The Sound of the Kiss

by Pingali Suranna

  “‘I came here once before, and I know this city. I’m still amazed at its beauty. I’d like to live here, my dear husband. We have to get off this lion.’ ‘She’ brought the lion down to the ground and dismounted with the husband.

  “The king of that country was named Satvadatma. He was out riding when he caught sight of this woman. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. ‘I’ve taken as tribute from enemy kings the finest women they had in their harems. They’re in my house. Now I’ve seen a woman who takes my breath away, like no one before. Even heaven does not have a woman as lovely as this one. Why bother even mentioning my palace or those of all the other kings in this world? How can someone so beautiful have a husband like that? But let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s find out from them who they are.’

  “At that moment she happened to look at him. He spurred his horse to a gallop, as if he were jumping over a whole line of soldiers. Then he suddenly reined it in, playing with it to attract attention. The light from his jeweled crown glittered and danced as the horse moved. He made it paw the ground, he made it prance, back up, come to a halt, his gem-studded bracelets jingling all the while as he stroked its mane. To show off his brilliant armlets, he stretched out his arm and clapped his companion on the back. He twisted the lotus he playfully held in his fingers, so that the sunlight glittered off the jewels on his rings. Simply to show off his good teeth, he pretended to consult with his aide-de-camp, who was riding alongside him. At the same time, he was joking with his confidant, laughing so his pearl earrings would shake and be noticed. He lifted his crown from his head and replaced it. He twisted the ends of his mustache with his gleaming fingernails. Observing that she was noticing him, he flirted brazenly, full of himself.

  “As he became more and more excited, he could barely hold back. Someone handed him a bunch of flowers, which he pressed to his chest with both arms, stealing a glance at her. As for her, she let her sari slip slightly from her breasts and bent her face.

  “He got off his horse and walked toward them alone. ‘Where are you from, Mahatma?” he asked the Siddha. “Where are you headed to? What are your names? And what is this woman to you?’

  “The Siddha told him how they had come there and said, ‘I call myself Manistambha, and this woman goes by the name of Sumukhasatti. She is my wife.’

  “The king was thinking, ‘Just let me keep this woman somewhere around me. If I’m lucky, things could happen.’ With a veneer of politeness, he folded his hands and said, ‘We have a deep desire to host you in our house for a few days and to serve you to the best of our not inconsiderable abilities. We would be honored if you would accept our invitation, great Siddha.’

  “Manistambha looked at the wife. ‘Let’s accept. We have to stay somewhere or other,’ she said to the husband. She was smiling.

  “So the king led the two of them to a palankeen that took them to his home. He set them up nicely in a big palace with golden beds and rich perfumes and a huge retinue of maids. He would visit them often under the pretext of looking after their needs. He was always extremely courteous. Then he sent an appropriate messenger to ask her to come to him.

  “She sent a message back, suggesting a postponement. ‘I suspect I may be a little pregnant. Until I give the Siddha his child, I won’t take another man.’

  “Soon there were signs of morning sickness. Her body became tired, and she had a craving for the taste of earth. Now her pregnancy was certain. Formerly, in the contest between breasts and waists, the breasts always had the upper hand—her waist being so thin. Now the waist was thickening, and the breasts became so worried that her nipples became dark. They got darker and darker, like the night sky in winter, and her face took on the pallor of a winter moon. As her waist expanded, her desire for her husband contracted. The folds of flesh on her belly disappeared. Her navel opened up. Easily exhausted, she walked more slowly. As her due date approached, she felt drowsy and dull.

  “At last this king,” said the child, pointing to Kalapurna, “was born at a moment when five planets were exalted, under the best stars. Cool breezes blew, flowers rained down under clear skies, the gods played their drums and cried ‘Hurrah!,’ the three fires blazed up, good people felt joy, bad people sank low. Moreover,” the girl explained, “when Brahma said that Manistambha, the man, would be Kalapurna’s mother, and that Sumukhasatti, the woman, would be his father, he was deliberately ignoring the temporary change in their names at that period and citing their real names given at birth. Brahma’s words don’t ever go wrong, do they? Immediately after the birth, Manistambha, the new mother, made his wife again speak her words of power, so that they would revert to their original genders—he reacquiring his masculinity, and she her feminine identity. They also re-exchanged their names and resumed their Yoga practices. They’re still in Kasarapura, not far from here. You can check with them if you want confirmation.

