in the waist like a hungry lion, with shoulders like those of a bull,
and long arms, and all the royal marks of a King. And she would have
despised him, for his rags and his nakedness, and yet for all that
she would, she could not, but felt herself drawn towards him against
her will. For her heart was stirred within her at the sight of him,
and dim suggestions of that former birth, which she had forgotten,
struggled in her soul, and strove to rise up out of its depths. And
she stood, gazing at him in silence, with eyes that looked at him but
did not see him, like those of one that listens to the tones of a
long-forgotten voice, sounding in the hall of memory, and awakening
longing and fond regret. And as she gazed, she poured over him a
flood of blue colour out of her wondrous doubtful eyes.
And Umra-Singh looked at her, and the whole world vanished from his
sight in a mass of blue. And he reeled under the blow of her
glances, which struck him mercilessly like a club, and time and space
fled from his soul, which was filled with colour, and tears, and
laughter and pain, and he gasped for breath. For the sight of her
half-remembered eyes clutched his heart, and stopped its beating like
an iron band. And in that moment there rose before him the
dream-woman of the lotus pool, and he knew that it was Shrí.
So they two stood there, like pictures painted on a wall, gazing at
each other, and groping in vain for recollection in the darkness of
oblivion[6], like shadows in a dream. And then, after a while, Shrí
came to herself. And she said slowly: So thou hast seen the Land of
the Lotus of the Sun? Then mention its peculiarities, and tell me
how thou didst arrive at it.
But Umra-Singh stammered and hesitated. For her eyes had deprived
him of his reason, and he could think of nothing else. And all his
audacity had vanished, and become timidity, and he faltered, and
spoke, not knowing what he said, with a voice that refused its
office, and sounded in his ears like that of another man. And he
said: Lady, I went I know not how, and wandered I know not how long,
among wastes and deserts and mountains I know not how high, till I
came to a land I know not where, called the Land of the Lotus of the
Sun, I know not why[7].
But as he spoke, the spell was broken, and Shrí woke as it were from
a dream. And she saw before her only a ragged Rajpoot, stumbling in
his tale, and abashed before her, and unable to support his knavery
even by a clever lie. And she was ashamed, and angry with herself,
and as she listened, she was suddenly seized with a fit of laughter.
And she exclaimed: Hark! hark! to this high-caste hero; listen to his
lay of a Lotus Land! He went he knew not where, and did he knew not
what, and began at the beginning, and ended at the end. So she
laughed and mocked him, while he stood before her as it were in a
swoon, hearing only the music of her voice, and quailing like a
coward before the fire in her scornful eyes.
Then suddenly Shrí clapped her hands in his face, and exclaimed: Dost
thou hear, or art thou deaf as well as dumb? Art thou a Rajpoot, and
yet could'st thou not find courage enough to carry out thy imposition
to the end? Strange! that such a body could be chosen by the Creator
as the receptacle of such a soul. And she turned to the King, and
said: Dear Father, it is as I said, and as you see, this fellow is
but a rogue. Put him out, therefore; and yet, do him no harm. For
though he is a knave, yet he is a handsome knave, and deserves rather
contempt and laughter, than punishment and blows.
Then the King said to his guards: Take this impostor, and thrust him
out into the street. So the guards seized Umra-Singh, who offered no
resistance, and threw him out into the street, raining upon him as he
went a shower of kicks and blows. And immediately the criers went
round the city as before, beating drums and crying aloud: _Whatsoever
high-caste man has been to the Land of the Lotus of the Sun, let him
come to the King: he shall share the King's kingdom, and marry the
King's daughter_.
[1] The name is _Amarasinha_. But this is so certain to be a
stumbling-block in an English mouth, that I have spelt it as it would
be pronounced by a Hindoo. (_Um_ as in _drum_.) It means
'_lion-god_' or '_god-lion_,' a name suited to a king of the line of
the Sun.
[2] The War-god.
[3] Because, though Shiwa drank the _kálakuta_ or deadly sea-poison,
with impunity, still it left its mark on his throat, and dyed it blue.
[4] A _rajpoot_ means only _the son of a king_, and it is to be
observed that there were rajpoots in India long before the present
'Rajpoots' ever came there.
[5] i.e. the Sun. There are double meanings in this period,
comparing him to the Sun.
[6] _adrishta_: a peculiar technical term, meaning something that has
its roots in the unseen circumstances of a former birth.
[7] No translator can give the alliterative jingle of the _vathás_
and _tathás_, _vads_ and _tads_ of this and the answer of Shrí below.
