forest, stretching like the ocean to the south, whose farther\nshore no hunter ever sees.  And far away within it, I will build thee a\nmarble palace that shall laugh at even Alak\u00e1, set like a pearl in the\nmiddle of an emerald of gardens, full of pools of golden lotuses, whose\nroots are nibbled by a multitude of silver swans.  And there by day\nthou shall wander led by me, or lie and dream, fanned by breezes heavy\nwith the sandal straight from Malaya, on marble slabs cooled by the\nspray tossed from the crystal tanks by waterfalls whose music shall\npour sleep into thy ear, leaving thee wakeful at midnight to listen and\ntremble as I guide thee along the palace-top at the cry of the wild\nanimals roaming at a distance in the wood, till at last thou fall to\ndreaming in my arms, lulled by the slow and melancholy weeping of the\nmoonstones oozing as they swing to and fro slowly in the moonlight, as\nif keeping time to the silent dance of their own long shadows on the\nfloor.  And what will it matter to thee or me what they say in the\nbazaar, living together like Siddhas in the moon, to whom this babble\nof busybodies in the cities of this despicable earth sounds like the\nrecollection of the murmur of a far-off ocean in the dream of a\nhalf-remembered birth.  And all the while I will be thy servant and the\neyes of thee, and my voice shall paint to thee pictures of the world\nthat shall surround thee, and be thy one interpreter, till learning its\nlanguage, thy soul shall even forget to remember it was blind.  And I\nwill utterly efface thy recollection of this husband, who is a husband\nin nothing but the name, since he leaves thee deserted and alone, to be\nafflicted; and instead of him I will be thy husband, and thy other half\nand helper, and thy soother and thy lover and the very eyes and soul of\nthee.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, said with anxiety to himself: Ha! now\nthis liar of a king is very cunning, and beyond a doubt, many a woman\nwould have found it hard to resist the flattery of his tongue.  And\noblivious of his muttering, he listened eagerly for the remainder of\nthe tale.\n\n\n\nXV\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, as I ended, I stepped forward, and I\ntook her, very gently, by the hand.  And then, lo! the very moment that\nI touched it, she started.  And she leaped back, like one that has\nsuddenly put his hand into the flame of a fire, with a cry.  And as I\nwatched her, she stood for a single instant, like one balanced on the\nvery verge of flying, or sobbing, or falling to the ground, for she\nswayed on her little feet, and her body shook all over, like a tree\nwhose leaves are stirred by a sudden wind.  And her great breast\nstruggled in violent agitation, as if striving to leap from its bodice\nin sheer fright.  And then in a moment, all at once she changed,\nbecoming still, as though she were an image, carved in stone, upon a\ntemple wall.  Only her bosom went on heaving like the sea, as if she\ncould not breathe.  And after a while she said, very slowly: My\nblindness makes my battle hard, for I cannot either see my danger\ncoming, or escape it by flying when it comes.  And now, well I discern\nthe terrible consequences of sins committed in a former birth, for now\nI am without resource, resembling one that walks in inky darkness,\nwhose every step may plunge the point of a sword into his heart.  And\nyet that very blindness which puts me in thy power contains the weapon\nto defeat thee; for within it I am shut from thee as in an impenetrable\nfortress, around which thou art wandering in vain.  For the Creator has\nnot left even the blind without their proper refuge, and has bestowed\nupon them inner eyes, as if to balance the want of those without; and\nbeing deprived by their infirmity of all that world which others see,\nthey fall back upon the world within, composed of memory and\nmeditation, and patience and emotion, and fidelity and hope.  And as I\nlisten to thy words, falling on my ear out of the visible I cannot see,\ntempting me, and seeking as it were to melt my resolution by a fiery\nrain, I look into my soul, and I see at a distance, in its darkness, a\nsolitary star in the form of my husband, sending me as it were a ray of\nsupport and consolation, to keep me from sinking in the waves of the\nocean of despair.  