  “The moment Kalapurna was born, he was already a young man; and at that very moment the Siddha called Svabhava came and gave him a jewel, some arrows, and a bow. No one can tell which came first, his birth, his youthful manhood, or these gifts. It was the Siddha who named him Kalapurna. The king of the town, Satvadatma, heard about this and thought, ‘He must be a man of godly powers and superhuman greatness. I thought his mother was just an ordinary woman, like anybody else, and was infatuated with her. This was wrong. Somehow or other, I should make amends.’ He went to her and said, ‘Mother, I didn’t realize who you were. If I offended you in any way, please forgive me. I am surrendering all my kingdom to your son. I’ll serve him as his minister.’”

  Alaghuvrata wanted to know who that Svabhava was and why he gave the jewel, arrows, and bow to Kalapurna.7 Madhuralalasa explained:

  “The Siddha named Svabhava is none other than Sumukhasatti’s father. When she was born, he left his wife and wandered around the world until he came to Mahuripura. There he met Dattatreya, who knew all the secrets of Yoga. He served him and learned from him all the arts of Yoga. Since in the course of his Yogic practice he focused his thoughts entirely on his inner nature, he got the name Svabhava, “one’s own nature.”

  [ A Lecture on Yoga ]

  Alaghuvrata wanted to hear more. “You’re a treasure of wisdom. There’s nothing you don’t know. Tell me what you mean by Yoga.”

  The girl embarked upon a discourse on this subject.8 “Yoga means connection—that is, the connectedness of the individual self with the ultimate Self. It has eight parts. Let me explain. They are known as discipline (yama), control (niyama), postures (asana), breathing (pranayama), and four advanced meditative states—pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. They are further subdivided into many elements. For example, discipline means the following ten rules: truthfulness, compassion, tolerance, courage, moderation in eating, sincerity, celibacy, no stealing, nonviolence, cleanliness. ‘Truthfulness’ means not telling lies in the sense of not causing hurt to others. ‘Compassion’ is being sensitive to another person’s distress. ‘Tolerance’ is not getting angry at other people’s shortcomings. ‘Courage’ is not taking to heart a loss of property or separation from loved ones. ‘Moderation in eating’ means that an ascetic should eat only eight mouthfuls a day; twice that number are acceptable for a person retired to the wilderness; a householder can have twice that amount; other people should take light meals. ‘Sincerity’ is being truthful in thought, word, and deed while performing prescribed actions and avoiding prohibited ones. ‘Celibacy,’ for a renouncer, a person retired to the wilderness, and a bachelor student, is total avoidance of sexual relations with a woman in thought, word, or deed; for a married man, sex is permitted with his wife during her fertile periods, but he must have nothing to do with other women. ‘No stealing’ is not taking others’ property. ‘Nonviolence’ is avoiding harm to any living being. According to the texts, ‘cleanliness’ is of two kinds, external and internal; the external kind means washing your body with water and with earth; the internal kind means purifying your mind by meditati
on on the truth.

  “The ten forms of control are: tapas,9 contentment, faith, charity, piety, study, sense of shame, attention, chanting, and ritual. Only a person who has held to these rules of discipline and control is eligible for the further practices of postures and breathing.

