Climbing Chamundi Hill (8 page)
Read Climbing Chamundi Hill Online
Authors: Ariel Glucklich
He didn't seem to be philosophizing or setting me up for an intellectual ambush. I felt comfortable telling him that I thought it was obvious. “A religious story would have to be
about God, faith, or salvation. And often, telling it would be an act of worship.” I was thinking about the scroll of Esther on Purim.
“If you wish, that is precisely what our story is like.”
“What do you mean?”
The old man remained quiet for a few moments and stared at the nearby trees. “There are many ways of putting this, I'm afraid,” he began apologetically. “To begin with we are on a pilgrimage, are we not?” I tried not to show him my face as I grimaced internally, but thankfully he shifted the direction of his argument. “The way I'd like to understand this story, if you'll bear with me, is this. The woman can be the soul, just like the nymph in âThe Minister's Death.' Her husband would be social morality, the scoundrels are the attachments of the senses to their objects, and the king is the guru. It's a story about learning to renounce sensual attachments as a first step on the path to salvation. All the mischief and low comedy, that's just a way of hiding what is truly going on, or at least saving it for those who wish to seeâ¦Don't you think?” He looked at me expectantly.
Two things were clear to me. First, the old man did not improvise this interpretation; he had thought of it previously. And second, by the way he was looking at me now, he did not expect his cleverness to impress me at all. Well, I wasn't going to let him down. “If you'll pardon me, sir,” I was speaking with the exaggerated politeness of a smart-ass graduate student, “that's a crock of buffalo manure. It's just plain ridiculous. I mean, you're being completely arbitraryâthe woman is the soul! Please!”
The old man laughed, in what looked suspiciously like relief. “Of course it's ridiculous, isn't it? The nymph in that other story was clearly a spiritual figure and this woman
here is just aâ¦heroine. And the story is obviously about lechery because the characters are lecherous. We know it's about ingenuity because the woman is ingenious. The boundary between the obvious meaning and the one I gave is plain and simple, no?”
“Damn right it is.”
“Can you then spell out for me just as clearly the exact boundary between what is religious and what is not?”
I started to feel like the cocky chess player who just discovered he had entered a backgammon tournament. But I refused to change course. “I understand what you're getting at, but the story is still not about religion. Maybe it touches a few religious themesâa lot of stories doâbut it is not
about
religion properly speaking.”
“I can see your mind is made up, and you wish to stick to a distinction you valueâI must respect that, of course,” he spoke gravely. “But you might look at how you use certain words and concepts when you think, mostly abstract words like âreligion' or âphilosophy.' âReligion,' my friend, is an empty wordâit stands for nothing whatsoever.”
That made no sense. Sure, I used concepts such as “religion,” or “biology,” or “education”âthat was true, but so does everyone. That makes them realâthe fact that by convention we know what we mean when we say them to each other. I didn't even know what “empty” meant coming from him, so I told him so.
The old man answered slowly. “If you think of religion as some thing bounded and distinct from other things, such as lust or disbelief, then you have no idea what it means to have faith or to engage with God. It is as though you favored studying the sciences of life over living. Since I know that this is not the case with you, I must conclude that
you simply do not trust your intuitions. You let your categorical mind run your life. And what's worse,” he added, “you're spilling the juice out of a good story.”
All of this was too theological for me. I think he noticed because he suddenly apologized for “getting ahead” of himself, by which he meant, of course, me. I have to admit, though, that for once I did feel like a pupil.
A sensation that had been pressing under the surface of my consciousness suddenly floated to the top, and I became aware that my feet were burning again. The ground temperature was well over ninety. Not as bad as hot sand, of course, but the effect of the rest was wearing off for some reason and so was my resistance to the old guide. What had started out as an ambiguous sensation on the first few steps below and then developed into heat now felt like a new blister, though I couldn't find any. The old man was watching with interest as I inspected my feet for blisters. I was ashamed to let him see my feet; they were so white and soft next to his cracked leathery soles. There were no blisters, but the skin was sensitive to the touchârubbing my hand over the skin felt exquisite. I sighed, and the old man startled me with a throaty laugh.