And now I tell thee, all thy honied words are\nworthless, and like arrows, they fall back blunted and shattered on the\nrock on which I lean, in the form of his memory, and beating on my head\nlike particles of snow they do but add to the mound of cold resistance\nwhich they aim removing by their ineffectual storm.  And though I know\nnot where he is, nor even if he will return, yet when he does he shall\nfind his honour safe, and my soul like a temple shall preserve within\nits shrine the candle that he lit, whose steady flame not all the winds\nof flattery and temptation blown from thine or any other mouth shall\never make extinct, or even cause to flicker for an instant, even in a\ndream.  And like Draupadi, or Damayanti, or Sita, or Sawitri, I shall\nmeet my husband, either in this birth or another, so, as that neither\nhe nor I will be ashamed.  And well though I know that I am bodily at\nthy mercy and in thy power, so that coming thyself or sending others,\nthou canst carry me by violence away, as I think will be the case, yet\nshall even that avail thee nothing.  For the body thou shall ravish, as\nI told thee, will be dead, and its soul will be away.  For though it is\nmy duty not to quit it, for my husband has left me, as it were, as a\ndeposit in my own hands to be guarded for himself, yet I shall make no\neffort to conceal it from thee like a coward; it is here for thee to\nsteal.  Take, if thou wilt, a thing that can offer no resistance; thou\nwilt gain absolutely nothing but dishonour for thyself, loving what\nwill not love thee, embracing what will not embrace thee, doomed to\nremain everlastingly outside, and baulked of that treasure of the heart\nwithin, like a robber with an adamantine casket to which he has no key,\nand which, defying all his efforts to invade it, leaves him with\nnothing to reward him but his crime.  Aye! try, and thou shalt find,\nthat with nothing to defend it, armed only with a memory, the heart of\na woman is stronger than all the power of a king.  Aye! bring, if thou\nwilt, the ocean, and the wind, and the darkness to assist thee, and\nthou shalt find that the little tongue of that flame which is fed on\nthe oil of reminiscence will utterly refuse to be extinguished by them\nall.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, murmured softly to himself: Ah! noble\nwife, ah!  Watsatar\u00ed, thou hast annihilated this robber of a king.  And\nutterly oblivious of his muttering, he listened, with a heart on fire,\nfor the remainder of the tale.\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nAnd the elephant said: Ha! pippala, as she ended, I stood confounded,\nlike a picture on a wall, gazing at her in utter oblivion of everything\nbut herself, drunk with amazement and adoration.  For as she spoke, she\nseemed to grow, and become larger than herself; and her words poured\nlike a stream of liquid fire shot from the fountain of her soul, and my\nown soul seemed as it were to shrink and grow small before her, like a\nthing shrivelled in a flame.  And her strange calm eyes shone till I\nshuddered as I saw them, and I felt like the demon whom Gauri was about\nto annihilate for ever, in her form.  And I could have fallen down and\nworshipped her in ecstasy, and yet for very shame I dared not stir.\nAnd so I stood a while, as if in stupor, and then very quietly I crept\naway, and climbing over the wall, returned privately to my palace, like\na thief ashamed.  And there, throwing myself upon my bed, I lay silent,\nunconscious of the passage of time, gazing as it were into darkness,\nand seeing nothing but the image of Watsatar\u00ed, standing still before\nme, and looking at me fixedly, with eyes from which I strove to hide\nmyself in vain.  And all at once, in the middle of the night, I started\nup shouting: Watsatar\u00ed!  Watsatar\u00ed!  And I raved with words devoid of\nmeaning, feeling nothing but passionate desire for herself and her\nbeauty, and hatred of her husband, and loathing for myself.  And I\nexclaimed: Haha! but for this husband, I might have attained to the\nfruit of my birth, which has vanished like a dream.\n\nAnd as it happened, my _wita_ overheard me, for as a rule he never left\nme, and he was sitting by my side, watching me, like a bird of evil\nomen, with his only eye; for he had lost the other by a blow from a\nboon companion in a drunken brawl.  And all at once he said: Mahar\u00e1j,\ndoubtless thou art troubled in soul by reason of some love affair; and\nnow, sorrow shared with a friend is lightened of more than half its\nburden.  