Roberto Calasso - Ka

“But it wasn’t over. Gārgī was holding back her last attack. She let the other brahmans ask their questions one by one. Then she came forward again, but her manner was different this time. She was no longer the impressive painted statue. Now the warrior came to the fore. First she looked at the brahmans and said: If he answers these two questions, none of you will beat him.’ Then she turned to me, legs braced like a man: ‘Yājñavalkya, I stand here in front of you like a warrior from the country of Kāśī or Videha. I have strung my bow. I hold two arrows tight in my hands, ready to transfix you. They are two questions. Try to answer.’ I’d been preparing myself for an attack from a different quarter. But once again Gārgī displayed supreme elegance. Again she spoke about weaving. She asked me what time was woven on. I knew that she knew that I had already answered this question. But I decided to answer softly, calmly, intimately, as if speaking only to her. I told her that time was woven on the indestructible. I said that it was woven on he who neither eats nor is eaten. On he who knows the one who knows. I said this looking straight at Gārgī, knowing perfectly well that I wasn’t telling her anything new. It wasn’t this she wanted to hear. So I added something else as a gift, a gesture of homage to lay at her feet. I said: ‘in this world, Gārgī, he who makes offerings, celebrates sacrifices, practices tapas , but does not know the indestructible, his virtues will come to an end, be it only a thousand years hence; in truth, Gārgī, he who leaves this world without having known the indestructible is a wretch, but he who does not leave this world unless he has first known the indestructible, he, Gārgī, is a brahman.’ I saw Gārgī’s eyes flash when I said the word ‘wretch.’ That was the word that right from the start she had wanted to hear spoken at this gathering, in front of those tight-lipped brahmans, wretched every one quite probably. She had wanted to hear a word that would speak contempt for virtuous deeds. At the same time I sensed an unspoken complicity between myself and Gārgī that nothing could undermine, a complicity that, were we never to speak to each other again, would be with us forever. Then Gārgī turned around and said: ‘Brahmans all, rejoice, for you can never escape this man except by rendering him your homage. None of you will ever beat him in theology.’”

Yājñavalkya was renowned for his bluntness. He never stooped to the polite commonplace. The words that came from his mouth were as unpredictable as his natural authority was immense. Everybody remembered the time when a group of brahmans had plunged into the most dazing speculations vis-à-vis meat eating — and it was clear that many of them were only speaking in the hope that Yājñavalkya would notice how clever they were and perhaps drop a compliment. So giddily high-flown was the dispute, you would have thought that none of the brahmans had ever eaten meat in his life. Yājñavalkya listened, eyes staring at the ground, face inscrutable. Everybody went on behaving as if he wasn’t there, but everybody knew that the outcome of the discussion depended on what, if anything, he would say. They were exhausted — and still Yājñavalkya hadn’t spoken. Then he looked up from half-closed eyes. All he said was: “When I eat meat, I like it tender and juicy.” Nobody dared add so much as a word. Later, when they cast their minds back on that day, it was with a feeling of terror.

On other occasions, however, Yājñavalkya would use the most obscure and unfamiliar words as if they were perfectly common. And some would immediately be convinced of the poverty of their learning, since it didn’t include the meaning of these words. Nothing dumbfounded his listeners so much as the formula they heard him come out with one day, speaking in a whisper, as if trying to hide what he was saying. The subtle Śākalya had been asking him how many gods there were. Patiently — and this in itself was surprising — Yājñavalkya had brought the number down from three thousand, three hundred and six to one. But Śākalya still pressed him. So Yājñavalkya said: “There is a divinity that lies beyond all questioning.” Then in a fierce hiss he added that one day pillagers would steal Śākalya’s bones by mistake and scatter them in contempt. Which came to pass. But it wasn’t this that so impressed itself on the minds of those present so much as the words “There is a divinity that lies beyond all questioning.” They had never heard anything like this before. What were the gods, if not the object of their questioning? Now it seemed that something gave way, went deeper. But how much deeper? Though nobody could claim to understand them, the words passed from mouth to mouth, like a proverb.