“Was that pleasure or pain, that sigh of yours? I think perhaps you should put your shoes back on, my friend. You've already climbed enough steps to impress Shiva.”
“No, I'm fine. It doesn't really hurt.”
“Of course not. I can tell your feet are fine, but there seems to be something else that hurts you, I've no doubt about it. I can't help noticing that something hurts you. You're sitting there, rubbing your feet, but you appear to be enjoying that. Meanwhileâplease stop me if you think I'm intrudingâyou're constantly shifting your torso. You straighten your back to a full stretch, then collapse it. You
bend right, then left; then you twist one way and the other. The whole time you grimace and sigh. And what's strangest of all, you don't even seem to notice doing it! Whatever it isâand I'll wager it's your backâyou must have had this problem for a very long time.”
I only half listened to him. He had a way of voicing his words so you could make out the thoughts without having to pay attention, as though you had just thought what he said on your own. I suddenly realized that my back was killing me, worse than usual. People would notice my discomfort when it got this bad, but I usually managed to draw their attention to something else. I hated the concern, the empathy, but mostly the advice that invariably followed a discussion of my pain. This seemed different though. The old man showed more interest than empathy and was himself so weather-beaten, so scrawny and tough, that I didn't expect the squeamishness that often gave birth to people's empathy. That made me more inclined to talk. I almost wanted to talk. He had been telling me stories in the heatâyou could see how hard the breathing came for him. So I told him how my back became such a mess.
It wasn't much of a story anyway. I had been paying for my graduate studies by working for the Bath County electric company, BARC, in the western hills of Virginia. I worked as a climber in a crew that mostly cut right-of-ways for middle-class urban refugees building new homes in the hills. On that particular day in mid-December, the owners of a brand-new little mansion decided to get rid of a huge elm tree that was crowding their kids' playground gizmo: swings, slides, that sort of thing.
We didn't normally do this kind of work, you know, tree service for private homes, but one of the limbs was close
enough to the power line that our foreman agreed. The tree might have been dying anyway. We had to get a rope over a branch to control the fall of the treeâso as not to damage that damn swing set. I was one of two climbers on our crew. I wore a leather belt and steel spikes for climbing up the tree and carried a chain saw on a hook on my belt. I would spend most of the day working on the trees. That day the rope got tangled on one of the outer branches, so I crawled out to get it. Bill, the foreman, said I didn't have to, and normally I wouldn't have. But I had just had a mid-morning coffee and doughnut, and my normal bravado was jacked up with a huge sugar and caffeine rush.
Anyway, I don't remember exactly what happened. Most of what I know Bill told me a couple of days later, in the hospital. He said the branch just snapped, and I came crashing down. On the way downâit was a long way, over thirty feetâI hit several branches, which was good because it slowed my fall. Unfortunately, one of those branches cut a huge gash down the right side of my back, ripping the muscles. I landed on the playground set, broke several ribs, and punctured my right lung. There were all kinds of other, minor injuries too. Because of the damage and the scarring, the muscles on both sides of my back were uneven, and there was a constant pull on the spine. Then there was the scar itself, which I couldn't reach. That's what I hated the mostânot being able to touch the scar when it burned or itched.
The old man was smiling the whole time I spoke, not a smile of compassion or understanding, like a rookie nurse, but one of a coconspirator. He reacted as though we shared a secret, something that only the two of us could possibly know. But I had no idea what that might have been. I
stood up, became aware that I was stretching myself in an exaggerated fashion, and walked back to the path.
“You see,” he said, “our tradition insists that all of life is some kind of suffering, like an ache that's always there although we are sometimes too distracted to notice. Even the things that seem right are off center. At some point in life we need to realize this and look directly at the pain. Then we can move to the next stage. May I tell you another story?”