Moreover, it may be I could help thee, for in every such case,\na bystander is a better judge.  So in my distress, unable to refrain, I\ntold him the whole story.  And when I made an end, the _wita_ said:\nMahar\u00e1j, hadst thou kept this to thyself, thou wouldst not have been\nwell advised; as I shall show thee.  For thy opinion is, that the\nhusband is thy difficulty, and the obstacle in this affair.  And I\nsaid: Aye! so he is, beyond a doubt; and an obstacle utterly beyond\nremoval.  Then said the _wita_: Mahar\u00e1j, thou art mistaken altogether.\nFor the husband in this case is not an obstacle at all, for he has\ndisappeared, as though on purpose to oblige thee, and leave thy way\nopen.  But that which stands in thy way, exactly as she said herself,\nis nothing but his memory.[15]  For if she could forget him, she would\nhave absolutely nothing to oppose to thee at all.  And I exclaimed:\nAye! indeed! if she could forget him.  Then said that crafty _wita_:\nDid I not say that my assistance would avail thee?  For there is\nabsolutely no difficulty in this at all.  For I have a friend, who has\ngone to the very farther shore of the _Ayurweda_,[16] and possesses\nskill sufficient to raise the very dead to life.  And now I will\nconsult him, and tell him only so much as is necessary to the business\nin hand, and get from him a drug to annihilate the memory; and what can\nbe more easy than for such a very Lord of Herbs[17] to produce oblivion\nand forgetfulness, by the means of a drug?  For if she could only be\ninduced to lose, somehow or other, all recollection of her husband,\nremaining in every other point the same, thy object is attained, and\nstealing into her soul, thou couldst very easily fill it with thy\nimage, being vacant of his own.\n\nAnd instantly I uttered a cry, and falling on my _wita_, embraced him,\nintoxicated with delight, exclaiming: Ha! most admirable of all\n_witas_, if thou canst actually do as thou hast said, I will weigh\nmyself in gold, for thy reward.  And like thy own physician, thou hast\nas it were raised me from the dead.  And now let us begin and set to\nwork, without losing any time.  And in my agitation I could hardly\nendure to wait for the return of day.  Then very early in the morning\nthe _wita_ went to his physician and returned, holding in his hands a\nlittle phial.  And he said: Mahar\u00e1j, I have the cure for every\nrecollection in this glass.  For as he gave it me, he said: Whoever\nswallows this will fall asleep, to lose on reawakening every vestige of\nrecollection of what happened in his life before.  So nothing now\nremains, except the drinking.  And to drink, she must be here.  And if\nthou wilt, I will take assistance, and go and bring her, and put her in\nthy hands myself.  And if thy beauty will not come, what matter?  A\nlittle violence will do no harm, since all will be forgotten when she\nwakes.\n\nAnd then, he fixed on me his eye, as if ironically, and I shuddered as\nI saw it, saying to me as it were significantly: Thou and I.  And I\nlooked at him with horror, saying to myself: What! shall I share her\nwith this _wita_, and shall the lotus of her body be defiled by his\nhandling, even in a dream?  And I leaped at him and struck him to the\nground, exclaiming furiously: Dog of a _wita_, dost thou dare?  Is it\nfor such a thing as thou art to lay hands on her, or shall she be\nprofaned by the grasp of such a monster as thyself?\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, muttered to himself in wrath: Ha! thou\nthat callest others monsters, what of thyself? what defilement was\nthere in the touch of thy filthy _wita_, that was not doubled by the\nprofanation in thy own?  And all oblivious of his muttering, he\nlistened with anxiety for the conclusion of the tale.\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, as the _wita_ rose, I said to him in\nwrath: I only will go to fetch her, nor shall any finger touch her but\nmy own.  And as for thee, remain behind, and await me with thy phial\ntill I come.  Then said the _wita_: As the Mahar\u00e1j chooses.  And he\nbowed before me like a slave, and listened in silence while I made my\npreparations, thinking no more of him, and utterly forgetful of the\ninjuries he had suffered at my hands.  But if I forgot them, so did not\nhe.  Ha! wonderful is the blindness of kings and lovers who,\nintoxicated with passionate desire, place with open eyes weapons in the\nhands of infuriated enemies, who only await an opportunity to stab them\nto the heart.