Climbing Chamundi Hill (2 page)
Read Climbing Chamundi Hill Online
Authors: Ariel Glucklich
The stories collected in
Climbing Chamundi Hill
represent the didactic goals of storytelling in pilgrimage. The book follows the example of the student and householder, who are guided by morality (
dharma
), with its attendant concern with
karma
âthe ethical consequences of worldly action. The storyteller, a retired librarian from Mysore, initially guides his listener through the world of
dharma,
bringing him, as they climb the hill, to the boundary between worldly life and renunciation. Ultimately, the student and the householder must also decide if and when to unmake their social and professional ties and
embark on the demanding discipline that leads to
moksha.
Most people, of course, opt to stay with their families, often resigning themselves to the notion of living a second-best life. However, some teachers, among them pilgrimage guides, argue that in some vitally important sense the distinction between renouncing or remaining behind is falseâas are all distinctions. Tantra Yoga and, famously, the
Bhagavadgita
emphasize this point. Consequently, as the narrator of the book continues to climb, his librarian-guide begins to take him away from the ethical lessons of the early stories in the direction of Tantra and the
Bhagavadgita.
The stories he tells as they near the top and, more important, his interpretations, become increasingly paradoxical. The wall that seemed so real at first between
dharma
and
moksha,
between the point of departure and the destination, dissolves.
The readers of
Climbing Chamundi Hill
are invited to listen to the librarian as he teaches his confusing lessons:
moksha
and
dharma
are one, reality and fiction are the same, all duality is false. The most weighty matters are trivial, and pleasure and pain are the same thing. Without a doubt, additional study of Hindu theology and philosophy will be required for those who wish to deepen their understanding of these teachings.
Climbing Chamundi Hill
represents just a starting point. A short bibliography of recommended readings is attached for those who wish to learn more.
Climbing Chamundi Hill
borrows from the ancient Indian story collections not just its subject matter but also a structural feature. This feature is the frame narrative surrounding the
individual tales in the book. A frame is a story that contains another story; often the narrator of the internal (framed) story is a character in the frame. Indian literature is famous, some would say notorious, for using this device, which contemporary scholars call “emboxment.” Perhaps the best-known example of serial emboxment is the
Pancatantra,
where the largest, most external box (or narrative) is the story of the lion Pingalika and the bull Samjivaka, and in which eleven stories are contained, some of them leading to still new ones. Other frames in Indian literature are messier, never fully concluding at the end. Still others are neater. A coherent and fully enclosing frame can be seen in the twenty-five stories told by the vampire to king Vikramaditya in the
Vetala Pancavimshati.
Another famous example is the parrot who tells Madanasena's wife seventy stories to keep her from adultery in
Shuka Saptati.
The practice of framing in India is old and respected. Both the
Mahabharata
and the
Ramayana
feature it on multiple levels, and even the law books, such as
Manu Smriti
and
Narada Smriti,
begin with framing narratives. Scholars of Indian literature have proposed a variety of reasons for framing. These include literary considerations (explaining the narrator's knowledge), the need to integrate borrowed stories into a single new context, traces of oral technique, and even philosophical considerations. For instance, placing the narrator in a narrative within the stories helps to blur the distinction between fiction and reality, between storyteller and character. Pursued to its logical consequence, such a device can lead to a complete dissolution of distinctions between mind and reality (the subjective and objective worlds). This can be seen at work in religious literature such as the
Yoga Vashishtha,
which is a source of the last two stories in
Climbing Chamundi Hill,
“The Girl in the Stone” and “Ruler of the World.”
My use of the frame, with its American biologist and librarian storyteller, is thus not merely a literary conceit. It goes to the heart of the philosophical lesson taught by the stories of
Climbing Chamundi Hill.
Ultimately, the boundary between the mundane and the transcendent is false. In some mysterious way we are all enlightened. This insight, and the literary technique, represents a distillation of the time-honored Hindu philosophical and literary tradition.
Ancient Indian stories have traveled widely. Many have been retold in European collections, but even within India stories are told in many ways. Oral tradition, still a powerful impetus for performed literature, probably accounts for this diversity. The stories I have selected for translating and retelling in
Climbing Chamundi Hill
all have been previously published in English and other European languages, many of them in a number of places. Still, most are obscure and rarely approached, either by translators or theologians. Some of the stories are extremely old and originate in Sanskrit sources like the Brahmanas. Others, as far as I know, are far younger and appeared first in regional Indian languages such as Bengali. I have reproduced none of the stories precisely in
Climbing Chamundi Hill.
