Roberto Calasso - Ka

Pārvatī said: “Your mouth comes to me like the unmanifest that rejoices in qualities. Then I feel I am flowing in you. But sometimes you look at me like a man who sees loose women going into an empty house and doesn’t so much as touch them. No less secret, at such moments, is our own contact. When we don’t touch, it’s as if I were putting my fingers in my ears. Then I hear the sound that dwells in the space within the heart: like a river, like a bell, like a chariot wheel, like the croak of a frog, like the rain, like the word spoken in a cozy corner.”

One day they went down to the sea, which Pārvatī had never seen before. On a beach not far from Kāñcī, Umā played with Śiva’s phallus, which was a column of sand. She didn’t notice the sea swelling up. Soon the waves came crashing down on her. Umā clutched the liṅga in her arms, like a doll, to protect it. When the waves withdrew, the column of sand was etched with the scars left by Umā’s bracelets and nipples.

They spun out the game of pleasure, ratilīlā , made it digressive, circular, rambling. At their feet, Nandin the bull slept, occasionally shaking his big head. White with ash, Śiva’s chest was crossed by two dark stripes: a cobra and Pārvatī’s arm. Śiva whispered to her: “Kālī, you Black One.” It was a name Pārvatī didn’t want to hear. She had always wished, stonily, for her dark skin to grow pale, to be like the skin of those princesses who lived beyond the mountains, whose miniatures people had sometimes shown her. She slipped out from Śiva’s grasp and hissed: “You are the Great Black One.” An argument began. Ever since they’d been alone, this had been their life: sex, dice, bhangā , arguing, tapas . And erratic conversation. Each phase enhanced the others and came around again quite regularly. Śiva said: “You’re hard as a spike of the rock you were born from. There’s nowhere one can get hold of you, you’re like the sheet of ice around your father. You’re tortuous and twisting as a mountain path.” Then Pārvatī sat before Śiva, hugging her knees tight, shut up in herself, staring at him with furious eyes. “And the only thing you like is ash, you smear it over yourself the way my maids rubbed themselves with sandalwood oil. You’re only happy when there are corpses burning all around you. Your earrings are snakes. Why did you drag me away from my palace, from my family, if my body isn’t enough for you? Why do you make me live like a tramp, wandering about aimlessly? Why do you prevent me from having a child like any ordinary woman would? I’m only black because I’m part of you. If you see me as a snake, I must be the only snake you haven’t loved.” Pārvatī jumped to her feet, choking with rage, and went out. Nandin followed her, imploring her to stay. “Go away,” said Pārvatī. “The only thing you should worry about is making sure no other women come here. Your Master thinks of nothing else. Don’t forget to keep your eye on him through the keyhole. When I get back, my skin will be a golden apple, its down soft and light as the dawn. I’ll dazzle him. My tapas is strong enough to do that and more.” And the proud Pārvatī went off, her hand clutching Ganeśa, who, full of dark thoughts, lowered his big elephant’s head.

Nandin stood guard, never moved. But he was half asleep one night when a snake slithered up. It was Āḍi, the demon, who had long been waiting for a chance to get even with Śiva, who had killed his father. Sliding along in the dark of the pavilion, Āḍi assumed the likeness of Pārvatī. Motionless, Śiva watched her approach. He felt happy. He had always counted on her sudden changes of mood. And this time she had been away too long. Through the window casing, the moonlight fell on a magnificent, shy girl, with dark skin. “So nothing’s changed,” Siva thought. The false Pārvatī was walking around him. It was a habit they had, before touching each other. Śiva began to undress her, slowly. He lifted her hair to find a tiny blemish she had, the shape of a lotus flower, on the nape of her neck, to the left. He couldn’t find it. He realized he was being tricked. The false Pārvatī had stretched out on the ground, arms raised in an arch above her head, fingers twining. From Śiva’s phallus sprouted the vajra , the three-pronged thunderbolt, flashing a moment before burying itself in the false Pārvatī. The vulva it penetrated concealed an adamantine tooth, ready to shred Śiva’s phallus. For a while the scene resembled a convulsive coitus. The two bodies arched. Then the false Pārvatī shuddered and stiffened, heat blazing from within. Then she fell back on the floor.