There was once a city in these parts much larger and more glamorous than Mysore. It was called Ujjayini, a glorious town where even Shiva chose to make his residence. The noblemen there lived in palatial estates, while the Brahmins were all learned and modest. Stiffness was seen only in the breasts of the women, fickleness in the rolling of their seductive eyes. The only darkness in Ujjayini was the deep of the night; crookedness was displayed only in the lines of the poets.
In this city of palaces and temples lived a young Brahmin named Chandrasvamin. He was kind and well educated, a member of a prestigious family that had served the city's kings for generations. Chandrasvamin had one weakness, howeverâgam
bling. He was enslaved to gaming in all its forms, from taking bets on the weather or the turns in the flight of geese to casting dice in the city's luxurious gambling halls. And like all compulsive gamblers, the renowned Yudhisthira included, Chandrasvamin was both incompetent at gambling and completely blind to that fact.
One day he entered one of the most notorious casinos in town, a dangerous gambling hall where the clatter of rolling dice and the voices of players produced a tumult that challenged even Kubera, the god of wealth, to come try his luck. That nasty sound was completely misread by the tone-deaf ears of Chandrasvamin, who thoughtâbecause he was a suckerâthat the gods were inviting him to win a fortune against all those other players. He brought plenty of money, and his credit was good too. But before long he lost everything, the beautiful silken shirt off his back included, and gambled himself into a debt he could never repay. The owner of the gambling hall set his thugs on the Brahmin, and they beat him savagely with sticks until Chandrasvamin feigned death.
He remained lying in the corner of the hall for two days, drifting in and out of consciousness, too afraid to move. When the owner realized that the young Brahmin would never pay his debts to the other gamblers, he summoned some of them and suggested they throw the wretch into an empty well; he even promised to make good their earnings. They took
him to a nearby forest looking for a well, but an old gambler, out of fatigue or maybe compassion, spoke out. “Look, this man is almost dead. Let's just leave him here to die and tell the casino owner we dumped him in a well. Who would know?” The others agreed and they dropped the body under some bushes.
Hours later the naked Brahmin regained his senses and painfully dragged himself to an abandoned Shiva temple, a small white stone structure deep in vines with thick jungle foliage. Because he was bruised and crusted with dirt and blood, going home was out of the question. He resolved to wait till darkness, then look for food, perhaps even something to wear. Meanwhile he rested on the cool floor. After some time a tall Pashupata ascetic looking like Shiva himself walked into the temple. He had long matted hair, and his nearly naked body was smeared with white ash. In his right hand he was carrying a long trident. The holy man recoiled at the sight of the broken Brahmin, but hurried to offer him help. Chandrasvamin, lowering his eyes in reverence for the holy man, introduced himself softly. Despite his obvious shame, he told his story honestly, without covering up his own fault.
The ascetic smiled compassionately and said, “You have suffered too much for such a minor sin. But it was good fortune that has led you into my hermitage, for I shall help you heal and feed you until you feel ready to go home.” He offered some rice from his begging bowl, but the young man declined.
“Thank you, sir, but I can't eat that food. As a Brahmin, I am permitted to eat only food cooked by other Brahmins.”
The ascetic apologized for his absent-mindedness and told the Brahmin not to worry. He possessed a magical power, which he now called forth, commanding it to nourish the Brahmin.
At that very instant Chandrasvamin found himself in a golden city, sitting under a mango tree in a luxurious garden of jasmine, roses, vasanti, and fragrant henna, dressed in silk garments with golden embroidery. Seven female attendants, all lovely and sensual, floated like mist out of a marble pavilion and beckoned him to rise and enter. The most beautiful among them took his handâhe could smell her soft water-lily perfume as she led him to a throne inside the house, where she made him sit beside her. The attendants brought tray after tray of heavenly food beginning with fruit: sliced papaya and pitted mango, guavas and bananas, sweet oranges and sugarcane. Then came the main course of flavored boiled rices, vegetable savories, pancakes made of wild figs cooked in clarified butter, and sweetmeats, which his beautiful companion fed to him with her own hand. He finished the sumptuous meal with betel nut flavored with five fruits. The meal made him drowsy, and he fell asleep reclining on satin pillows, with a soft hand stroking his head.
