The Ashes of a God

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Bain Francis William. The Ashes of a God

PREFACE

A MOUNTAIN OF MERIT

A MOUNTAIN OF MERIT

A FETTER OF THE SOUL

A FETTER OF THE SOUL

THE WAVES OF TIME

THE WAVES OF TIME

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Sinking in the waves of time, O skull-adorned demolisher of Daksha,[ 7 ] 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[ 8 ] devotion at thy feet.

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[9] 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[10] 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[11] himself?

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And then at last, being pleased with his perseverance, such as it was, I appeared to him one day in the guise of a digambara,[19] and granted him a boon. Thereupon that indomitable Trishodadhi replied: O Shankara, I ask for absolutely nothing, but permission to continue my devotions. If therefore I must perforce select a boon, grant me as much time as I require, so as to continue, muttering on, till I abandon my assiduity of my own accord. So I left him, muttering diligently away, just as before, though I foresaw the end, and knew that he carried within him, unsuspected by himself, the seed of the fruit of his own undoing, which time would ripen, dooming him to undergo the punishment that lies in wait for all, who plunge, without due consideration, into enterprises above their strength.[20] And so the boon I offered him was wasted, and the chance was thrown away. For had he only had knowledge of himself, it might have saved him after all, by ensuring him oblivion of the past. For his memory was his ruin, as the story will show thee, O Daughter of the Snow.

And he in the meantime muttered on unflaggingly, wholly intent on nothing else, till at length the mound of his accumulated merit began to rival in dimension yonder hill, whose top the evening sun is now touching with the colour of affection, as if loth to leave it to be swallowed by the dark.

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