In other words, I am retelling them, shortening or lengthening some, changing the plot sequence in others, just as storytellers today in Varanasi or Mysore might change a story to suit their needs. Readers interested in the scholarly study of Indian literature and folklorists of India should refer to the original sources and list of translations below.
The sources from which the stories (but not all the story fragments inserted within them) have been taken include the following:
“The Leper” comes from tale number 24 in the
Jatakamala
of Aryasura.
“The Brahmin and the Goat” comes from tale number 18 (“Mataka Jataka”) in the
Jataka.
“The Death Sentence” comes from the
Mahabharata
, Anusasana Parva, 1.8â76.
“The Minister's Death” comes from Vetala 12 (of the
Vetala Panchavimshati
) in
Kathasaritsagara,
chapter 86.
“The Boy's Sacrifice” comes from Vetala 20 (of the
Vetala Panchavimshati
) in
Kathasaritsagara,
chapter 94.
“Too Many Lovers” comes from the
Kathasaritsagra,
chapter 4.
“The Brahmin's Quest for Magic” comes from Vetala 18 (of the
Vetala Panchavimshati
) in
Kathasaritsagara,
chapter 92.
“The Turtle Boy” comes from “Concerning a Royal Princess and a Turtle” in
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon,
collected and translated by H. Parker (Dehiwala, Ceylon: Tisara Prakasakayo, 1971â73), vol. 2, no. 151. (The fragment about the delicate women comes from the
Vetala Pancavimshati,
story number 11.)
“To Trust A Woman” comes from
Kathasaritsagara,
chapter 58.
“Fate or Curse” comes from
Jaiminiya Brahmana,
2.269â72.
“Fried Kings” comes from “The King Who Was Fried” in
Tales of the Punjab,
translated by Flora Annie Steel (London: Bodley Head, 1973).
“The Test” comes from the narrative of Shyavana and King Kushika in
Mahabharata,
Anusasana Parva, chapter 52, verses 7â53 and 69.
“Love for the Dead” comes from “None Will Follow After Death” in Sri Ramakrishna,
Tales and Parables
(Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1967).
“My Uncle in Hell” comes from
Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana,
3.6.1â3.
“The King Who Became a Woman” comes from the
Mahabharata,
Anusasana Parva, 1.12.
“Father Sacrifices Son” comes from the
Aitareya Brahamana,
7.13â18.
“The Purifying River” comes from the
Varaha Purana,
chapter 175.
“Shiva's Fool” comes from “The Story of Innocent Sangayya” in
Siva's Warriors: The Basava Purana of Palkuriki Somnatha,
translated by Velcheru Narayana Rao (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). (The enclosed story about Shiva in the Pine Forest comes from
Brahmanda Purana.
)
“The Weaver Who Became God” comes from
Simhasana Dvatrimshika
(“Thirty-Two Tales of the Throne”).
“The Girl in the Stone” comes from
Yogavashishtha,
6.2.56.
“Ruler of the World” comes from
Yogavashishtha,
6.2.180.
FURTHER READINGS AND TRANSLATIONS
Amore, R. C., and L. D. Shinn.
Lustful Maidens and Ascetic Kings: Buddhist and Hindu Stories of Life.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Beck, Brenda E. F., et al.
Folktales of India.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Cowell, Edward B.
The Jataka: or, Stories of the Buddha's Former Births.
Delhi: Cosmos Press, 1973.
Dutt, M. N., trans.
Mahabharata.
Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2001.
Emeneau, M. B., ed. and trans.
Vetalapancavinsati (Jambhaladatta's Version
). New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1934.
Gold, Ann Grodzins.
Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims.
Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1988.
Haksar, A. N. D., trans.
Simhasana Dvatrimsika: Thirty-Two Tales of the Throne of Vikramaditya
. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.
Keith, A. Berriedale.
A History of Sanskrit Literature.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993.
âââ, trans.
Rigveda Brahmanas: The Aitareya and Kausitaki Brahmanas of the Rigveda
. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971.
Narayan, Kirin.
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger.
Tales of Sex and Violence.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Olivelle, Patrick, trans.
The Pancatantra: The Book of India's Folk Wisdom.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Shulman, David.