Yājñavalkya was also famous for certain irreverent remarks about women. About certain women in particular, but also about women in general. Yet none of Yājñavalkya’s disputes was so intense, almost unbearably so, as the one he had with a woman, the proud Gārgi. Never had he answered another brahman with such ferocity. Those listening felt they were being annihilated. Every scrap of air had been appropriated by those two overwhelmingly sovereign beings. They battled together — and perhaps something else was going on between them too, something no one could follow, at once evident and ciphered. Somebody recalled, on that occasion, another of Yājñavalkya’s engmatic remarks, about man being composed of himself and a void. “Hence that void is filled by woman,” he had said. Now it seemed — and it was almost a hallucination — that Gārgī’s shape was superimposed over that void, and that she was making herself at home there, taking on the outline defined by its boundaries, as the dispute went on, sharp and cutting.

Yājñavalkya had two wives, Maitreyī and Kātyāyanī. No one had ever seen them quarrel. And this alone would have been enough to unsettle people, since it ran contrary to everybody’s experience. They rarely appeared in public together. And when they did so, they treated each other with affectionate circumspection. Kātyāyanī had a soft, inexhaustible beauty. Even in lands far-flung, people would say that no beauty could rival Kātyāyanī’s. Few could claim to have heard the sound of her laughter, but they said it was a wonder, like the sudden flowering of the udumbara . Maitreyī on the other hand was often present at the brahmans’ disputes. Indeed, the brahmans were afraid of her, knowing that she was capable of spotting where their doctrine was weak. And they envied her, because they also knew that Yājñavalkya spoke to her about brahman . Nothing worked so fiercely on their imaginations as the thought of those conversations, of which they would never know so much as a syllable.

Yājñavalkya had no children. He traveled from place to place with his two wives and a considerable retinue, like a tribe. There were those who waited years for him to visit. Generally they would prepare a list of questions. One day Yājñvalkya said the same words, at two different moments, to his two wives: “I shall shortly be leaving this stage of life. Make haste, I want to settle your affairs first.” Maitreyī and Kātyāyanī immediately understood what these words meant: they were never to see him again, he was going into the forest. Kātyāyanī said nothing and stroked his hand. Maitreyī asked a question she had asked him many times before, as if this were a day like any other: — Master, if I possessed the earth and all its riches, would that make me immortal?” Yājñavalkya smiled, in memory of their talks together. He gave an answer Maitreyī already knew: “You would simply lead the life of the rich.” As though following a liturgy, Maitreyī replied: “What can something matter to me, if it does not give me immortality? Yājñavalkya looked at her, holding her hands on his shoulders. “You are dear to me and say things that are dear to me. Now sit down and I shall teach you. But you must give me all your attention.” After a moment, he said: “The bride does not desire her husband because he is dear to her, but for love of self.” This was a new formula. How was it to be understood? Everything turned on one word: “self,” ātman . Was “for love of self” to be taken as meaning “for love of one’s own person”—something with a name — or as “for love of Self,” of the ātman , for love of something that stands above the ego and absorbs it into itself? Was it another of those fearfully harsh and true observations Yājñavalkya would use to crush the claims of the sentiments — and above all the noble sentiments? Or was it the last word on things as they are? Maitreyi was of two minds, she hesitated. Yājnāavalkya watched her with a sweetness no one was to witness. He went on talking about the ātman , he told her secrets he had never told before. But already he knew that Maitreyī could no longer hear him, for a veil of tears was falling on her heart. Pulling herself together, Maitreyī caught only the last two things Yājñavalkya said by way of farewell: “How to know the one who knows?… That is the secret of immortality.” Maitreyi caught the cadence of the words but not their import. More than immortality, what mattered to her was that voice, which she would never hear again.