India in Mind
Page 29
“But Tathagata, are you…is the priest who is in such a state as yours, is he reborn?”
“To say that he is reborn does not fit the case.”
“Does that mean he is not reborn?”
“That does not fit the case either.”
“Then is he both reborn and not reborn?”
“No. Simultaneity does not fit the case.”
“I am confused, Tathagata. Either he is the one thing or the other or even both things at the same time, yet—”
“Enough, child. You are confused because very often it is not possible to see what is right in front of you because you happen to be looking in the wrong direction. Let me ask you a question. If a fire was burning in front of you, would you notice it?”
“Yes, Tathagata.”
“If the fire went out, would you notice that?”
“Yes, Tathagata.”
“Now, then, when the fire goes out, where does it go? to the east? the west? the north? the south?”
“But the question is to no point, Tathagata. When a fire goes out for lack of fuel to burn, it is…well, it is gone, extinct.”
“You have now answered your own question as to whether or not a holy man is reborn or not reborn. The question is to no point. Like the fire that goes out for lack of fuel to burn, he is gone, extinct.”
“I see,” said the young man. “I understand.”
“Perhaps you begin to understand.”
The Buddha looked in my direction. I cannot say that he ever looked at me. “We often hold this discussion,” he said. “And I always use the image of the fire because it seems easy to understand.”
There was a long silence.
Suddenly Sariputra announced, “Everything subject to causation is a mirage.” There was another silence. By then I had forgotten every question that I had meant to ask. Like the proverbial fire, my mind had gone out.
Prince Jeta spoke for me. “Tathagata, the ambassador from the Great King of Persia is curious to know how the world was created.”
The Buddha turned those strange blind eyes toward me. Then he smiled. “Perhaps,” he said, “you would like to tell me.” The Buddha's bared teeth were mottled and yellow, disconcertingly suggestive of fangs.
I don't know what I said. I suppose I described for him the simultaneous creation of good and evil. Repeated my grand-father's doctrines. Observed those narrow eyes which were aimed—there is no other verb—in my direction.
When I had finished, the Buddha made a polite response. “Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of creation is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else's is the wrong one.” Then he dropped the only important subject that there is.
The next silence was the longest of all. I listened to the sound of the rain upon the thatched roof, of the wind in the trees, of the monks chanting in the nearby monastery.
Finally I remembered one of the many questions that I had intended to ask him: “Tell me, Buddha, if the life of this world is an evil, why then is the world?”
The Buddha stared at me. I think that this time he might actually have seen me, even though the light inside the hut was now as dim and as green as pond water when one opens one's eyes below the surface.
“The world is full of pain, suffering and evil. That is the first truth,” he said. “Comprehend that first truth, and the other truths will be evident. Follow the eightfold way and—”
“—and nirvana may or may not extinguish the self.” There was a slight gasp from those present. I had interrupted the Buddha. Nevertheless, I persisted in my rudeness. “But my question is: Who or what made a world whose only point, according to you, is that it causes pain to no purpose?”
The Buddha was benign. “My child, let us say that you have been fighting in a battle. You have been struck by a poisoned arrow. You are in pain. You are feverish. You fear death—and the next incarnation. I am nearby. I am a skilled surgeon. You come to me. What will you ask me to do?”
“Take out the arrow.”
“Right away?”
“Right away.”
“You would not want to know whose bow fired the arrow?”
“I would be curious, of course.” I saw the direction that he was taking.
“But would you want to know before I took out the arrow whether or not the archer was tall or short, a warrior or a slave, handsome or ill-favored?”
“No, but—”
“Then, that is all that the eightfold way can offer you. A freedom from the arrow's pain and an antidote to the poison, which is this world.”
“But once the arrow has been removed and I am cured, I might still want to know whose arrow struck me.”
“If you have truly followed the way, the question will be immaterial. You will have seen that this life is a dream, a mirage, something produced by the self. And when the self goes, it goes.”
“You are Tathagata—the one who has come and gone and come again. When you are here, you are here. But when you go, where do you go?”
“Where the fire goes when it's gone out. My child, no words can define nirvana. Make no attempt to catch in a net of familiar phrases that which is and is not. Finally, even to contemplate the idea of nirvana is a proof that one is still on the near side of the river. Those who have achieved that state do not try to name what is nameless. Meanwhile, let us take out the arrow. Let us heal the flesh. Let us take a ride, if we can, on the ferryboat that goes to the far side. Thus we follow the middle way. Is this the right way?” The Buddha's smile was barely visible in the twilight. Then he said, “As the space of the universe is filled with countless wheels of fiery stars, the wisdom that transcends this life is abysmally profound.”
“And difficult to comprehend, Tathagata,” said Sariputra, “even for those who are awake.”
“Which is why, Sariputra, no one can ever comprehend it through awakening.”
The two old men burst out laughing at what was obviously a familiar joke.
I remember nothing more of that meeting with the Buddha. I think that before we left the park, we visited the monastery. I believe that I first met Ananda then. He was a small man whose life work was to learn by heart everything that the Buddha was reported to have said and done.
I do remember asking Prince Jeta if the Buddha had said anything to me that he had not said a thousand times before.
“No. He uses the same images over and over again. The only new thing—to me—was the paradox about awakening.”
“But it was not new to Sariputra.”
“Well, Sariputra sees him more than anyone else, and they tell each other complicated jokes. They laugh a good deal together. I don't know at what. Although I am sufficiently advanced that I can smile at this world, I cannot laugh at it just yet.”
“But why is he so indifferent to the idea of creation?”
“Because he thinks it, literally, immaterial. The ultimate human task is to dematerialize the self. In his own case, he has succeeded. Now he has set up the wheel of the doctrine for others to turn as best they can. He himself is come—and he is gone.”