  “There are many bodily postures and exercises. Chief among them are, for example, the following: in the Svastika posture, you sit with a straight spine while putting the sole of each foot in the space between thigh and calf of the other foot. In Gomukhasana, the cow’s face, you rest the left buttock on the left ankle and the right on the right and maintain stable posture. In Padmasana, the lotus, you put the right foot on the left thigh and the left foot on the right thigh, stretching your hands to catch hold of your two toes. Then bring your chin down to touch your chest. Focus your eyes on the tip of your nose. But some people say there is no need to bring your chin to your chest. And there is another variation of this posture where you place the soles of your feet flat against your thighs and your hands between your thighs while staring at the tip of your nose. In this posture, bring your chin down to your chest and suck in your breath while pressing your tongue against the root of one of the two front teeth. Similarly, there are the Hero’s posture, the Lion, the Secure, the Released, the Hidden, the Peacock, the Western. All of them produce agility of body and make you healthy as well as purifying you of evil.

  “As for working with the breath, it has three stages, puraka, kumbhaka, and recaka. This is called pranayama; if one practices it over and over, he will control the winds in his body, and all the energy channels will open. In the body, there are 72,000 such channels. Among them, 101 are really important. Among these, 14 are special. Three of these merit further mention. One of them is the most important of all—the sushumna, also called the brahma channel that leads to the opening to ultimate space at the top of the head. The best form of Yoga involves directing the breath into that channel.

  “First, turn the senses away from their objects. Then, think of whatever they dwell upon as your own self. Perform your daily activities only in your mind. Fix your breath on the eighteen secret spaces in your body. This is what experts in Yoga have called pratyahara, ‘total reabsorption.’

  “If you stabilize your entire mental activity in Vishnu, without letting it wander, that is samadhi, ‘totality.’

  “Together with control of breath, all these make up the total Yoga.”

  [ Svabhava and Madasaya at Srisailam ]

  “By practising these Yogic methods assiduously and concentrating his thoughts on his inner nature, that Siddha became Svabhava. He was searching all over the world for a suitably secluded space for his samadhi when by chance he came to the land of his birth, where he found a lake as deep as a hundred palm trees. This, he decided, was the ideal place for Yoga.

  “He dived into it and stayed there, holding his breath. But then his son-in-law suddenly appeared down there. He had jumped into the lake because he was angry at his wife. Svabhava gave his son-in-law a jewel that kept him forever young, and other things. But he didn’t tell him how they were related. Why reconnect to the entanglements that you’ve already let go?

  “Eventually, after a long time, he completed his Yoga, according to destiny. He left the lake and went to Srisailam,10 where all wise people go. Its slopes were studded with sapphires and rubies; a sculpted wall circled the temple, carved with images of new, benevolent gods. It was a place where you could become free. You could see huge boulders reflected in the water of the Ganges of the Nether World, which, like an anklet circling the foot of that towering mountain, seemed to contain these images of rival mountains it had subdued. This densely wooded mountain was like an arm thrust into the sky to keep it from collapsing on to the earth.

  “With reverence, Svabhava climbed the great mountain, so rich in a special kind of power, and paid his respects to Mallikarjuna-Siva, the lord white as jasmine. Afterward, as he was strolling along the slopes, he suddenly caught sight of Manikandhara, who was about to throw himself off the mountain. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, ‘and why are you so eager to kill yourself?’

  “Manikandhara told him his name and his family and also his entire story up to the point of his impending suicide. Svabhava was excited to hear in this story the names of his daughter and son-in-law, Sumukhasatti and Manistambha, or Sugatri and Salina.11 He asked for more details, as much as Manikandhara could provide, and introduced himself as Sugatri’s father. He told him about his own life, meanwhile wondering how the contradictory blessings given to Sugatri and Salina by the goddess Sarada were going to come to fruition. Of course, he assured himself, somehow or other it would surely come to pass.

  “Svabhava said to Manikandhara, ‘You’re definitely scheduled for a great future. As the disciple of Narada, you were trained in music by Krishna himself. At the sage’s advice, you went on pilgrimage to all the great Vishnu shrines. You’ve transformed an accidental curse into the promise of ruling a kingdom. Anyway, you’re a gandharva, which is in itself a great gift. If you consider all of this, it’s clear that your next life will be one of immeasurable success. Your previous karma won’t come to nothing. Everything will bear fruit. In fact, all that you’ve done so far is more than adequate for a great rebirth. What additional benefit are you expecting to derive from jumping off this mountain?’

