Roberto Calasso - Ardor

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The wars between the Devas and the Asuras were fought in many different ways and ended in many different ways, though the outcome was always the same — with the Devas victorious. But before that happened, there was a constant series of setbacks and reversals. The decisive moment came when the gods took refuge in Mind and the Asuras in Speech.

Mind meant sacrifice. The nature of Mind was such as to make it correspond with sacrifice and the sky. This is told in the story explaining why the sacrificer should tie the horn of a black antelope to his garment: “He then ties a black antelope horn to the edge of his garment. Now the Devas and the Asuras, each created by Prajāpati, received their father’s inheritance: the Devas took Mind and the Asuras Speech. So the Devas took the sacrifice and the Asuras speech. The Devas took the yonder sky and the Asuras this earth.”

And so it happened that the war between the Devas and the Asuras was transformed into the story of the relations between a male being, Yajña, Sacrifice, and a female being, Vāc, Speech, herald of the Asuras. Here the enemy lines and the clash of arms fade away. The stage was cleared — ready for playing out the first comedy of love. The Devas peered out from the wings. They were no longer warriors but prompters, whispering from the sides. As soon as they saw Vāc’s radiance, they thought all they had to do to defeat the Asuras was to abduct her. So imperious must have been the power emanating from Speech. It is true not only, as Herodotus wrote, that the abduction of a woman lies at the origin of every war, but also that the final conquest of a certain woman marks the end of war. So the Devas began to whisper to Yajña, telling him how to seduce Vāc. What resulted would establish the traditional rules of courtship between men and women, like a code of manners that would remain basically unchanged for centuries:

“The Devas said to Yajña, Sacrifice: ‘This Vāc, Speech, is a woman: make a sign to her and she will surely invite you to come to her.’ Or perhaps he himself thought: ‘This Vāc is a woman: I’ll make a sign to her and she will surely invite me to come to her.’ So he made a sign to her. But she at first rejected him, from a distance: for a woman, when a man makes a sign to her, at first rejects him, from a distance. He said: ‘She has rejected me, from a distance.’

“They said: ‘Just make a sign to her, sir, and she will surely invite you to come to her.’ He made a sign to her; but she answered him, so to speak, only by shaking her head: for a woman, when a man makes a sign to her, answers, so to speak, only by shaking her head. He said: ‘She has answered me only by shaking her head.’

“They said: ‘Just make a sign to her, sir, and she will invite you to come to her.’ He made a sign to her, she invited him to come to her. For a woman in the end invites the man to come to her. He said: ‘She has in fact invited me.’

“The Devas reflected: ‘This Vāc, being a woman, we had better be careful she doesn’t seduce him. Say to her: “Come here to where I am” and then tell us whether she has come to you.’ Then she went to where he was. For a woman goes to a man who lives in a fine house. He told of how she had come to him, saying: ‘She has in fact come.’”

The story couldn’t be more perfect than it is and is heavily spiced with Vedic irony — an irony that has largely gone unnoticed over the centuries, in India as well as the West — for example, where it says: “For a woman goes to a man who lives in a fine house.” With their taste for both basic and systematic detail, the Vedic ritualists managed to recount the comedy of seduction in all its classic phases, as if it were a rite — the kind of comedy that, from the Greek poets up to the story of Don Giovanni, has been represented only in sharp, hot morsels, without worrying about reconstructing the sequence in all its stages, as happens here. This amorous approach is a crucial step in a cosmic game — and at the same time is the model for what will take place over and over again in narrow lanes, public squares, drawing rooms, bars, and cafés throughout the world.

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In the story of Yajña and Vāc, it is taken for granted that the Devas will win their war, as they have chosen the side of the Mind and of Sacrifice. At the same time, though, they badly need Vāc, the adversary’s prime force. Mind must first of all assert its supremacy over Speech, since the operation of Mind involves language, yet also goes beyond it. Thinking is not a linguistic act: this was a basic idea of the ṛṣis. But thinking can also be a linguistic act, once the Devas, through Yajña, succeed in bringing Vāc across to their side. And that passage brings an enhancement in the implicit power of the Devas, as well as the defeat of the Asuras. At this point the gap between the Devas and Asuras opens up once and for all: the Asuras are now beings who have lost speech. They become “barbarians ( mlecchas )” as soon as Vāc abandons them. This is the first expression of scorn for the barbarian as a babbler. And the brahmin’s work, preeminently work of the mind, would follow the greatest rigor in the use of speech, so as not to descend into the “language of the Asuras.” The Devas thus gained the highest and most unassailable power. But inherent in this supreme power was a supreme danger. Indra, king of the Devas, discovered it for himself. And so it happened that Indra “thought to himself: ‘A monstrous being will surely spring from this union of Yajña and Vāc: let it not take advantage of me.’ Indra became an embryo and entered into that coupling.” A few months later, as his birth was approaching, Indra thought once again: “The womb that has contained me certainly has great vigor: no monstrous being must be born from it after me, lest it should take advantage of me.” So Indra ripped out Vāc’s womb, into which he had introduced himself, so that it was impossible for it to give birth to another being. That torn and tattered womb is now on the head of the Sacrifice like a pleated turban: “Having seized it and held it tightly, he ripped out the womb and put it on the head of Yajña, Sacrifice, for the black antelope is sacrifice: the skin of the black antelope is the same as the sacrifice, the horn of the black antelope is the same as that womb. And since Indra ripped out the womb holding it tightly, for that reason the horn is tied tightly to the edge of the garment; and since Indra, having become an embryo, was born from that union, for that reason the sacrificer, after having become an embryo, is born from that union.”

Speech and Mind must both remain on the side of the Devas, but they must not be united : intercourse between Mind and Speech would end up creating a being of such power that it would overwhelm the power of the Devas. And the Devas have lived, from the beginning, in terror of such a moment. With pain and effort they have conquered the sky and immortality. Now they are chasing humans away, removing all traces of the sacrifice while, on the other hand, they are keeping watch to make sure no power is unleashed by rites that might overwhelm them. If relations between Speech and Mind were from then on unstable, clouded, and marked at times with ill-concealed hostility, it is due to Indra’s ruthless intervention: one of those vile and mysterious exploits of his that trigger enormous consequences.

The relationship between Mind and Speech thus established what was to happen in the world: not simply a pair of lovers, but a scene of horror that recalled a brutal attack. A male being, Sacrifice, bears on his head the torn uterus of his lover Speech, where he will never be able to pour his semen. The Devas wanted it this way so that the balance of power would never again be upset — in this case, against them. This is the condition in which the world must live. This is where one should go back in order to understand sexual attraction, but also the insuperable imbalance and disunity that has reigned between Mind and Speech from then on. In the West, it is a theme that finds echoes in the nostalgia and perpetual, helpless evocation of the language of Adam.