IV.
Inspiration
But Umra-Singh lay in the street, more like a dead than a living man,
covered with bruises and bereft of sense. And the people crowded
round him, jeering and scouting and pointing at him, and giving him
blows and kicks. And he looked in the midst of those base mockers
like a black antelope smitten by the hunters with a mortal wound, and
surrounded by a troop of chattering monkeys. Then by and by those
scoffers left him lying, and went every man his way, for the sun was
going down. And after a while, he came to himself, and rose up,
though with difficulty, from the ground, and wandered away with
stumbling feet, till he came to a tank in a deserted quarter, and lay
down on its brink to rest. And sore though he was in all his limbs,
he never felt the pain of his body: but his eyes were dazed with the
blue glory of the bitter scorn of the eyes of Shrí, and the sound of
her voice and her laughter rang in his ears, and in his heart was
shame. So he lay long, gazing at the image of Shrí as it floated
before him, and stung his soul like the teeth of a serpent, and yet
soothed it like sandal, while the moon rose in the sky.
And then suddenly he sat up, and looked round. And he saw the tank,
and the trees, and the moon's image in the water, and remembered
where he was, and all that had occurred. And he sighed deeply, and
said to himself: Woe is me! I have, like a dishonest gambler, cast
my die, and lost the game. And now, I have gained no kingdom and no
King's daughter, but only blows and shame. Alas! no sooner had I
found my dream than again I lost her, through the terrible operation
of sins committed in a former birth. So now, nothing remains but to
do as quickly as possible what I was about to do before I went to the
palace, and put myself, in very truth, to death. For life seemed
unendurable, before I had found the woman of my dream: but now it is
worse by far, since I have found her only to become in her eyes a
thing of scorn, more horrible than a hundred deaths.
And he took his sword, and felt the sharpness of its edge, and put it
to his throat. And as it touched his skin, at that moment he heard
in the silence of the night the voice of a warder, singing as he went
his round upon the city wall: _Whatsoever high-caste man has been to
the Land of the Lotus of the Sun, let him come to the King: he shall
share the King's kingdom and marry the King's daughter_. And the
sword fell from his hand, and he sprang to his feet, and exclaimed:
What! she is for the man who has seen the Land of the Lotus, and here
am I, a Rajpoot of the Race of the Sun, dreaming of death by this
moonlit tank, while the Land of the Lotus is yet unfound! Now will I
find that Lotus Country, be it where it may, and then come back and
claim her, not as I did before, in jest, but by the right of the seer
and the seen.
And instantly he picked up his sword, and threw it into the air. And
the sword turned like a wheel, flashing in the moonlight, and fell
back to the ground. Then Umra-Singh took it up, and immediately went
out of the city, making for the quarter pointed out like a finger by
the blade of his sword.
V.
Nightwalker
And then as a black bee roves from flower to flower he wandered from
city to city, and from one country to another: and he went north and
east and west and south, till the elephants of the eight quarters
knew him as it were by sight. Yet he never found anyone who could
tell him his way, or had ever heard the name of the Land of the Lotus
of the Sun. And meanwhile the suns of the hot seasons burned him
like a furnace, and the cold seasons froze the blood in his veins,
and the rains roared over his head like a wild-elephant, and at the
last, he said to himself: Now for thrice six seasons have I been
seeking, and yet I know no more of my way to the Land of the Lotus
than I did before. And undoubtedly, if such a Land exists in the
world, it can be known only to the birds of the air. Therefore now I
will abandon the dwellings of men, and enter the Great Forest, for
only in this way will it ever be possible for me to discover a land
of which no human being has ever heard.
So he went into the forest and proceeded onward, turning his face to
the south. Then as he went the trees grew thicker and thicker, and
taller and taller, till they shut out the light of the sun. And at
last there came a day when he looked before him, and saw only a
darkness like that of the mouth of death: and he looked behind him,
and saw the light of evening glimmering a great way off, as if afraid
to keep him company. And as he went on slowly, feeling his way with
the point of his sword, suddenly in the darkness another face peered
into his own, and stuck out at him a long red tongue. And Umra-Singh
started back, and looked, and saw before him a root-eating
Wairágí[1], clad in a coat of bark, with long hair, and nails like
the claws of a bird, and his legs and arms were bare, and his skin
like that on the foot of an elephant.