\n\nAnd then, O pippala, in the evening, I mounted my horse, and went, with\na chosen band of confidential servants, and a litter, secretly to the\ngarden.  And I rode very slowly, thinking how I should induce her to\ncome away, unwilling to use force.  And I said to myself, with\nhesitation: But if she will not come, as only too much I fear, what\nthen?  Must I not have recourse to violence?  And after all, was not my\n_wita_ right?  What matter a little violence, to be utterly forgotten\nas soon as she awakes?  Moreover, being blind, how can she tell who\nseizes her, seeing that she knows me by nothing but my voice?  And yet\nI could not bring myself to think of taking her away by force, striving\nto discover some other way, and saying to myself: Could I but discover\nsomething, to make her come away with me of her own accord.\n\nAnd then, all at once, I stopped short.  And I exclaimed: Ha!  I have\nit.  Surely this will bring her; and now, the business is done.\n\nAnd I set spurs to my horse, and followed by my train, I quickly\nreached the garden, and leaving them to wait below, I climbed the wall\nalone, and looked, and lo! there she stood again, listening, and\nlooking as it were towards me, exactly as she did at first.\n\nAnd then, strange! the instant that I saw her, I stopped, looking down\nat her upon the wall, and such a sadness mingled with the ecstasy of my\ndevotion as I watched her, that the tears rose up into my eyes.  And I\nsaid to myself: Let me look at her well, for just a little while, for\nthis is the very last time I shall see her from the wall.  Ha! pippala,\nlittle did I dream that I was looking at her, never again to see her\nstanding, either from the wall or any other place whatever in the\nworld.  And her dress, as she had turned round towards the wall,\nstartled by the sound of my approach, was twined as if with affection,\nlike a creeper, closely round her ankles, and had wrapped itself around\nher feet, as if to hinder them from moving and root her in the ground,\nresembling a pedestal, out of which, like a statue of herself, her\nbeautiful undulating body rose up into the air, like the feminine\nincarnation of a full-blown and heavy flower, only waiting for a breeze\nto sway gently on its slender stalk.  And once more I trembled as I\ngazed at the dead still colour of her tranquil unintimidated eyes, that\nseemed as it were to say to me, Coward, couldst thou have mustered\ncourage to lay rude hands on such a lovely lotus as myself, growing in\na pool which is not thine?\n\nAnd suddenly, I flung myself into the garden, and went hastily towards\nher.  And I exclaimed: Watsatar\u00ed, thy husband is returned, for I have\nfound him, and now I have him in my palace, and his life is in my\nhands, and thine.  And now I have come myself, with an escort, to bring\nthee to him; so that in thy presence I may bargain with him for thee,\nand buy thee, at any price that he shall name.  Didst thou not say, I\nwas a robber, endeavouring to steal the thing I could not buy?  And\nnow, then, we shall see whether he will sell thee; and I promise thee,\nI will not buy thee cheap; for I am ready to give him, in return for\nthee, his life.\n\nAnd as she listened, she started; and when I ended, she was silent; and\nas I watched her, she trembled a very little, and grew pale.  And\npresently she said slowly: Thou hast placed me, indeed, in an\nextremity; and very sore indeed is my perplexity, to know what I should\ndo.  And what if I refuse to come?  And I said in a low voice: It will\ngo hard with thy husband, in thy absence.  Ah! pippala, I pitied her,\neven as I spoke.  And I steeled myself against compassion, saying to\nmyself: No matter if she suffers a little now; for very soon, I will\nmake it up to her, a thousandfold and more.\n\nAnd after a while, she sighed and said again: How can I believe thee,\nwho hast lied to me so often, and whose purpose only too well I\nunderstand?  Yet how can I resist one who can so easily effect by\nviolence the end at which he aims, if I refuse?  And yet, I fear for my\nhusband, and what thou sayest may, after all, be true.  Will thou swear\nto me, thou wilt take me to my husband?  And I said to myself: She has\ncaught herself in the trap; and who will be her husband but myself?\nAnd I exclaimed: Watsatar\u00ed, if I am lying to thee, may I fall into a\nlower birth!  