Just then Vāyu, Wind, went to the real Pārvatī, who was sitting on a mountaintop deep in tapas , and whispered in her ear that a woman was lying dead beside Śiva’s bed. Pārvatī smiled and didn’t move. She spoke to Night: “I know very well that when I was conceived you slipped into my mother’s womb and colored my embryo with a dark liquid. Even then I turned against you. Though I know that you meant it as a gift, because I partake of the Black. The gods wanted me to be born to seduce Śiva and with his seed produce a son the color of gold. That son is not yet born — and never will be from my womb. But the gold is mine by right. I can’t bear for Śiva to lose interest in me, as he did with Satī and with my sister, Gangā, and all the others. Take back my veil of flesh. Make me pale as a foreigner.” Even as the bold Pārvatī spoke, her dark skin fell from her body to lie in folds on the ground like a rag of cast-off muslin.

Nandin was curled up, all too aware of his shortcomings, when a radiant being with familiar features appeared before him. Pārvatī paid no attention to the guardian bull. She was longing for Śiva to see her. She sat before him in the same position as when she had last seen him. Śiva was silent as his eye took in the golden down of her arms shining from her white robe. Without a word he drew her into himself.

“As many as are the aeons, so many shall be the ways in which Ganesā’s story is told.” Many the aeons, many the stories. Only one thing is certain; Ganesā was born of Pārvatī “without husband,” cinā nayākena . Which is why they call him Vināyaka. He was often to be seen lying awake beside Pārvatī’s bed. He was her mild and thoughtful guardian, trunk curled up on his round belly and one tusk broken. To his right he kept a stylus and inkpot. Pārvatī couldn’t help stroking him whenever she passed by. “You are my son. You’re mine. I can’t say that of anyone else.” She remembered so clearly the day she had lain exhausted on her bed, every pore of her body drenched in sweat, Śiva’s and her own, and begun to fantasize quite furiously. Would she never have a child? Śiva was evasive when she beset him with her questions. Once he had said: “How could I have a child? There is no death in me.” The words were a dagger. “Then I’ll have a child to spite you,” Pārvatī thought. With slow strokes she spread a scented oil over her body, mixed it with her sweat, with the flakes of spent skin. The palms of her hands rubbed angrily over her belly, her legs, her breasts. She was almost scratching herself, so as not to miss the smallest speck. She gathered a lump of something, and Ganesā was born from that. He didn’t have his elephant’s head at first. He was a beautiful little boy who never left his mother’s side. Śiva pretended to be pleased, but actually he was annoyed. Expert as she was in jealousy, Pārvatī rejoiced to see Śiva suffering the torments she knew so well.

One day, after a fight, Gañesā went so far as to bar Śiva from Pārvatī’s room. Śiva hacked off his head. And immediately, with Pārvatī dumbstruck before him, a huge wave of affection for that lifeless body rose within him. He told Nandin to tear off Airāvata’s head, Airāvata being Indra’s elephant. In times past, when Indra was the indisputed sovereign of the gods, the idea would have seemed absurd. But the Devas were a spent force now. One day Nandin returned carrying Airāvata’s noble head on his back. One tusk had been broken in their ferocious duel. With a craftsman’s skill, Śiva fixed the elephant’s head on Gaṇeśa’s neck. Pārvatī looked on, eyes full of tenderness. She saw how deftly Śiva was performing the delicate operation. And at once it crossed her mind that only now would her son be truly himself. From that day on she was no longer afraid of being alone. When Śiva set off on a journey and she had no way of knowing whether he meant to practice tapas on his own, or to seduce an Apsaras or a common woman, or to destroy or give life to some part of the world — whatever the reason his absence irritated her — Pārvatī would stretch out on her bed among heaps of cushions and dictate one long story after another. Stories of the world she had never seen. Curled up at her feet, Ganesā wrote them down. He was a fast and tireless scribe. As soon as she had finished, Pārvatī stroked the broken tust and kissed his broad and wrinkled forehead.