Then said Umra-Singh: Father, what art thou doing here, and why dost
thou stick out at me thy tongue? The Wairágí said: Son, what art
thou doing here, in a wood full of nothing but trees and
Rákshasas[2], and dark as the Hair of the Great God, of which it is
an earthly copy? Umra-Singh said: I am a Rajpoot who has quarrelled
with his relations, and I am looking for the Land of the Lotus of the
Sun. Then said the Wairágí: They are very few that wish to find that
Lotus Land; and fewer still who find it; fewest of all those, that
having found it ever return. Then Umra-Singh said, in astonishment:
And dost thou know that Lotus Land? Tell me how I must go to reach
it. Then the Wairági laughed, and said: Ha! ha! Thou art one more
ready to ask than to answer questions: but I give nothing for
nothing. Know, that I also have all my life been looking, not for
one way only, but for three. And now, if thou wilt tell me my three
ways, I will tell thee thine.
Then said Umra-Singh: One for three is no bargain; but what, then,
are thy lost ways? The Wairágí said: All my life I have tried to
discover the Way of the World, and the Way of Woman, and the Way of
Emancipation[3], and yet could never hit on the truth as to any one
of them. And this is a wonderful thing. For anything characteristic
of multitudes must be very common: and yet how can that which is
common escape the notice of all? Tell me, then, the Way of the
World, and I will tell thee in return a third of thy way to the Land
of the Lotus of the Sun.
Then said Umra-Singh: Thou puttest a knotty question, and drivest a
hard bargain; nevertheless, I will give thee an answer, for the sake
of my own way and the blue eyes of Shrí. Know, that this is the Way
of the World. There was formerly, on the banks of Ganges, an old
empty temple of Shiwa. And one night, in the rainy season, an old
female ascetic entered the temple, to shelter herself from the storm.
And just after her there came in an owl for the same purpose. Now in
the roof of that temple there lived a number of the caste[4] of bats,
that never left the temple precincts, And seeing the owl, they said
to the old woman: Who art thou, and what kind of animal is this?
Then the old woman said: I am the Goddess Saraswatí, and this is the
peacock on which I ride[5]. Then, the storm being over, that old
impostor went away. But the owl, being pleased with the temple as a
place of residence, remained; and the bats paid it divine honours.
Then some years afterwards, it happened, that a real peacock entered
the temple. And the bats said to it: What kind of animal art thou?
The peacock said: I am a peacock. The bats replied: Out on thee,
thou impostor! what is this folly? The peacock said: I am a peacock,
the son of a peacock, and the carriage of the Goddess Saraswatí is a
hereditary office in our caste. The bats said: Thou art a liar, and
the son of a liar; dost thou know better than the Goddess herself?
And they drove the peacock out of the temple, and paid, as formerly,
worship to the owl.
Then said the Wairágí: Rajpoot, thou hast opened my eyes. Learn now
from me a portion of thy own way. And he lay down on the ground, and
suddenly abandoning the form of a hermit, became a weasel, which
stuck out at Umra-Singh a long red tongue, and entered the ground by
a hole, and disappeared. And as Umra-Singh stooped down to examine
the hole, he saw the Wairágí again beside him in his old shape, save
that he continued to stick out of his mouth the weasel's tongue. And
he said, angrily: What is this delusion of a weasel, and why dost
thou stick out thy tongue? Then said the Wairágí: Ho! ho! I have
shown thee a way for a way, and one riddle for another. And now,
tell me the Way of a Woman, and learn yet another third of thy own
road.
Then Umra-Singh said to himself: Surely this is no hermit, but a vile
Rákshasa, who only seeks to delude me. Nevertheless, I will give him
an answer, for the sake of my way, and the blue light in the eyes of
Shrí. And he said to the Wairágí: Know, then, that the Way of a
Woman is this: There dwelt long ago, in the Windhya forest, an old
Rishi. And the gods, being jealous of his austerities, sent to
interrupt his devotions a heavenly nymph. Then that old Rishi,
overcome by her beauty, yielded to the temptation, and had by her a
daughter. But afterwards, repenting of his fall, he burned out his
eyes with a fiery cane, saying: Perish, ye causes of perishable
illusions: and so became blind. Then his daughter grew up alone with
that old blind sage in the forest. And she was more beautiful than
any woman in the three worlds. Verily, had the God of Love seen her,
he would instantly have abandoned Rati and Príti[6], counting them
but as her domestic servants. And she dressed in bark garments, with
no mirror but the pools of the forest. Then one day a crow that was
acquainted with cities came to her and said: Why dost thou live here,
with no companion but an old blind father, who cannot even see thee,
and does not know the value of his pearl? The whole world does not
contain a beauty equal to thine. Go and show thyself in cities, and
I tell thee, the Kings of the earth would quit their kingdoms, and
follow thee about like a swarm of bees. Then said the Rishi's
daughter: And who, then, would fetch for my father his sacrificial
fuel, or water to cook his cakes of rice and milk? And she drove
away the crow, and lived on in the forest, serving her father, and at
the last became old, and died in the forest, and no man ever saw her
face.