  “‘I’m hoping to be born as the son of very honorable and righteous people,’ said Manikandhara.

  “‘If that’s the case, you can’t find better people than my daughter and my son-in-law to choose as your parents,’ said Svabhava. ‘I would be happy if you would do so. What’s more, I can do you a big favor. Long ago, I asked my guru for a sword, for self-protection. Something inside me made me ask. He created a sword and gave it to me, saying, “This will never fail. Your family will be, from now on, a line of royal warriors.” If you think about it, to be born as my son-in-law’s son would therefore be very fitting for you. You will rule the world. Put an end to all your doubts and take my advice.’

  “Manikandhara said, ‘Listen. There is already a guarantee that I’ll be reborn as a king. But that’s not enough. I’m jumping off this cliff in order to be reborn in a virtuous family.12 And I still have a few worries in my mind. You can be a king, you can be born in a good family, but still it is hard to overcome one’s enemies, inside and out. This disturbs me. Moreover, if the demon of political power possesses him, even the wisest person will become a little blind, a little mute, and a little deaf. One could perhaps hope to rid oneself of the drawbacks of political power by associating with learned Brahmins who know the ancient texts. But why should such people want to come to you? They don’t want what you can give them—in fact, they’re beyond desire—and they avoid kings, who can only give them things. You have to search them out actively, and it’s rare for a king to have the good fortune of finding them and enticing them to his court. That’s how life is. You need a lot of wisdom to be able to please them and bring them to you. Think how long it will take for me to acquire such wisdom. These questions and others like them pierce my heart like a sharp arrow. You seem be to capable of making things happen. Show me a way to resolve these worries.’

  “He persisted in this vein for a while, until Svabhava said, to free him from his problems, ‘I can give you a bow that bestows certain victory and a new set of arrows. They’re the right weapons for you. This I can create through the help of my guru, Dattatreya. There’s nothing that his blessing can’t achieve. I’ll also make you a magical jewel13 that will attract great scholars of all texts and knowledge to your patronage. Merely by looking at it, those who come to you will find health, protection, and long life.’

  “And right in front of him he produced these items—a bow; sharp, glistening arrows; and a red jewel. ‘I’ll be there at the moment you are born, even a little before, with these in my hands. You don’t have to worry about when you’ll get them and how long it will take.’

  “While he was saying this, Madasaya approache
d him with his wife and advisors. They were visiting Srisailam on pilgrimage for the Night of Shiva.14 As they were passing by, they heard Svabhava speaking and, after asking who he was, fell at his feet. ‘Today our pilgrimage to the God White as Jasmine has been fulfilled,’ said Madasaya. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Now I’m in luck. I am King Madasaya of the Hehaya lineage. This woman is my wife. These men are my advisors, great minds all of them. They bear the tradition of all the Vedas, Rig, Yajus, Sama, and the Fourth. My wife and I served the great Dattatreya, who lives in Mahuri City, with their help. The great hero Kartaviryarjuna rose to be an emperor and became famous everywhere because of Dattatreya’s blessing. I myself come from Kartavirya’s royal line, and that is why I went to serve the sage myself. He came to me in a dream and told me to look for you, a Siddha named Svabhava, his student. He promised that you would you make my wishes come true. Since I never saw you before and had no idea where you live, I was going everywhere, asking everyone. When I heard you mention Dattatreya, I had to find out who you were. Now I’ve found you at last. It’s almost as good as having my wishes come true.’

  “Svabhava was very pleased. He realized that this was his guru’s strategy, a way to make him famous. ‘My guru really loves me,’ he thought to himself, making a mental bow to him. Then he looked at the king. ‘Who am I to give you what you wish? But you claim my guru said I would, so let whatever he planned for you come to pass.’

  “Madasaya said, ‘What I want is two things: victory and children.’

  “Svabhava showed him the bow and arrows he had just created, and he also pointed out Manikandhara. ‘This is Manikandhara. I have just now made a bow and arrows for him that will bring him victory in his next life. You will conquer all the kings of the earth except him. That is certain.’