_Sinking in the waves of time, O skull-adorned demolisher of Daksha,[1]
we cling to the worship of the beauty of thy moony tire, whose silver
lustre steals like a woman of good family fearfully through the shadows
of the forest of thy hair, to fall at last like a blue and ashy
benediction upon the mountain-backs of the three great worlds, lying
prostrate in a sáshtánga[2] devotion at thy feet._
I
Far away in the northern quarter, half-hidden in Himálaya's shaggy
sides, there lies a holy bathing-place and favoured haunt of Hara,
where Gangá leaps down through a rocky chasm in the Lord of Hills, and
rushes out into the plain, white as it were with foamy laughter at the
thought of her coming union with Yamuná and the sea. And there one
evening long ago it happened, that two Brahmans were engaged in a
dispute upon the bank of that very sacred stream, having quarrelled on
a question of precedence. And long they wrangled idly, each claiming a
superiority in status which neither would allow. And finally one said:
Enough of this absurdity! Who but a blind man argues as to the shining
of the sun at noon? Or how can thy family contend in excellence with
mine, which is in the _gotra_ of Agastya? Then said the other
scornfully: Thou art the proof of thy own asseveration, and as I think,
the very Balákhilyas[3] must have been the original progenitors of such
a pigmy as thyself. And the other answered angrily: Better the pigmy
body of Agastya than a pigmy soul enclosed in the worthless bulk of
such a _pashu_[4] as thyself. And immediately his opponent ran upon
him, and gave him a kick. And he exclaimed: Ha! dost thou call me
_pashu_? then taste my hoof. But as to thy Agastya, a fig for him!
What is he to me, who am just about to earn emancipation by a series of
extraordinary penances, worthy to extort the admiration of Pashupati[5]
himself?
So as those boobies wrangled, it happened, by the decree of destiny,
that that very Lord of Creatures animate and inanimate was passing in
the air, only just above them, as he roamed towards Kailàs with Gauri
in his arms, on his way back from a visit to Ujjayini, one of his
earthly homes, whose palaces seem to laugh at their rivals in the sky.
And as he listened to the squabble, all at once he uttered a solitary
shout of laughter. And instantly, those two very foolish disputants
took to their heels, and fled away at full speed in opposite
directions, taking his laughter for a thunderbolt. And seeing them go,
the Daughter of the Mountain said to her lord: Well might thy laughter
be aroused by the exceedingly contemptible behaviour of that pair of
silly Brahmans. Then said Maheshwara: Nay, it was not that which
caused my laughter. For these ridiculous mortals commonly dispute in
precisely this manner, making use of abuse, and even blows, instead of
reasoning, blinded by vanity and arrogance and passion. And if I were
to laugh at every instance of the kind, I should never stop laughing,
night or day. For there is no end to just such arguments as these.
Then said Párwati: At what then didst thou laugh? And the
moony-crested god said slowly: I laughed, to think of the amazing
self-ignorance of that big boasting Brahman. For he is the very man,
who in one of his former incarnations so egregiously failed, in exactly
such an effort of asceticism as that which he described himself now
just about to undergo, though he has utterly forgotten all about it,
and never even dreams that he is travelling fast, not towards
emancipation, but away from it: since all his acts in recent births are
nothing but so many steps downward into the abyss of reincarnation, out
of which he will not find it so easy, again to reascend. For when a
soul is on the downward path, nothing in the world is so difficult as
to alter its direction into that of the ascent, or even to stop at all;
seeing that every fresh error adds weight to its burden, and impetus to
its speed. And if he only knew it, this down-goer would be utterly
appalled at the prospect of the innumerable myriads of years that lie
before him, stretching away like a never-ending desert of waterless
sand, through which he must absolutely pass, in birth after birth, each
terminated by a death, before he will succeed in changing his tendency
to darkness. For the waves of the sea of works are over his head, and
he resembles a stone, sinking continuously down, down, in a bottomless
and clammy slough of evil, created by himself.
Then said Párwati: And what then was this old endeavour, the very
recollection of whose contrast with his brag so moved thy laughter?
And the god said: It is a long story, and travelling at this pace, if I
begin it, we shall arrive at Kailàs long before it ends. But if, as it
seems, I must absolutely tell thee all about it, I will regulate the
speed of our advance, so as to keep pace with the movement of the tale,
ordering matters so, as to arrive at Kailàs and the conclusion of the
tale exactly at the same moment. Moreover, it would be a shame to
hurry. For I love to watch the lustre of my moon, noiselessly stealing
like a thief into the shadowy gorges of thy father's huge valleys, and
stripping from his sides that carpet of rich colour which the setting
sun bestows upon them, to spread over them instead that cold and
melancholy pallor of her own, which resembles an atmosphere of the
camphor of death.