Roberto Calasso - Ka

Nothing attracted Pārvatī so much as that huge blue stain that shone through Śiva’s neck, even from beneath the ashes. When she was a child, they had told her the story of how Vāsuki the snake had vomited poison into the ocean and how Śiva had swallowed it up. It had gathered like a lake in his throat. On the surface, the color made one think of sapphire, or the ringed eye spots of a peacock feather. It looked like the mark a bite leaves, many, many love bites, and an ornament too. Pārvatī’s hands circled the stain like a noose. “Why do you like pyres and jackals and bones and vultures and ghosts so much? And when you move around, why are you followed by a procession of disfigured and terrifying creatures, why do you treat them like your oldest friends? In the palace where I grew up, I never saw such things. Yet I always loved to invent songs full of words that made me shudder, because I was told you partook of such things, and my friends, looked at me as if I were daring them to do the same. Horror and pleasure must have been born together. That’s how it was for me. I know they live one inside the other. That’s how it has to be. Otherwise they would be dull. But now that we’re alone, and will go on being alone, with only the whines and wiles of the gods to bother us from time to time, tell me: why do I always suspect that you get more pleasure from your ashes than from my body?” Stubbornly, brazenly, Pārvatīwent on and on asking these same questions. Then Śiva would smile, would laugh, would say nothing, change the subject, shift his grip on Pārvatī’s body, turn her this way and that in his hands. But one day he looked Pārvatī straight in the eyes and said: “Daughter of the Mountain, since you reproach me with my love of ashes, I shall tell you a story, the story you have always wanted me to tell you. You know that when I met you I was a widover. I would still rave wildly from time to time thinking of her death, of Satī, of She-who-is. Before Satī was born, reality was less real…”

Even when he retires to remote mountain peaks, when he is rapt — in thought? in tapas ? or in something that is both thought and tapas ? — Śiva is never alone. From his long hair, so black it is almost blue, drips the Goddess, now Gaṅgā. They rarely speak to each other. But Gaṅgā is witness to everything Śiva does. She is present at his embraces that have no end. Yet she is never jealous. She flows — that’s all. But it’s enough to drive Pārvatī wild. Majestically, she sits beside Śiva on Kailāsa. All creatures bow before her, none sure of attracting her attention. Sometimes Pārvatī looks anxious: she casts a sidelong glance above Śiva’s ear, at his temple.

“Who is that damn woman hiding in your hair?” said Pārvatī. Once again she couldn’t stop herself. “The sickle moon,” said Śiva, as though thinking of something else. “Oh, so that’s what she’s called, is it?” said Pārvatī, in a tone that would one day be the model for all female sarcasm.

“Of course, you know that perfectly well,” said Śiva, more absentminded than ever.

“I’m not speaking about the moon, I’m speaking about your girlfriend,” said Pārvatī, snarling.

“You want to talk to your friend? But your friend Vijayā’s just gone out, hasn’t she?” said Śiva. Pārvatī went off, white with rage.

Śiva and Gaṇgā met as two excesses. Śiva allowed the celestial river to break over his head before touching the earth, which otherwise could not have survived the impact. And in ever bathing the motionless Śiva’s head, ever flowing in streams down his face, Gañgā stopped the scorching god from withering up the whole world. This beneficial and ever-renewed equilibrium was also a secret love affair. Of no other woman was Pārvatī so jealous as of Gañgā. No sooner did she come close to him than she saw her sister in the quivering drops on Śiva’s face. Even his saliva smacked of Gangā.

A stream crosses the sky: a stream of souls, of waters, of the dead, of subtle substance. It is the Milky Way. It runs from one end of the sky to the other, then flows on upon the earth. Earth and sky are the two banks of one great river, and it would be hard indeed to find the place where that river passes from the celestial to the terrestial bank. Where is the meeting point? Where do the celestial waters plunge down to earth, with their tremendous mass, where do they carve out their bed? Such is the disparity of force, between heaven and earth, that it is perilous, rash, to pass directly from one to the other. The flow of the Milky Way headed down to where a mighty corrugation lifted earth to sky. It was the Himālaya. Thus, flowing down from the mountaintops, the Milky Way became Gangā, Śiva’s lover, and daughter of the king-mountain Himavat. But if left to themselves, those waters would have flooded the earth. To avoid overwhelming life irremediably, the celestial stream came down on Śiva’s head where he sat motionless, deep in tapas . The impact shattered the mass of water, which then came on down to earth in a thousand small streams. That was Gangā’s body, forever twisting around her lover’s head, streaming over his lips, pouring from his jet black tresses. When Śiva wore his turban, the waters hid among the folds, bridesmaids to their amorous play, then spilled over. Life on earth is possible because Gańgā’s body breaks unceasingly over Siva’s. Śiva can be “Propitious,” as his name would have it, only so long as Gangā’s cataract plunges constantly down upon his head, only so long as his secret, ever-exposed lover dribbles down his thin tresses, the way water drips down on the stone liṅga from a jug hanging above. The dry sign of algebraic equivalence must ever be drenched in the tongue’s lymph, just as coitus means swimming toward the recognition of those waters from which Word, Vāc, emerged.

Śiva and Gaṅgā were the first example of a perennial love, renewed at every instant by a stream that knows no end. But the beginning was rather different, closer to hate and war. Looking down from the height of what would one day be called the Milky Way at the bluish mass of Śiva’s head, where she had been told she would have to shatter herself before touching ground, Gangā thought: “I’ll sweep him away like a straw.” In the end. what did a god mean to her?

Amid her waves the gods surfaced, then hid again. It was true of Agni, true of Soma. And likewise of Sūrya, Sun, every single night. They were a dazzle, a heat made manifest in her from time to time. But without her waters they would never have existed. That motionless figure on the ground, that taciturn god who was perhaps trying to look like a tree trunk, would be just one among many.

Gangā plunged with a crash onto Śiva’s head. She was impatient to touch the ground, to taste this new flavor. She wouldn’t even see Śiva’s face, she thought, unless already swept off on billowing waters, far away. But no sooner had she brushed against that head than Gangā felt lost. Śiva’s hair was a forest. And what was a forest? Her waters were constantly being diverted, divided, humiliated in tiny streams. They settled in huge lakes, surrounded by a thick darkness that was no longer the darkness of the sky. Huge, angry waves kept beating down on Śiva. And Śiva had gathered himself in one spot. From there, like silk from a spider, his māyā spun out, the sticky enchantment of his mind. Śiva held back the waters, wound around she who winds around all, multiplied the meanders that would soak her up. Like a spoiled princess used to having her every whim obeyed, Gangā pounded down upon him, loathed him. “I’ll never see the earth if I go on wandering about in this stupid, frightening forest,” she thought. Gangā didn’t know it, but her fury enhanced her splendor. Streaming down Śiva’s hair, she saw a corner of the god’s mouth lift, in a hint of a smile. That made her even madder. As she renewed her attack, boiling in obscure little ditches, a few drops of foam spurted out beyond the forest. For a moment they found themselves suspended in the void, astonished. Finally they tasted a sharp, dry flavor. It was the earth. Those drops formed Lake Bindusaras, the Lake of Drops. From there they flowed into a bed that seemed to have been made for them. Men called that river Gangā.