Roberto Calasso - Ka

It was then that Mātali, the charioteer, burst out of the clouds unfurling the deep blue Vaijayanta standard above a chariot waving with snakes. “Your father is calling you,” he said. “He wants all the Celestials to welcome you…” As the chariot rose with him on board, Arjuna saw thousands of other chariots wandering in the air. They shone brightly, so that already the sun and the moon seemed superfluous. Mātali acted as his guide, pointing them out to him, telling him the names of those they belonged to. For the most part they were sages of olden times, whose names Arjuna barely knew. He realized the chariot was getting close to the divine residence when a vast, white, four-tusked elephant appeared. “It must be Airāvata…,” thought Arjuna, and suddenly there before him was Amarāvatī, city of Indra. A noisy, colorful crowd had gathered to greet him. It wasn’t so much the gods, whom he gradually began to recognize, that struck him as the multitudes of Gandharvas and Apsaras. Airy, vibrant, and fickle, more beautiful than the gods perhaps, these beings seemed to him the natives of the sky. Then he saw his father, under a tall, white umbrella, screened by a fan that gave off perfume. The Gandharvas’ hymns rose and fell frenetically, while the Apsaras swayed slowly on their hips. No one had ever seen so much tenderness in Indra’s eyes. He went to Arjuna, took him by the hand, stroked his cheeks and long arms. Then as, cautiously, almost incredulously, the king of the gods moved a hand toward Arjuna’s chest, at the same time breathing in the smell of his head, his open palm could be seen to bear the scars left by thunderbolts. Indra led his son toward the throne and sat down beside him. For Arjuna this was perhaps the first moment of unthreatened beatitude in his life. Nothing was asked of him. The weight of duty was lifted. The sky was a spectacle decked out for this occasion.

He watched the Gandharvas busying themselves with basins full of water to wash his feet and refresh him after his long trip. Arjuna’s eyes took in the seething circle of the Apsaras. In a low voice he asked Mātali, who had stayed close beside him, what their names were. Mātali listed them: “Ghṛtācī, Menakā, Rambhā, Pūrvacitti, Svayaṃprabhā, Urvaśī, Miśrakeśī, Ḍuṇḍu, Gaurī, Varūthinī, Sahā, Madhurasvarā…” And he went on. Arjuna couldn’t follow. Some of the names evoked stories he had heard as a child, of princesses, ṛṣis , warriors, hunters. But these heroines seemed to have returned to their places in a chorus of dancers, as if together they made up just one single story, one single face, happy to merely refract and sparkle. “I must learn how to recognize them…,” thought Arjuna. And his eyes went on running tirelessly across those faces, those bodies. In their exultation, their splendor, the eyes he met had something vacuous and jaded about them, as though they were no more than inset stones. Even the swelling breasts held high in pearl bodices, even the soft thighs seemed painted. Until Arjuna’s eyes were compelled to settle on those of one Apsaras among many. “High cheekbones, like mine,” he thought. And he realized his gaze was sinking into eyes as remote and unruffled as the surface of a lake. “Who is that Apsaras with the high cheekbones?” he asked Mātali. “It’s Urvaśī,” said the charioteer.

“What to do in heaven?” wondered Arjuna in his rooms, his thoughts already turning to the brothers he had left behind. “Receive gifts of arms,” his father would soon explain. Indra trained him in the use of the vajru , the thunderbolt. “But that’s not everything,” he said. “Now you must learn the dances and hymns that men don’t know.” He nodded to a Gandharva who was following him. “This is Citrasena. He will be your friend and teacher. Trust him.”

Arjuna soon learned to sing and dance the way they do in Indra’s heaven, something men know nothing of. Every day he practiced along with the Gandharvas and the Apsaras. But he couldn’t relax. He kept thinking of his brothers, homeless and persecuted back on earth. Citrasena understood and was good at distracting him. “What’s the name of that Apsaras who just went by and turned to look at us?” Arjuna asked one day. “It’s Urvaśī.” answered Citrasena. Meanwhile, he was thinking: “If anyone can keep Arjuna in heaven, it’s Urvaśī.” Citrasena went straight off to talk to Indra. And he was given the task of acting as go-between and bringing Arjuna and Urvaśī together as lovers.

Urvaśī welcomed him as if she already knew the mission Indra had given him. “Citrasena, no need to waste words. I’ve seen how handsome Arjuna is. And you know I love men,” she said with a joyless smile. Then, in a lower voice, as though speaking to herself: “I’m compelled to love men…” That very evening, smelling sweetly of sandalwood paste and with a faint tinkling of anklets, a slightly tipsy Urvaśī went to Arjuna’s rooms. Far from being delighted, Arjuna was overcome by a new kind of terror. Without thinking, he lowered his eyes and whispered a few deferential words. In her contralto voice, Urvaśī said: “When you arrived and had hundreds of celestial beings all around you, you looked at me just once, with your unyielding eyes. I remembered that look. I’ve known it for hundreds of years. Then Citrasena came to visit me and said that you had remembered it too. Now I am here…” The more Urvaśī spoke, the more terrified Arjuna seemed to be. He stuffed his fingers in his ears like a child. Then he said: “It’s true that I looked at you. But then I realized: you are the mother of the lunar dynasty. And I am the last of the children of the lunar dynasty. You are my mother. How could I embrace you?” Urvaśī’s eyes were sorrowing and cold. She said: “We Apsaras know no bonds. Our realm is emotion. We abhor usefulness. Yet if you men have fire on earth, it is only because one day long ago I left the man who desired me and was your ancestor. It was my absence that unleashed fire in the world. It still burns today. It will burn forever. This time it is I who follow you. Don’t reject me.” Arjuna had grown more obdurate: “I owe you nothing but respect.” Urvaśī was livid now. “You are insulting a woman your father has offered you. You are rejecting a woman you desire. Well then, you will live like a woman among women, and you will dance with them. You are not fit for anything else.” Then Urvaśī vanished in the night.

Still pale with anger, Urvaśī undressed mechanically, scornful syllables on her lips. Then she lay on her bed and recovered that expression that many admired so much and said was hers alone: one of immense distance and sadness. She thought: “But no one looks more like Purūravas than Arjuna.” Then once again, as had happened countless times before and for hundreds of years, she withdrew into the lake of memory.

No sooner had Urvaśī gone than Arjuna felt annoyed with himself. He knew he would never see her astonishing beauty again. And why have so many scruples and be so nervous over an ancestor of fifteen generations back? Yet some powerful instinct had ordered him not to touch her. As he was thinking, he had a hand on his right thigh. Something tingled under his fingertips, like an ancient wound. With it came the fleeting vision of a scene, though he couldn’t remember when or where. Two young, almost identical men sitting on a rocky seat. Air bright, as in a mirror. In the distance, the roar of rushing waters. All around, a whirl of perfumes, of Apsaras. But the two men were unimpressed. Suddenly one of them slapped his thigh. A tiny female figure popped out, ornate and perfect. Then it grew bigger and pointed up to the sky. He recognized her, and murmured: “Urvaśī, you from the thigh, ūru … You are also my daughter…” But he wasn’t able to articulate that thought and fell fast asleep.