The Hungry God: Hindu Tales of Filicide and Devotion.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Somadeva.
The Tales from the Kathasaritsagara.
Trans. Arshia Sattar. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1994.
Speyer, J. S., trans.
The Jatakamala: Garland of Birth Stories of Aryasura.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971.
Tawney, C. H.
The Ocean of Story.
Ed. N. M. Penzer. 10 vols. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968.
Venkatesananda, Swami.
Vashishtha's Yoga.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
M
ysore's racetrack surprised me in a city of such traditional sensibilities. It was luxurious and lush in a slightly decaying, end-of-the-Raj sort of way. The white paint of the grandstand was peeling and the track surface rarely mowed; the grass seemed tall enough for tiger hunting. A ghostly feel pervaded the place when Rony and I arrived one early afternoon in mid-September 1997. Rony told me that the racetrack doubled as a golf course, which gave the place an eerie, almost surreal feelâdespite its ripe beauty.
Mysore was renowned for its Hindu craftsâsandalwood carvings of gods and animalsâand for the nearby Sankaracharya monastery, the temples on top of Chamundi Hill, the huge Nandi bull, the centers of Sanskrit learning and yoga, the Hoysala temples, and the Lalita Mahal palace. I did not expect a racetrack, let alone the eighteen-hole golf course that surrounds it, with its last six holes actually inside the track. We found the clubhouse nestled under a canopy of huge tamarind and babul trees, bright with clusters of yellow flowers, just west of the grandstand. Rony insisted on playing every Indian golf course he could find and had inflicted deep humiliation on himself while trying to conquer India's eccentric links.
This one too was lying in wait for the Sanskrit scholar. The tees and fairways were fine, but the greens were not
green at all, more like brown or soiled white. A layer of sand covered the hard ground around the flags marking the holes. Players had to putt on a surface where the ball actually left a track and might suddenly stop dead, burrowing into a softer patch of sand. My friend, who relished such strange challenges, booked a round, which included a caddy and a “spotter”âa young boy who would chase the drives and chips and locate every ball, even those that ended up in the waist-high rough. The sun was just past mid-sky, and it was still hot, though a slight breeze was blowing from the direction of Chamundi Hill through the tall thickets of reeds in the wetlands. The area was deathly still, even the crows made no sound at this time of day, and no other golfer was in sight. I knew Rony would take his time, savoring his peaceful obsession unpressed by other players. He asked if I minded giving him the afternoon to play and suggested that I explore the area near Chamundi Hill.
We were not there as tourists. I was recovering from severe illnessâsunstroke and food poisoningâwhich I contracted while working as a biologist in Varanasi. Mysore was renowned for its clinics of Ayurveda with their traditional Hindu healing practices. But, as Rony put it, the papayas alone would cure me. “Let me take you down there,” he had said. “It will bring you back to reality.” I spent days on the clinic's shady veranda, killing time by watching crows taunt a hawk in the heat of day and butterflies struggle to top a huge coconut tree covered with purple bougainvillea. I loved India during those afternoonsâand hated it. My mind was pulled up toward the sky and its promises, but my stomach and muscles kept me stuck in a queasy, swampy place below. After two weeks of treatments I finally felt strong enough to join Rony, who never remained stationary for long.
I took off in the direction of Chamundi Hill. The narrow asphalt road on which we had arrived by motor rickshaw ran from the racetrack toward the wetlands and the dense vegetation beneath the hill. I wanted to observe wildlife or just enjoy the semitropical flora in the half mile between the track and the hill. I hadn't felt this strong in weeks, and I began jogging along the road, then veered off into the marsh behind the third fairway left by the monsoons. I felt a sudden urge to test my stamina against the hillâeither that or perhaps the shimmering vegetation drew me to it. The gently sloping four-thousand-foot hill, with its light brown outcrops of granite boulders, reminded me of the pictures I had seen of the mystical Mt. Carmel or a Greek mountain with a temple on topâa miniature Mt. Olympus.
I jogged slowly on a footpath that threaded between the high reeds of the marsh. Dark green water covered with slime and teased by darting insects chilled the breeze as I moved easily. Every now and then the path dissolved into the muck, but I kept going. By the time I emerged at the other end of the marsh, just under the hill, my running shoes were soaked and muddy. Breathing hard, I sat on the step of a small booth shadowed by a huge peepal tree and slowly removed my shoes and socks.