Ha! pippala, as I think, the deity was listening, and\nbound me in this very body of an elephant, remembering my words, in\nobedience to my own curse.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, murmured to himself: Ah! liar of a\nking, so after all, thou couldst prevail on her virtue only by making\nuse of me against myself, and turning as it were her very heart into a\nsnare.  And all oblivious of his muttering, he listened eagerly for the\ntermination of the tale.\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, she yielded at the last.  And she said,\nin a low voice: May my husband forgive me, if my better judgment is in\nerror, overlooking my own danger for his sake.  But it will be\nnecessary to carry me, for, as I think, my body will not move of its\nown accord.  And then, all at once, she reeled, and would have fallen,\nswooning at my feet, but that I sprang forward, and caught her as she\nfell.  And very carefully I lifted her in my arms, bereft as she was of\nsense, and in my intoxication, unable to refrain, I kissed her as she\nlay unconscious in my arms, and lo! she was as cold as ice.  And I\ncalled to my assistants, and got her with their help over that wall,\nthat resembled the last obstacle in the road of my delight, and placing\nher in the litter, I carried her away very quickly to my palace, riding\nbeside her with a soul that danced as it were with joy and agitation,\nwhile all the while she lay as if her own soul abandoning its body had\nstayed behind her in the garden, refusing to be a traitor to its trust.\nAnd as soon as we arrived, once more I took her in my arms, and carried\nher within, and placed her, just as she was, upon a couch.  And I said\nto my _wita_, who was waiting: Bring now very quickly fans, and snow\nand sandal, and camphor and aromatics, and let us bring her to herself.\nAnd so, as I was fanning her, and sprinkling her with icy scents, all\nat once, she stirred.  And she put out her hand, as if groping to feel\nwho was beside her, and she murmured, Water, water! so low as hardly to\nbe heard.\n\nAnd at that very moment, I looked, and saw the _wita_, gazing at me\nwith his eye.  And he whispered: Mahar\u00e1j, shall I give it?  And I said:\nGive it me, and I will give it her myself.  And I took the water from\nhis hands, and emptied into it the phial; and I put the water to her\nlips, and very greedily she drank.  Ah! woe is me, I gave it, and she\ndrank.  Ha! very wonderful is the terrible mystery of the consequence\nof works, bound in whose adamantine chain we move, and blunder, not\nseeing where we go, not knowing what we do, bringing about with open\neyes the very opposite of the end at which we aim.  Ah!  I, who would\nhave abandoned not one, but an infinity of bodies, only to save her\nfrom a scratch, only to keep a single hair from falling from her head,\nI, with these hands, I gave her that water, and she drank, while all\nthe while the _wita_ stood watching, like destiny in human form,\nincarnate in a body that was destitute of any heart.\n\nAnd Trishodadhi, as he listened, murmured to himself: Ha! better it\nwere to have no heart at all, than such a heart as thine.  And all\noblivious of his muttering, he listened to the tale.\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nAnd the elephant said: Pippala, she drank, and instantly fell back upon\nthe couch, and lay, paler than the digit of the moon by day, and still\nas a picture painted on a wall.  And I said in exultation and triumph\nto myself: Now, leave her and let it work, and in the meantime, I will\nwatch her till she wakes.  And now, all her suffering and trial is\nover; and little indeed shall she have cause to complain of changing\nthat old husband for myself.  And I said to my _wita_: Now, begone, and\nleave me alone with her; and to-morrow I will see to thy reward.  And\nas he went, that _wita_ whispered in my ear: Mahar\u00e1j, the business is\ndone.  Now then, very soon, she will have utterly forgotten all, and\nthy turn to play the husband has arrived.  And he gazed at me for a\nmoment with a smile of evil omen, and I was troubled as I saw it, for\nhis eye resembled that of a vulture sitting on a cemetery wall.  Alas!\neven then, I did not understand.  And then he went away, vanishing like\nTrishodadhi in the ocean of the world.  Ha! wise he was to disappear,\nfor well he knew that on the morrow, the very sight of me would have\nbeen the signal of his death.