Roberto Calasso - Ka

Satī had the feeling that this was the first time her body had really existed. It wasn’t as if Śiva was penetrating her but as if he opened himself up to her like a huge cavity, welcoming her into himself. The contact with the surface of his body absorbed her into it. Enchanted in the darkness, Satī touched Śiva’s walls. She pressed on toward the center of him, as though toward the glow of a fire in the depths of a cave. She was lost, but felt she was about to find herself. Or rather: she felt that what was happening was a return.

Śiva and Satī’s embrace lasted twenty-five years, without his ever emptying his seed into her. Like a tethered elephant, Śiva couldn’t move without brushing against Sati’s body. When they spoke, they joked. Using moss, Śiva drew on Satī’s breasts, sketching what looked like bees buzzing around a lotus. If Satí looked in the mirror, Śiva hid behind her so that Satī thought she was alone. Then one of Śiva’s eyes popped up in the mirror.

One day Satī wanted to free herself from that endless embrace. “I want you to explain what the Self is,” she said. “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve practiced tapas , looking not for freedom but for slavery. All I wanted was to get your attention. Now you are my husband and I have been taught that you are release itself. During the marriage ceremony a brahman whispered to me that you had only accepted me because you were devoted to your devotees. But what does this devotion mean? I want knowledge.” Śiva said: “In eras of weakness, such as the present, devotion is a name for knowledge. Learned men have identified nine types of devotion. One devotion is listening to my stories. But it is also devotion to water the bilva tree. Something that never occurred to those learned men.” Śiva rambled on and on also devotion with a vague, vacant expression. Satīs face darkened. Her body closed up like a box, cheek on knees drawn tight to her breast. She tried to see Śiva as a stranger, a beguiling intruder. “Why do you keep talking about devotion, and never mention knowledge and detachment?” said Satī. “Because they’re out of date now,” said Śiva, and he laughed. “But I know that the ancients spoke of nothing but knowledge,” said Sati stubbornly. “Right, the ancients,” said Śiva, hardly paying attention. “But does devotion bring us release?” insisted Satī. “Devotion helps,” said Śiva, less and less interested. “Devotion to you doesn’t satisfy me,” said Satī. “You don’t need it. You are me. That is knowledge. Just three words,” said Śiva. “And who are you?” said Satī, suddenly gentle, eyeing her lover. “I am that,” said Śiva. “What is that ?” Satī insisted like an obstinate child. “That which tells us we’re talking. But we mustn’t talk too much,” said Śiva, and, as hundreds of times before, he began to slip the bracelets from Satī’s wrists.

When she went for walks in the woods and glades of Mount Kailāsa, when Śiva was unapproachable, that is, immersed in tapas , Satī became aware of how she would soon feel a wedge of grief pìercing her breast. She thought of her father, of Dakṣa. She knew that Dakṣa hated Śiva. She had always known. In that palace in the distant plain, a dogged mind was keeping track of her every moment, abhorring every gesture of love she made, shivering every time Satī’s body brushed against Śiva’s. She remembered how as a girl she had hardly ever touched her father’s body. Eye contact had been enough for both of them. The only part of him she remembered touching was his hand, nervous and clawlike as it led her to some ceremony or other. But what else would it touch her for? Her father lived for ceremonies. It was as if he were always officiating. His anger, which could be terrible, was only ever roused when someone made some mistake in the liturgy.

Now there was nothing but silence between them. But one day a Yakṣa, one of the many Genies who visited the slopes of Kailāsa, mentioned a story that she immediately sensed would prove fatal. He thought Satī already knew it. So his tale was all the more cruel. There had been, the Genie said, a grand sacrifice. All the ṛṣī were there. Likewise Śiva. Finally Dakṣa arrived, solemn and severe as ever. Everybody stood up. Except Śiva. Upon which, claimed the Genie. Dakṣa had been seized by fury and said terrible things. That Śiva had the eyes of a monkey, that they were not worthy to meet the gazelle’s eyes of his daughter. That giving Satī to Śiva had been like giving the fragrant word of the Vedas to a wretched outcaste. Satī hadn’t wanted to hear more. She pretended she knew the story, which actually Śiva had kept hidden from her. She felt such a sharp desire to return to her father, to look once again into his deep-set eyes. When, as a little girl, she would meet those eyes, even if only obliquely or at a distance, she felt something slide across her skin, like a soft ribbon it seemed sometimes, sometimes like a noose. She would tell him in a few brusque words that all his rites did not add up to knowledge.

Satī felt sure that Dakṣa’s aversion to Śiva was not reciprocated. Śiva — she thought — couldn’t have an aversion to anything in the world. Aversion was something too weak for him. In theological terms. Satī was right, but there was an episode she knew nothing of that dated back to before the time Śiva appeared in her life. It had happened one day when Śiva, like Brahmāa, had decided he would create new beings. But immediately he had felt a pang of nostalgia. For water, for motionlessness. He went down into a lake and stood on the bottom. A stake. Meantime, Dakṣa got down to it. If the world was empty of beings, he would make it his business to procreate. He was the officious priest. busying himself around the altar of the vagina. Beings were born. When Śiva came out of the lake, still heedless, his mind elsewhere, he heard a rustling in the forest, a hush of voices. There were already plenty of beings about. Dakṣa had tricked him. He had dared to forestall Śiva. “Since you have been so zealous as to help me and even carry out my work before I could do it myself,” Śiva said cuttingly, “one day it will be my pleasure to help you complete your work.”

On another occasion Satī noticed some unusual movement on the slopes of Kailāsa. Processions of Genies, gods and demigods were floating down on the breeze. Where were they going? she asked, admiring the sumptuous clothes and jewels of the goddesses. Dakṣa has announced a great sacrifice,” they said. “We’re all invited. All your sisters will be there. Twenty-seven of them are already on their way down from the moon. We’ll see you there,” they said and went off on their chariots.

Then Satī asked Śiva if they had been invited to Dakṣa’s sacrifice. “No,” Śiva said. Dakṣa didn’t invite me because, when I roam the world, I use the dome of what was once one of his father Brahmā’s heads as a bowl.” “I’ll go anyway,” said Satī. “You’re a god, so you have to be invited. But I’m just a woman, and I don’t need an invitation to go and see my family. I feel homesick for the land where I was born. It’s hard to bear the beauty of life with you. Let me go and chat with my sisters awhile. The only company I have here are Nandin the bull and the snakes you coil around your neck and arms.” “If you go, no good will come of it,” said Śiva calmly, but he looked away, because the attar of sadness was sifting down on his eyes, like rain on a lake: “You say you have made of me she who inhabits half of your body. Grant me this boon, let me go,” said Satī. “I can’t keep you,” said Śiva.

Satī felt a sullen resentment toward Śiva that had her weeping tears of rage. He had never spoken to her like that, tight-lipped and toneless. And at the same time Satī felt a nagging rancor toward Dakṣa. Her father, her husband: they’d staked out her entire mind. Or were they two lovers, fighting it out to the death inside her? That was another thing that made her weep with rage. She decided to leave without saying good-bye. She walked along feverishly, at once gloomy and defiant. But soon she heard a bustling sound behind her. Śiva’s servants were escorting her. Mirrors, birds, white sunshades, fans, garlands, chariots, cymbals and flutes: caught up together in a cloud, all these things were following her.