Then said the Wairágí: Thou foolish Rajpoot, I asked thee for the Way
of a Woman, and thou hast told me the Way of Emancipation. Then said
Umra-Singh: Thou miserable root-eater, since the creation every woman
has sacrificed herself for another, or else she was not a woman, for
this is the nature of them all. Then said the Wairágí: Learn now
from me, another portion of thy own way. And as Umra-Singh watched
him, suddenly that deceitful Wairágí became a bat, and stuck out at
him again his tongue, and flew away through the trees. And
Umra-Singh said to himself: Beyond a doubt this is no ascetic, but
the very King of Rákshasas; nevertheless, he shall tell me my road,
if he comes again, or it shall be the worse for him. And suddenly
again he saw the Wairágí standing by his side, and sticking out at
him, as before, his tongue. And he said to Umra-Singh: Now thou hast
only to tell me the Way of Salvation, and thy own way will be clear
before thee.
Then said Umra-Singh: Thou art but an old Rákshasa; nevertheless,
once more will I give thee an answer, for the sake of my way, and the
colour of the eyes of Shrí. Know, that the Way of Emancipation is
this: There was formerly a King of the race of the Sun, and he was
very old, and all his hair was as white as the uppermost peak of the
Snowy mountain. And one day he looked from his palace window, and
saw in the street a child, drawing behind it a toycart. And the cart
fell, and was broken, and the child cried over its broken toy. Now
it happened, by the ordinance of fate, that long ago, when he was
himself a child, exactly the same thing had happened to that old
King. And as he looked at the child, suddenly the years were
annihilated, and became as nothing. And like a picture he saw before
him, the image of himself, a child. And seized with grief, and an
unutterable longing for the repetition of his life, he exclaimed: O
Maheshwara, Maheshwara, let me live my life again. Then suddenly
Maheshwara stood before him, and laughed, and said: Remember thy
former births. And suddenly memory came upon that old King, and out
of the darkness of the past there rose before him the series of his
former lives. And Maheshwara said: See, nine and ninety times, in
nine and ninety births, thou hast made of me the same request, and
now this is a hundred. And every time I have given thee thy wish, in
vain. For every time thou hast forgotten, and hast known the value
of thy youth only after becoming old. Then said the old King: How,
then, can emancipation be obtained? Maheshwara said: It depends not
on time, but knowledge: and even an instant can bring it when ten
thousand years have failed. And thou hast but a little left of life,
yet even to thee knowledge may come before the end. Then he
disappeared. Now that old King had a daughter whom he loved better
than his own soul. And, even while he spoke with Maheshwara, she was
bitten by a snake and died, and he did not know it, for they feared
to tell him. So he went as usual to see his daughter. And when he
entered her room, he looked, and saw her lying still. And as he
watched her, there came a fly, which buzzed about her, and settled on
her lips. Then horror came on that old King, and illusion fell
suddenly from his eyes, and the desire of life was destroyed in him
at its root. And he turned, and went without waiting to the Ganges,
and remained there a few years washing away his crimes, like one to
whom life and death are the same, and at last entered the river, and
it drowned him, and carried his body out to sea.
Then said the Wairágí: Now shall thou have emancipation from thy own
ignorance, as to thy way to the Land of the Lotus of the Sun. And he
stuck out at Umra-Singh his tongue. But Umra-Singh suddenly struck
at him a blow of his sword, and as luck would have it, he cut off the
end of his tongue. And he said to him: Beware lest I kill thee, thou
old impostor. I will waste no more time expecting to hear from thee
my way to the Land of the Lotus, but find it in spite of thee. Then
the Wairági suddenly assumed a terrific form, and exclaimed: Woe to
thee, thou unlucky Rajpoot. For thou art now in the land, not of
lotuses, but of Rákshasas, of whom I am the chief. And my subjects
shall beset thee with illusions, like the sins of thy former birth in
visible form; and there wait for thee the Night-walkers, Ulupí, and
the Cow-killer, and the Hairy Grabber, and the Icy Chiller, and the
Flap-eared Buzzer, and the awful Watcher in his pits of sand, and
others without number[7]: and even shouldst thou escape them all, and
reach the Lotus Land, thou hast still to return. And he vanished
with a shout of laughter, and Umra-Singh was left alone.