\n\nAnd when he had gone, I remained alone in that chamber with Watsatar\u00ed,\nto watch till she awoke.  And I wandered up and down, as it were on\ntiptoe, with agitated steps, while the night crept slowly on, hour\nafter hour, and every now and then I stopped to look at her as she lay\nupon the couch; and like a wild beast in a cage, I went to and fro,\nunable to remain at rest, tossed here and there by the tumult in my\nsoul, where anticipation and impatience, and desire and triumph and\ndelight, and doubt and apprehension jostled each other like waves of\nthe sea, roused into disquiet by the wind of passion, and yet pervaded\nby unutterable longing to grow calm and be still at the sight of that\nlovely digit of the moon rising as it were to quell it in an instant\nand allay its storm, by awaking from her sleep.  And in the meantime,\nthe light of the real moon grew gradually stronger, and stole into the\nroom, as if desirous to become reunited with that sleeping beauty that\nresembled a portion of himself.[18]  And seeing it, I said within\nmyself: Surely the moon is right, and now he shall have his wish; for I\nam not jealous of sharing her with such a lover.  And I extinguished\nall the lamps, and threw open all the trellises, and I sat down on a\ncouch a little way off, and watched her beauty and adored it as she\nlay, bathed in the soft and silver light of that lord of heavenly\nnectar.  And the shadows of the strings of the moonstones hanging in\nrows along the windows fell over her in stripes that resembled the bars\nof a cage, as if wishing to keep her prisoner against her will.  And so\nas I watched her in ecstasy, the sound of the camphor ooze dropping\nslowly every now and then on the marble floor below murmured in my ear\nlike music and a melody of slumber, and played on the fatigue and\nagitation of my soul, and at last, all unawares, I fell asleep.\n\nAnd all at once, I awoke, and started up, and looked, and lo! the\nmoonlight had all but gone.  And in the darkness, lit as it were by the\nshadow of his last remaining ray, which fell upon her, I saw her lying,\nabsolutely still, exactly as she lay before.  And suddenly, as I saw\nher, I began to tremble like a leaf.  And in the silence, I heard my\nown heart beating, as if it wished to wake her, like the noise of a\ndrum.  And all my hair suddenly stood on end, and the sweat broke out\nupon my brow.  And I said to myself: Ha! she is very still, lying\nexactly as she lay before, never having moved.\n\nAnd I stood gazing at her in a stupor, and listening to my own heart,\nthat beat in my ears like the surge of the sea.  And then, very slowly,\nI went silently on tiptoe up to that couch on which she lay.  And I\nbent over her, listening, and all at once I touched her with my hand.\nHa! pippala, she was colder than the marble floor.  And she smiled in\nthat dying moonlight, saying as it were: Mahar\u00e1j, I was right after\nall; and as I told thee, thou hast stolen my body, only to find it\ndeserted by the soul.\n\n\n\n[1] The japam\u00e1la, \"string of muttering,\" is exactly the rosary of the\nWest.\n\n[2] The sacred fig, _ficus religiosa_.  The word should be pronounced\nalmost exactly like people--dissyllabically.\n\n[3] This, though strange to Western modern ears, would be quite\nfamiliar to an old Hindoo.  All these \"curses\" had their \"termination\"\ndefinitely assigned to them (_\u00e1wadhi_) exactly as in the text,\ndeliverance being made conditional on the telling of the tale.\n\n[4] The name, _par excellence_, of a model Hindoo wife is _patidewat\u00e1,\npatiwrat\u00e1_: i.e. _she to whom her husband is a god_.  This epithet is\nthe Victoria Cross, the blue ribbon of the Indian matron.\n\n[5] _i.e._ the _roomal_ or _paggri_, on the head: one of the two\nessential garments of the Hindoo; used by the Thags as a strangling\nnoose.\n\n[6] This term, properly applied to a king, is by politeness or irony\nalso used much as we use Sir.\n\n[7] _i.e._ the rod of punishment, one of the essential attributes of a\nking.\n\n[8] The function of the _wita_ in old Hindoo courts was analogous to\nthat of Chiffinch in _Peveril of the Peak_.\n\n[9] Red is the colour of affection, and blue that of its highest power,\ndevotion that is immortal and indelible.\n\n[10] A Hindoo woman will never mention her husband's name.  They allude\nto him in terms that correspond to the Latin _iste, ille_.\n\n[11] A kind of fish.