He woke up in the morning to the sounds of the forest, lying on the floor of the old temple. The
ascetic was there, staring at him with a kind, inquisitive smile. “How was your night, good sir?”
The Brahmin was feeling a grave loss. “I enjoyed the night, sir, but without that beautiful woman my life will be empty. I must go back to that garden!”
“Yes, I understand,” said the renouncer. “As long as you remain my guest you shall be able to visit your beloved. My science will transport you to bliss again and again.”
This arrangement worked for a while, but finally the young man lost patience with having to rely on the power of another man for his own pleasure. He begged the ascetic to teach him the secret of his wondrous power, but met only refusal. “This science,” he heard, “is far too difficult to acquire, especially for someone as young and inexperienced as you.”
But the Brahmin persisted. “Why?” he asked. “What makes it so hard to learn?”
And so the ascetic explained. “The science of creating new realities can be mastered only while you sit at the bottom of a river, chanting a secret spell. The science will erect obstacles to confuse you.”
“What kind of obstacles?”
“I can't really sayâit's different for different people. You might be frightened by demons and ghouls, while someone else could be lured by beautiful sirens. Some may experience themselves as strangers: young or old, foolish or wise, a man or a woman. Perhaps even a she-wolf. But regardless of what the magic does to you, at a very specific time you will be summoned by the power of your instructor in a very subtle
way: it will dawn on you that your experienceâyour life and identityâis an illusion. You will then have to climb a funeral pyre and burn yourself, without hesitation or fear, and walk out of the river in which you have been sitting. Should you fail to do so, you will never see your beloved, and I too shall lose this power forever. This is why I hesitate to teach you the scienceâI fear your inexperience.”
But Chandrasvamin refused to listen. Driven by his desire for the beautiful woman of his visions, he pressed the holy man daily, until he broke down the resistance of the sage. That morning, the two men went to the river, where the ascetic showed the Brahmin how to enter the river and where to sit. He gave him the spell along with instructions. “Repeat this charm in the water, and you will immediately encounter the power of its magic. Meanwhile, I shall be right here on the bank. I will summon you when the time is right. Do not hesitate to respond to my call!” The Brahmin followed his directions precisely.
Just then, in a nearby district, a child was born to a family of the carpenter caste. He was a beautiful and passionate baby, a bawler with an insatiable appetite for his mother's breast, a responsive giggler to the adoring attentions of all the women in the extended family. He grew up to be a spoiled but sweet child, nurtured by everyone who knew him until he became a soft and lazy young man. He passed the time in daydreaming, playing pranks on his relatives, or wandering the fields and hills of the district. Even his father shrugged off the young
man's slack disposition. When the time came to find him a wife, the parents scoured the surrounding districts for an appropriate social match who would be beautiful and generous, someone who would cheerfully take care of their boy. They found a fair-complexioned girl with long limbs and sparkling eyes, a distant cousin from another carpenter family. Her patience and kindness domesticated the young man, who finally began to learn carpentry and gradually help around his father's shop.
As the years passed by quickly the young couple gave birth to a boy and a girl, whose growth only made time accelerate further. On the day that the carpenter's son turned twenty-four, his oldestâthe boyâwas already six and almost ready for school. At midday, when the carpenter's son walked home from the shop, a vague recollection percolated into his consciousness. He stopped and closed his eyes. It was something like déjà vuâbut stronger: another reality, images from other places (familiar places, but he had never been anywhere!), a voice. Suddenly, unaware of how he came to know this, the young man was sure that he had to end his life, burn himself on a funeral pyre. He rememberedâor feltâsomeone who had told him to do this. Was it a dream he had? From a previous life? But he was sure now; he knew what he had to do.
