Roberto Calasso - Ka

The “waters” to which the Vedic texts endlessly refer resemble nothing more closely than the jeunes filles of Proust’s Recherche . Did Andrée exist in herself, did Albertine? A suddenly dazed Marcel asks himself in the Prisonnière . Likewise the waters. It’s not for nothing that from their first appearance the jeunes filles are confused against the backdrop of the sea, in an air heavy with the salty, blue spray of the front at Balbec. Then, with imperious self-assurance, Marcel decides that they “embodied the frenzy of pleasure.” And from that moment on, their existence becomes the vertigo of a ceaseless mutability, punctuated by names, scarves, dresses, episodes, golden drops ever different from each other yet no more individual than a succession of lights sparkling on waves. Like a lover, like a ṛṣi , Marcel watches Albertine as she sleeps. In her mute abandon to merest breathing, he sees her as a plant, a stalk. The natural realms mingle together, finding themselves in the same element. They flood silently through the watchful mind, and through prose. The obsessive detail is a bud in the pond. The waters are plurality itself, fringes swinging back and forth, the slight trembling of wakefulness that precedes the word. Immersing itself in them, the mind follows the royal way toward revelation of itself to itself, in its shifting lunar essence. But this is not their ultimate mystery, which only emerges when they appear as messengers in an outside scenario, in the blind structure of matter, eyes closed like Albertine’s, emissaries of a self-sufficient and remote existence, which one can pierce but never grasp.

It happened to many gods, to Mitra, Varuṇa, Brahmā (frequently!), to Viṣṇu and Agni: they would be celebrating a rite, concentrating on what they were doing, on observing the prescribed ritual, when suddenly a female creature — an Apsaras, a goddess, a woman — would enter their field of vision. They would desire her. The fact that she appeared at that particular moment, during the ceremony, surrounded only by sacred objects, would make her all the more irresistible. She was other, the invincible other, the substance forever expelled by the autism of ritual, but who now came back there, triumphant and uplifting. And at the same time: since the rite centered on the soma , this substance they were ever and tirelessly filtering, crushing, pressing, and since that substance then filtered into their minds, or rather filtered their minds, when they drank it, transforming the mind into a luminous cloud, it would now seem that, that cloud had flowed outside them again to appear dressed in a white robe, splitting itself in two, to beguile them, and imposing itself with the certainty of an equation: it is the soma it is the mind it is that female creature.

First among the Apsaras. Urvaśī appeared with her swanlike elegance in the place of sacrifice. There was a jug there that was used for keeping the “overnight” waters, rasatīvarī . Mitra and Varuṇa just managed to grab it in time to shoot their sperm into it. From that jug, that sperm, two of the greatest ṛṣis were born: Vasiṣṭha and Agastya. Then Mitra and Varuṇa pulled themselves together with a shiver and raised their eyes. They saw Urvaśī looking at them, watchful, proud, motionless in her long, white robe. They thought they caught a hint of a smile lifting a corner of her mouth. As if she knew everything they knew and something more too. Then they glared at her with resentful eyes and said: “A curse upon you… You shall go down to the earth, doomed to satisfy the pleasure of the descendants of Manu.”

So it was that Urvaśī would one day discover what it means to fall in love with a man. He was a prince, of course, indeed the first among princes, and a seer. His name was Purūravas — and Urvaśī claimed to hear in that name his “roaring” ( ruvan ) progress through the clouds. She found him far more attractive, dark, and unpredictable than the gods. And she wasn’t averse to upsetting the Gandharvas, who had been her compànions in love until now but who had one shortcoming: they were all too similar to one another — and to her. Whereas a man, the earth: that was adventure, that — she suspected — would mean suffering too, given that Mitra and Varuṇa had seemed so pleased with themselves when they threw her down into these forests.

When Urvaśī’s passion settled on Purūravas, the Apsaras thought: “What shall I do? Must I show myself to him? So that my beauty overwhelms and terrifies him? So that what always happens between men and women may happen immediately? No, there is something better than that… I want this state to last for a long time, as long as possible, this swooning feeling I get when I’m looking at him…” So Urvaśī decided to transform herself into Purūravas’s charioteer. He was young and very handsome, but Purūravas hardly seemed to notice. He spoke to him as one speaks to an animal about the house — and Urvasi bubbled with pleasure. They got smothered in dust together, racing across desert lands, as far as the horizon. Sometimes they had to get down from the chariot, ford marshes, force their way along impassable valleys, reconnoitering. Then Purūravas would take the lead and Urvaśī would follow him, gazing happily at his back, his neck. The longer Purūravas said nothing, the greater the pleasure Urvaśī felt. She didn’t want Purūravas to think of her as the only person around to talk to, but as something more. She wanted to blend in with his shadow, to become the crumpled cloth of his robe.

They rode through the bush. The charioteer up front, firm hand on the reins. Looking down, Purūravas saw a split in the side, a hole getting bigger. He could see the earth through it, racing away. The chariot was about to break up. Brusquely, Purūravas shouted an order and jumped down to the ground. He looked at the chariot, frowning, while the charioteer tried hard not to show emotion. The chariot seemed to be intact. There was no sign of anything coming apart anywhere. Purūravas climbed up again. The hole reappeared, like a vortex set to swallow him up. Again Purūravas got down from the chariot. Again the chariot seemed to be intact. Purūravas thought he must be going mad. “Charioteer, can you see anything?” he asked tensely. “I can see you, my lord,” said the charioteer. Purūravas looked down again, gloomily. “You’re not mad, it’s me making that hole appear,” said a female voice. He looked up. It was the charioteer, except that now she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She filled the air, and already Purūravas felt he was immersed in her. He realized he would have to start negotiating at once. “Who are you?” he asked. “I am Urvaśī, an Apsaras. I have been following you around for a year, out of love. Take me with you.” “It’s difficult to deal with a divine being,” said Purūravas. “What do you require?” “A hundred ceremonies of homage. And a hundred jugs of cream a day.” “All right,” said Purūravas. “There’s something else: I must never see you naked,” said Urvaśī. “The other things you ask are easy,” said Purūravas. “But how can we manage this?” “You must always have a cloth wrapped around your loins.” “So be it,” said Purūravas. Urvaśī had also specified: “You can penetrate me three times a day with your rod, you can have me even when I don’t want you.” (Whence the dispute between Vedic scholars, accustomed to arguing over every syllable: most of them understood Urvaśī as meaning “you cannot possess me when I don’t want you,” but Hoffmann, in his study on the injunctive tense, came to the conclusion that she had meant the opposite: “you can possess me even when I don’t want you”; relationships between men and women have been marooned in this ambiguity ever since.) So long as Purūravas always kept that white cloth around his loins. Soon they thought no more about it. They were rarely apart. And then they were sleeping, but even in their sleep their minds continued to mingle. The only impression they had of what was happening outside them was of a succession of blades of light, pointing in different directions. All Urvaśī knew was that when she thought of Purūravas the same words would always come into her head: “Sovereign of my body.”