\n\n[12] The aphorisms of this king, who according to tradition combined\nthe usually incompatible professions of king, poet, grammarian, gay\nLothario, and sage, are household words in India.\n\n[13] The poison that Shiwa drank to save the world, which was blue.  In\nthis passage, there is an elaborate play on _beauty_ and _salt_, which\nare denoted by the same word.\n\n[14] The position of the Hindoo widow was very different from that of\nother widows: her misfortune was counted to her as a crime and her life\na long-drawn-out martyrdom, from which perhaps the fire would be\nrelease.\n\n[15] The reader should remember that here, as often, memory and love\nare identical.\n\n[16] The science of medicine.\n\n[17] A common epithet of the moon.\n\n[18] The moon proper is a male; but all his digits are feminine.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAVES OF TIME\n\n\n\n\n  _And many lave their souls in the wave,\n    For brine is a sort of breath,\n  And death is a kind of life resigned,\n    As this life is a death._\n                              DANDA\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAVES OF TIME\n\nAnd then, as he listened, all at once that old Brahman Trishodadhi rose\nto his feet.  And as he did so, he looked towards the elephant, and lo!\nlike a flash of lightning, that elephant suddenly disappeared.  And in\nhis place he saw no elephant, but King Ruru, standing still, exactly as\nhe lived before.  And no sooner had he seen him, than King Ruru\nexclaimed in delight: Ha! now my story is concluded, and now the curse\nis ended, and I have escaped from that terrible body of an elephant, to\nregain my own proper form of a man.\n\nAnd as Trishodadhi looked towards him, almost abandoning the body, for\nwonder at the thing he saw, all at once his eyes almost started from\nhis head, and every hair upon his body stood erect.  For there, close\nbeside the tree stood Watsatar\u00ed herself, exactly as that elephant Ruru\nhad described her, with her head a little bent, like one that listens,\nand her great eyes turned, exactly as of old, full upon Trishodadhi\nhimself.  And at that very moment, King Ruru shouted in amazement and\nin intoxication: Watsatar\u00ed!  What!  Watsatar\u00ed!  What! have I regained\nthee also, in addition to my life?\n\nAnd as he listened, all at once the heart of that old Brahman bounded\nin his body like a deer.  And every vestige of his purpose and his\nmuttering vanished from his soul like a dream.  And he ran with feet\nthat resembled wings straight towards them, crying aloud in agony and\ndespair, not knowing what he said: Ah! she is mine.  Ah! robber of a\nking, she is not thine.  Ah! she is mine.  And he reached them, and ran\nbetween them, and threw himself upon Watsatar\u00ed, and caught her in his\narms, and kissed her, weeping in an ecstasy of grief and repentance and\ndelight, exclaiming as he did so: Ah! dearer than my life; ah!\nWatsatar\u00ed; ah! noble wife, forgive me, for I did not know.\n\nAnd then, strange! as she threw around his neck soft clinging arms,\nreturning his kisses with her own, there came from her lips a peal of\nlaughter, that rang in his very face.  And as he drew back in\namazement, he looked, and lo! he was holding in his arms not Watsatar\u00ed,\nbut another woman, absolutely strange to him, who gazed upon him as she\nlaughed with derision in her eyes.  And she exclaimed: Ha!\nTrishodadhi, I am not blind, but I see thee very well.  And now it is\nnot easy to decide, between thy wife and thyself, which is the better\nlover.  For as it seems it was not she, so much as thou, that needed a\nlittle of that medicine of oblivion, to enable thee to play the part of\nan ascetic, to whom women are as nothing in comparison with austerity\nand penance.  Surely thy love for Watsatar\u00ed was wonderful, for thou\nhast utterly forgotten all thy muttering, and bartered all the mountain\nof thy merit for a kiss.  Yet this much I will tell thee, to console\nthee, that it is not a nymph of heaven to whom thou hast succumbed.\n\nAnd then with a laugh she disappeared.  And as Trishodadhi stood,\nstruck with the thunderbolt of stupefaction, he looked, and lo!  Ruru\nalso vanished, and instead of him, Indra stood before him in the guise\nof a devotee.  And he looked with cold eyes upon Trishodadhi, and said\nvery slowly: O Trishodadhi, the wise strive for wisdom, and gain at\nleast humility.  But thine was a false devotion, and could not stand\nthe test.  