Everyone thought this was another hoaxâhis worst joke yet. As he spent the afternoon building the woodpile, friends and relatives gathered around, half
of them joking, the others gesturing impatiently, waving away the joke. But for the first time in his life the young man acted decisively with steady hands preparing the pyre for lighting. That was when the family members realized he was serious, and pandemonium broke out. His wife and his mother ran at him and grabbed his shirt. Shrieking, they tried to pull him away, while the two children, who were confused and horrified by the women's hysteria, started to scream for their daddy. His father was seen lecturing at him, but no words came out, or perhaps they were drowned by the noise of all the people there who were yelling at him or crying. The carpenter's son looked at his little boy, the very image of his own distant childhood. His heart seized in his chestâand he hesitated. Will the boy take care of the women? Will he miss his father? He turned to the little girl and ran over to hug her. But the voice exploded in his ear, and he finally tore himself away and lit the wood.
Something stunning then happened. The roaring flames that burst from the dry woodâpushing everyone back several stepsâthe fire that consumed him as he climbed his own funeral pyre was as cold as snow. It had felt hot from the groundâbut now, sitting on the pile, he was shivering cold. He opened his eyes in surprise and found himself at the bottom of a river. Suddenly he remembered and shot up to the surface. On the bank of the river, standing quietly, was the Pashupata ascetic, looking like a figure from the distant past.
Chandrasvamin walked out of the water, shook off the memory of his family along with the water in his hair, and then lowered his head in respectful salute. He did not know how long the holy man had been waiting there. Twenty-four yearsâthat was the duration of his life as a carpenterâseemed too long even for such a great sage.
As though reading his mind, the ascetic said, “You were under the water for as long as it took you to speak the spell twice. That is all. Now tell me, what did you experience?”
Chadrasvamin told him everything that took place, ending with the mysterious cold fire. The ascetic was somber. “Son, I'm afraid you made a mistake, either with the spell or in some other detail. The flames have to be hot. The cold flames punctured the mental reality.”
“No, sir. I'm sure I used the correct spell,” the Brahmin cried, and to prove it he repeated the words accurately.
“Still, something went wrong. You will not have the magical power, and I probably lost mine as well.” The holy man tried to call forth his science, but nothing happened.
The Brahmin repeated his story and began to cry, feeling that he had lost his beloved forever. But then he remembered his dear wife, whom he also loved, and his Brahmin father, and his voice became faint and unsure. “What did I do wrong? I did exactly what you told me!”
The holy man looked at his student sadly and
said, “You hesitated. You clung to your life, refused to leave your wife and children.” He added, “It was a brief hesitation, just a few moments, but the chance was even briefer, and it went by forever.”
We were stopped under a
Ficus bengalis
that looked like it was dyingâit was a perfect hangman's tree with its naked limbs running parallel to the ground. The old man leaned against the tree. He looked at me expectantly, waiting perhaps for a compliment or a question.
“So that's it?” I asked. “It's now back to his miserable old life of gambling and losing?”
“I don't know, really. The story just ends there. What do you think of it, my friend?”
I suddenly remembered my feet, or else the sensation crossed a threshold again, because I began to feel a burn. I found a shady spot under a low scrubby tree and sat on a rock. The bottoms of my feet, which I had totally forgotten for a while, were bright red, like lobsters in boiling water. The soil added to the raw color, but when I tried to brush it, the redness grew deeper. I muttered a curse, and the old man laughed. Of course, he was wearing his thongs.
“So now you're really feeling your feet I see. It's my great story that made you forget, don't you think?”
He seemed serious about that, so I scornfully said, “I find it very ironic that a man of god, a man of Shiva of all gods, would use his great powers in order to help a compulsive gambler achieve his sensualâhis sexualâdesires. That's the reason he lost his magic. The whole thing is so amoral, it's beyond me.”
At this the old man laughed out loud and made a few rapid comments about my puritanical sensibilities. But then
he said, “No, my friend, what the Pashupata taught our hero has little to do with wealth or women. It's about time, or better yet, about timing. He gave him another life in the blink of an eyelash and showed him firsthand how easy it is to miss one's chance.”