[1] This term denotes one who has turned his back on the world, and
become free from passion. Its meaning can best be learned from the
third section of the Centuries of Bhartrihari, devoted to it.
(_wair-_ rhymes with _fire_.)
[2] _Jinn_, ogres, vampires, goblins, &c., are all but
differentiations of the Hindoo Rákshasa, which is what the geologist
calls a 'synthetic type' of evil being, whose special feature is its
power of changing its shape at will (Kámarupa).
[3] There is here an untranslateable play on the word _tripathagá_,
_the three-way-goer_, i.e. the Ganges, which flows in three
_Ways_--in heaven, earth, and hell. The hermit asks, as we might
say, for _the source of the Nile_.
[4] The proper word for caste is _játi, gens_.
[5] Every Hindoo god or goddess has his or her peculiar animal
vehicle (_wáhana_).
[6] Pleasure and Joy, the two wives of the God of Love.
[7] These names, which recall certain passages in the Rámayan, lose
much of their effect in translation. _goghna_, 'coy-killer,' has a
curious history. Because of old a cow could be killed _only_ for a
guest of great honour, a word of the most horrible signification
actually acquired one honourable meaning, i.e. a guest of a high
order.
VI.
A Lotus of the Night
Then he said to himself: Though I cut off the tongue of this
ill-omened Wairágí, yet he never told me my way. And he went on,
sword in hand, along a silver path, among trees that resembled
Rákshasas, for they let in through the hair of their branches the
light of the moon, which peered down at him as if out of curiosity,
and lit him on his way as if in admiration of his courage. And as he
went, gradually the trees grew rarer, and at length he looked before
him, and saw in a clear space a dark blue forest pool, studded with
moon-lotuses, as if created to mock the expanse of heaven bespangled
with its stars, a mirror formed by Wedasa[1] to reproduce another
world below. And all about it flitted fireflies, looking like swarms
of bees that had returned with torches, unable to endure separation
at night from the lotus flowers which they loved all day.
And as he gazed into the water, he saw in its smooth mirror the image
of a woman, dancing. And as she danced, her robes of the colour of
grass fluttered in the wind produced by her own movement over the
curves of her limbs; and drops of water sparkled in the moonlight
like gems on her bosom, which rose and fell like a wave of the sea in
and out of the shadow of her hair: for that hair resembled a mass of
the essence of the blackness of night. And she chanted as she danced
with a voice that sounded like a spell, and fanned the ear like a
breeze from the Malaya mountain[2]. Then Umra Singh raised his eyes,
and saw the original of that water-painted woman-image, dancing on
the other side of the pool.
Then she looked across and saw him, and their eyes met, travelling
over the pool. And instantly she stopped her singing and dancing,
and clapped her hands, and called to him like a _Kokila_: Come over
to me, thou handsome stranger, for I am weary of dancing alone, and I
have a question to ask thee. And she leaned against a tree and stood
waiting, with one hand on the trunk of the tree and the other on her
hip, and a heaving breast: and she looked like a feminine incarnation
of the essence of the agitation of the ocean, stirred by the sight of
the moon. And Umra-Singh looked at her, and said to himself:
Certainly the daughters of Rákshasas are more dangerous than their
fathers. And now it is well, that I am fenced by the blue eyes of
Shrí like a suit of armour, otherwise the glances of this forest
maiden would like an axe long ago have cleft my heart in two.
Then he went round the edge of the pool, and found her on the other
side. And she beckoned to him as he drew near with a bangled hand,
and moving lips, and eyes that shone in the moonlight like the eyes
of a snake. And she came and stood before him, and put her hand on
his shoulder with a touch like a leaf, and looked up into his face
with a smile, and said: I am Ulupí, a Daitya's[3] daughter, and here
I live in the forest alone, with none to whom to compare myself, save
my own image in the water. Tell me, for thou hast seen other women,
hast thou ever met with eyes more beautiful than mine? And
Umra-Singh looked down into them as into two dark pools, and he felt
them pounding his heart like a pair of fists[4]. And he said to
himself: She may well ask, and now, but for one other pair, her eyes
need fear no rivals. But he said to her: Beauty[5], thine eyes are
well enough: nevertheless the ocean has many gems, and doubtless each
thinks itself the best: but the Koustubha[6] is above them all.