Democritus finds these ideas easier to comprehend than I do. I can accept the notion that all creation is in flux and that what we take to be the real world is a kind of shifting dream, perceived by each of us in a way that differs from that of everyone else, as well as from the thing itself. But the absence of deity, of origin and of terminus, of good in conflict with evil…The absence of purpose, finally, makes the Buddha's truths too strange for me to accept.
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
J. R. Ackerley: Excerpt from Hindoo Holiday by J. R. Ackerley, copyright © 1932 and renewed 1960 by J. R. Ackerley. Published by The New York Review of Books, 2000. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates, London.
Paul Bowles: “Notes Mailed at Nagercoil” from Their Hea
ds Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue by Paul Bowles, copyright © 1957, 1963 by Paul Bowles. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, and Peter Owen Ltd., London.
Bruce Chatwin: “Shamdev: The Wolf-Boy” from What Am I Doing Here by Bruce Chatwin, copyright © 1989 by the Estate of Bruce Chatwin. Published by Viking, New York, and Jonathan Cape, London. Rights in Canada administered by Gillon Aitken Associates, copyright © 1989 by the Legal Personal Representatives of C. B. Chatwin. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York, The Random House Group Ltd., London, and Gillon Aitken Associates, London.
Robyn Davidson: Excerpt from Desert Places by Robyn Davidson, copyright © 1996 by Robyn Davidson. Published in 1996 by Viking. Reprinted by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN.
E. M. Forster: Excerpt from “Adrift in India” from Abinger Harvest by E. M. Forster, copyright © 1936 and renewed 1964 by Edward M. Forster. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc., The Provost and Scholars of King's College, Cambridge, and the Society of Authors, the Literary Representatives of the Estate of E. M. Forster.
Allen Ginsberg: Excerpts from Indian Journals, March 1962–May 1963 by Allen Ginsberg, copyright © 1970 by Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., and The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited, London.
Hermann Hesse: “Childhood of the Magician,” originally published in German under the title Kindheit eines Zauberers, copyright © 1945 by Hermann Hesse, translation copyright © 1971, 1972 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Inc. All rights with and reserved by Suhrkamp Verlag. Reprinted by permission of Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt.
Pico Iyer: Excerpt from Abandon: A Romance by Pico Iyer, copyright © 2003 by Pico Iyer. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and the author.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: “Two More Under the Indian Sun” by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (originally published in The New Yorker), from Out of India by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, copyright 1957, 1963, 1966, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1986, 2000 by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, published by Counterpoint, New York, and John Murray (Publishers) Ltd., London. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint Press, a member of Perseus Books LLC, New York, and Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., London.
Claude Lévi-Strauss: Excerpt from Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, copyright © 1955 by Libraríe Plon, translation copyright © 1973 by Jonathan Cape Limited. Published by Jonathan Cape, London. Reprinted by permission of Editions Plon, Paris, and The Random House Group Ltd., London.
André Malraux: Excerpt from Anti-Memoirs by André Malraux, copyright © 1967 by Editions Gallimard, translation copyright © 1968 and renewed 1996 by Terence Kilmartin. Reprinted by permission of Editions Gallimard, Paris.
Peter Matthiessen: “Westward September 28” from The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, copyright © 1978 by Peter Matthiessen. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and Donadio & Olson, Inc.
W. Somerset Maugham: Excerpt from A Writer's Notebook by W. Somerset Maugham, copyright © 1949 by W. Somerset Maugham. Published by Heinemann, London. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd., London, and A. P. Watt Ltd., London, on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund.
Ved Mehta: Excerpt from Portrait of India by Ved Mehta, copyright © 1970 by Ved Mehta. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for the author.
Jan Morris: “Mrs. Gupta Never Rang” from Among the Cities by Jan Morris, copyright © 1985 by Jan Morris. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd., London, on behalf of Jan Morris.
V. S. Naipaul: Excerpt from An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul, copyright © 1964 by V. S. Naipaul. Reprinted by permission of Gillon Aitken Associates Ltd., London.
George Orwell: “Shooting an Elephant” from Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays by George Orwell, copyright © 1936 by George Orwell, copyright © 1950 by Sonia Brownell Orwell and renewed 1978 by Sonia Pitt-Rivers. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc., and A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd., London, on behalf of Bill Hamilton as Literary Executor of the Estate of Sonia Brownell Orwell and Secker & Warburg Ltd.
Pier Paolo Pasolini: Excerpt from The Scent of India by Pier Paolo Pasolini, copyright © 1974 by Pier Paolo Pasolini, translation copyright © 1984 by The Olive Press. Reprinted by permission of Gruppo Longanesi.
Octavio Paz: “The Mausoleum of Humayun,” “In the Lodi Gardens,” and “The Day in Updaipur” from Collected Poems 1957–1987 by Octavio Paz, translated by Eliot Weinberger, copyright © 1986 by Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. and Pollinger Ltd., London.
Alan Ross: Excerpt from Blindfold Games by Alan Ross, copyright © 1986 by Alan Ross. Published by Harvill Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd., London.
Paul Scott: Excerpt from The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott, copyright © 1968 by Paul Scott. Copyright renewed 1996 by N. E. Avery Scott, Carol Scott, and Sally Scott. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates Inc.
Paul Theroux: Excerpt from The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux, copyright © 1975 by Paul Theroux. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency Inc.
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A VINTAGE DEPARTURES ORIGINAL, JANUARY 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Pankaj Mishra
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
India in mind : an anthology / [edited and with an introduction
by Pankaj Mishra]
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-53258-9
1. India—Literary collections. 2. India—Description and travel.
I. Mishra, Pankaj.
PN6071.I514I43 2005
808.8'03254—dc22 2004051764
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