It was a devotional spotâI could see that right awayâand therefore hospitably cool despite the hot September sun. Several sacred trees, peepals mostly, spread an immense canopy over the area. Hundreds of pilgrims could fit in that spaceâDurga Puja, the sacred fall festival for the goddess Durga, must be a riot hereâbut I was completely alone with a few dozing monkeys. A ceremonial gate led the eye to a stone path, then to four steps made of basalt slab on which pilgrims had smeared vermilion dye in the manner of
offerings to a god or goddess. From there the path led between several small booths like the one I was resting in and up the northern face of the mountain. Past the shadowed area of the lower steps the path glistened in the heat.
I began to breathe more easily and felt my strength returning. The steps beckoned. I decided to carry my shoes in hand and climb as far as it took until they dried.
“Just like a pilgrim!”
I turned around just as the old man came out from behind a booth. He was bony and dark, with thick white hair sticking out from under a black woolen ski cap. His brown polyester trousers and green knitted vest over a white shirt defied the heat of the day. He carried a long walking cane, a bag was suspended over one shoulder, and he was smiling broadly as he pointed at my feet.
“You're going up Chamundi with bare feetâare you a seeker? Do you bear a gift of penance for Mahadeva or his beloved Chamundi?”
His English was perfect. I found that rather common in Mysore and throughout South India, but he had startled me so, I remained silent for a few moments, which he took as an invitation to introduce himself.
“P. K. Shivaram, retired librarian for KPTCâthat's Karnataka Power Thermal Corporation Ltd., namaskar,” he said with hands pressed together in greeting. “How do you do? I don't think it's a very good idea, my friend. Perhaps today you should make do with an offering of marigolds, or just devotion. Your feet,” he pointed, “are too soft. Look at mine.” He kicked off his cheap rubber thongs. His feet seemed huge for such a small man, flat and cracked and bony like old oars. “Our Shiva is no Jesus, of course, but he will accept even your sweat as a sign of love. Don't kill yourself, young man.”
As he talked in his unhurried way, I began to think how silly it would be to tell him that I was merely drying my sneakers, now tied around my neck. It may be dumb to attempt a barefoot climb up Chamundi Hill, but it was more embarrassing to imitate such devout behavior while acting as a porter for wet shoes. So I shrugged and asked if there was any harm in starting up the hill barefoot, then putting on my shoes when my feet began to hurt.
“No harm at all, my friend. Do what you can. I'll tell you what⦔ he added, “I'm going up myself. I do every Thursdayâof course, I take the bus down. Would you mind if I joined you, young man?” He did not pause for my answer. “I shall walk beside you if you walk slowly. I am sixty-seven years old, you knowâ¦Can't go charging up the way I used to when I was your age. But I hope not to slow you down too much.”
He was definitely a talker. The words flowed out of his mouth effortlessly, each one chained to the next and inexorably pulling it out. I felt impatient with his chatter and afraid he would slow me down, or worseâdiscover that I had lied to him about my intentions. But then he surprised me.
“As long as you walk with me, your feet will not hurtâI promise you that!”
I was already at the first step. The stone was warm, even in the shade, and I could feel its rough texture under my soles. “What do you mean? How can you possibly prevent my feet from hurting?”
“Stories, my friend. I shall tell you pilgrimage stories. We have a tradition here. We tell each other stories as we climb up the stepsâthere are one thousand and one steps, just like the number of Shiva's names. We walk up the mountain telling stories, and the stories have the same spiritual merit
as the hardship of walking barefoot up the mountain, or fasting, or chanting the names of Shiva. Some enjoy telling stories because it's an art, while others prefer to listen because of the pleasure that makes them forget the pain. If you pay attention,” he paused and added in a conspiring voice, “the stories might turn you into a true pilgrim and give you pleasure at the same time! Let me tell you a story, and we shall see how your feet feel.”
I was up at the ninth or tenth step and already the skin of my feet was softening to the rock and warming to the red soil that the rains had washed off the mountain onto the path. Pleasantness would soon give way to discomfort, then to pain, and the old man was insinuating that he could see through me. Clearly the retired librarian was going to either embarrass me or drive me crazy. But before leaving, before putting my shoes back on and running away, I decided to give it a shot.
“Yes, I would love to hear a story. Is it about Shiva or Chamundi Hill?”
“No, not at all. It is about pain, and about the trials of leading a good life while trying to stay healthy.”