Roberto Calasso - Ka

“Thou who, kindled, adorn the granary of prayer”: such were the words with which the hotṛ began the “stanzas of approval,” that part of the liturgy that led to the killing of the horse. Never had the priest’s voice been so soft and thick with emotion. He spoke of the “happy gates,” tall, wide, gleaming, as if they were there before his eyes. But there were no gates to be seen, only animals pushing and shoving in their panic, legs tangled in ropes. Patiently, the horse endured it all. In generous flourishes, enumerating the gods, bringing in the sky and the flies, the hotṛ ’s words circled closer and closer to the horse, grew more intimate, more familiar. Finally he whispered: “May your dear life spare you from suffering, as you go on your way. May the ax cause no lasting pain to your body. May no clumsy, impatient quarterer fumble with your joints, mutilate your limbs. You do not die thus. You are not hurt. On easy paths you go to the Gods.” They were the last words the horse would hear, before setting off in another procession. But this time he would not lead the way. Before him he would see a priest with a firebrand in his hand. Then he would have to stop: they made him lie on a cloth. Soon his neck would feel the butter-drenched linen drape they would strangle him with, while his eyes could follow the priests, who had moved away now, sitting in silence around the fire āhavanīya .

The last procession moved northward, because the path of the sky is to the north. At its head was the agnīdh , the firebrand in his hand indicating that the sacrifice was moving into its fiery, irremediable phase. The horse followed. Behind, in single file, the other priests. The first brushed the horse’s flanks with two spits. At the rear came the sacrificer-king. Having reached the place where the horse would be killed, the agnīdh placed two blades of grass he had been carrying on the ground. Then he stretched a drape over the blades of grass, then a blanket and a gold plaque. It was a bed. They made the horse crouch down there, then strangled him with the linen drape. The other animals — hundreds of them — were strangled with cords. The word they used was saṃjñāpayanti , “they make it acquiesce.” The texts explain: “When they make a victim acquiesce, they kill it.”

As soon as the horse had breathed his last, as soon as the other victims had breathed their last, the four brides of the sacrificer-king would step forward together with a young girl, led by the priest assigned to them, the neṣṭṛ . In their hands they would be holding jugs. Behind them, at an appropriate distance, came the four hundred ladies of the retinue. The wives took up their positions around the dead horse. They lifted the hair on the right sides of their heads. A slow, conscious movement. Then they let their hair down on the left. Then they clapped their right thighs while circling the horse and calling it “my lord” and fanning it with the flaps of their long robes. Sometimes the mahiṣī would use a golden fan as well. The fanning was intended to make the horse more comfortable in his deep sleep. Or did they want to wake their lover? In any event, the texts remark that, through this gesture, the women “perform an act of contrition” toward the horse. They moved slowly, like dancers, circling the horse nine times.

The wives sprinkled the dead horse with water from their jugs. They said it would purify his life breath. The fresh drops fell on the animal’s every orifice, and the wives recited: “May your mind be magnified! May your voice be magnified! May your breath be magnified! May your sight be magnified! May your hearing be magnified! May all that has suffered in you, all that has been hurt in you be magnified and settle! May it be purified!”

Lying on its drape, dripping with water, the strangled horse awaited the mahiṣī , the first wife. It was a motionless white mass, its hooves side by side. It bore no signs of violence. Only the shudder of its breathing was missing. Finally alone, the regal wife came close. She lay down and pressed her thighs against the thighs of the dead horse. At the same time she spoke to it, urged the horse to tighten its hooves around her thighs. The priests watched. When the horse and the mahiṣī were glued together, distinguishable only by the color of their skins — the mahiṣī ’s light brown, the horse’s a bright white — then the adhvaryu would cover them with a blanket and say: “Wrap yourselves together in the sky.” Just before the blanket was laid over the two lovers, the mahiṣī was seen to take the horse’s phallus and introduce it between her thighs. It wasn’t easy. So the sacrificer-king would step forward and encourage the horse to penetrate his wife, thus: “Place, O male, that which anoints, great joy of womankind, within the vulva of she who spreads her thighs, and enter her.” None of the priests uttered so much as a word. Why not? So as not to appear to be in competition with the sacrificer-king.

When the mahiṣī lay beside the horse, she immediately pulled up her robe showing her vulva. The adhvaryu covered them with the linen drape that shortly before had been used to strangle the horse. At the same time the mahiṣī would be using her hand to place the horse’s member between her thighs. All eyes were concentrated on her. But the mahiṣī showed no sign of being aware of it. She went on with her gentle constant complaint. She spoke to the horse, and kept on speaking. “Mother, little mother, dear little mother. There is no one to show me the way. Little horsey is asleep.” Now the king’s other wives, who stood in a circle around the two lovers, began to speak too: innuendos, obscenities. But they got no reply, for the mahiṣī went on with her quavering lament: “Mother, little mother…”

Tight together under the blanket, the dead horse and the queen were joined in coitus. Around them, in a semicircle, stood the priests, the sacrificer-king, the girl, the king’s other wives, and their serving maids, four hundred of them. The coitus went on, silent and invisible, while a weave of innuendos shuttled back and forth between priests and women. The priests spoke of a fist disappearing into a crack, of a bird wriggling around, of a couple who climb a tree and play together on top. The women came back sharply with biting disrespect: “Hey, lassie!” “Hey, adhvaryu !” came their voices. “Hey, brahman, your mother and father play around on the treetops. They wriggle around like your mouth when you try to speak. Hey, brahman, don’t mumble!” At any other time it would have been inconceivable to show such insolence to a brahman. That buzz of obscenities hid something solemn and arcane, evoked it through its opposite. Then the chatter stopped. The queen’s first handmaids approached the blanket, from which the horse’s head and the woman’s were poking out. They helped the mahiṣī to climb decently to her feet. Meanwhile they were thinking: “May we prove able, with all kinds of words, to obtain for ourselves our every desire.” The mahiṣī was standing up now. With a tuft of grass she dried herself where she had touched the horse’s member. Then she looked hard at the girl, whose role had so far remained unclear, and, tossing the tuft of grass at her, spoke these words: “I transfix you with the ardor of coitus.” From that moment on the girl was called sāhā and was allowed to enter the sabhā , the room where the men gathered. Her body would be available to whoever used the room. To one side the priests were reciting: “I have sung of Dadhikrāvan, the victorious horse, the fiery horse. May he bring a sweet smell to our mouths! May he prolong our lives!” They were aware of feeling tainted and extremely tired, for “life and gods will depart from those who at the sacrifice use impure speech.” But the ceremony still had other phases to go through. First the mouth must regain its sweet smell. Meanwhile the four hundred and five women walked away, “just as they had come.”