And now, as she said, the mountain of thy merit is utterly\nannihilated, consumed in a single instant of impure desire like a blade\nof dry grass in a forest conflagration.  And as experiment has proved,\nregret for the things of sense was not extinct in thee, and the sparks\nof vanity and egoism and delusion in the form of women lay lurking in\nthe ashes of thy soul, needing only a little breeze of recollection to\nfan them into flame.  And now thou hast allowed the sorrow for the loss\nof old mundane ties of long ago to conquer thy desire of emancipation\nand break in upon thy devotion to thy vow.  And thou hast been guilty\nof sinister designs against heaven, springing not from the seed of true\nand single-hearted resignation, but selfishness and wounded vanity and\nmalice.  Fall therefore as a punishment instantly into the body of a\ndog without a tail.  And after that thou shall become an ape, and then\na worm, and afterwards a ravenous flesh-eating R\u00e1kshasa, and a jackal,\nand a domba, and a leather-worker, and a chand\u00e0la, and a woman, and\nmany other such garments of a guilty soul, and like a drop of water\nthou shalt run through an interminable series of miserable births,\nnever discerning any end.  For this action of thine has dyed thy soul\nwith so indelible a stain, that the ocean could more easily divest\nitself of colour and of brine, than thy soul will find it to regain its\ncrystal purity, by cleansing its essence of such an inky blot.\n\nAnd then, like a flash of lightning, that culprit of a Brahman\ndisappeared.\n\n\nSo then, as the Moony-Crested deity made an end, instantly the Daughter\nof the Snowy Mountain asked him: O Wearer of the Moon, was then the\nstory told by Indra as an elephant to that crafty Kal\u00e1nidhi as a tree,\na true story, or a figment devised between them to delude him?\n\nAnd Maheshwara answered: O Snowy One, it was absolutely true, in every\nitem and particular and detail.  For Indra came to me, and I told him\nall about it, showing it to him, exactly as it happened, in the mirror\nof the past.  And even its upshot might have taught thee, that the\nstory was true.  For he who listens to a recital of a past, of which he\nwas himself a part, resembles a swan, swift to separate the milk of\nreality from the water of invention, and the very slightest deviation\non the part of the narrator, giving rise to a suspicion, and jarring on\nthe ear like a false note in a harmony, would have burst the illusion\nlike a bubble.  For there is no form of persuasion or deception so\npotent as the simple truth.\n\nThen said P\u00e1rwati again: Then am I very sorry for that poor old\nBrahman, who was much to be pitied.\n\nAnd the Lord of the Moony Tire said: Nay, O Daughter of the Snow, thou\nart in error.  Waste not thy pity on one who deserves absolutely none.\nFor had he really loved Watsatar\u00ed his wife, who well deserved it, he\nwould never have gone away and left her, condemning her without appeal,\nunheard, relying on nothing but the very fallacious testimony of his\neyes.  For there is no degree of evidence, whether of eyes, or of ears,\nor of any other sense, which true love would not utterly refuse to\ncredit or receive, against that conviction begotten by love, confiding\nin its object, seeing that love is absolutely free from any shadow of\nsuspicion, and clings to its faith in spite and in the teeth of all.\nBut jealousy belongs only to a spurious love that is really only vanity\nand egoism in disguise, and is therefore never sure, but everlastingly\nuneasy, like Trishodadhi.  And as his love was founded on selfishness\nand vanity, so was also the ambition that replaced it, and they both\nfailed miserably when subjected to the test.  And being thus unable\neither to trust in his wife, or forget her, he deserves nothing but\ncontempt, and came to that miserable end which destiny prepares for all\nwho dishonour the sublime by fraudulent and feeble imitation or\npretence.  For pure love resembles yonder rock, that refuses to be\nshaken by any wind whatever, and pure renunciation resembles yonder\nbird, that floats in the inaccessible serenity of heaven far above, not\nfor parade, but simply because it is its very nature to soar into the\nblue.\n\nAnd now, as I said, here is Kail\u00e0s, and this is the termination of the\ntale.\n\n\n\n\n  _Printed by_\n  MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED\n  _Edinburgh_","title":"The Ashes of a God","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":28623}