The king smiled at him. “I bet she can.” And turning to her, he said, “Wise child, resolve his doubt. Tell us about this Brahmin’s life and times. Tell us how Vedas One to Four became his sons and the advisors to Madasaya.”
“I’ll be happy to tell you,” she said.10 “Listen, my king. In the Pandya country, in a city called Snake,11 there was a Brahmin called Somasarma, learned in the Vedas, disciplined in Yoga, and wealthy. Although he had ultimate knowledge, he hid it in himself and lived the life of an ordinary family man for the sake of the world. Above all, he was committed to feeding Brahmins, the most important duty of a householder. He had a son called Yajnasarma. No knowledge stuck to him, no matter how hard he tried to study Veda and other sciences. To make him forget his grief over this, the father married him to four exemplary and beautiful women. To make his son happy, the father also gave his daughters-in-law all kinds of gifts, like ornaments, saris, and perfumes, so they lacked nothing.
“When it was time for him to die, the father summoned his son and said to him in the presence of the daughters-in-law, ‘You must continue our practice of feeding Brahmins without break. If you do this, the four Vedas will be your sons. My word will not fail.’ The son agreed without hesitation.
“For many years he kept to his father’s command, feeding Brahmins fine rice with ghee, lentils, puddings, cakes, and ripe fruits. To pay for the feeding, he spent all his wealth—his harvest, his gold and cash, his servants and slaves, cows and calves, fields and trees. When it was all gone, he went for his wives’ ornaments. He was worried in his mind: Which wife’s jewels should he sell off first? But all four of them came of their own accord, with love for him, each pleading, ‘Take mine first.’ Now he wondered which wife to favor by taking hers first.
“With the exception of their marriage threads, they peeled off everything that adorned them and made them into a heap, competing with one another in this task. Their unadorned loveliness melted his heart even more than before. The best ornament for a loving wife is devotion to her husband.
“People who heard about it were astonished. Co-wives usually quarrel over who gets what, but these women were competing at stripping themselves bare of gold.
“Their husband simply took the whole heap and began to spend it. Remembering his father’s promise that the Vedas would be born as his sons, he kept close to learned people. Though he so far had seen no results, he went on feeding the Brahmins. ‘Who knows how a father’s words come true?’ he thought.
“That Yajnasarma is this man, Alaghuvrata, O king. People called him Alaghuvrata, a Man of No Small Vow, because he never broke his vow to feed Brahmins. When the money from his wives’ ornaments was exhausted, he decided to sell off the wives. God knows what happened to his love for them. He wanted to keep feeding a little longer. He didn’t inform them, however, but looked for some way to trick them into being sold. One day he said to them, ‘Some boats have docked at the Tamraparni riverbank. I’m going with a friend of mine to do some trading, to earn money for feeding Brahmins.’
“They said, ‘We can’t stand to be separated from you even for a minute. We’ll come along with you.’
“‘Great,’ he thought. He struck a bargain with a certain trader and took the money under condition that the deal would be kept secret. Then he took them down to the shore. He put them on the boat at the last minute, when there was no time for him to get on; and the boat set off on time, as he had arranged before.
“When the boat had moved some fifteen arm-lengths away, he broke down, as if lightning had smashed the rock of his determination. ‘Alas, my greed for money has brought you to this terrible moment, my lovely wives,’ he cried in unbearable grief. ‘With all your beauty and nobility, you’ve fallen into the hands of these shippers. This is what you get for marrying me.’
“They heard him from the boat. They thought the captain must have deceived their husband in taking them away, so all four of them, in despair, jumped into the water. No one was able to stop them. On the boat others raised the alarm. The sailors, shouting and cursing, cast nets into the water and lowered divers, but no matter how they searched, they couldn’t find the wives.
“The trader returned to shore and caught hold of their Brahmin husband. The trader complained to him that all this had happened because he had cried, and took the money back. The Brahmin suffered a lot—I can understand,” said Madhuralalasa, “why he won’t believe me when I tell him he has sons.”
“But listen to what happened afterward to the wives. Swept along by the waves, they were carried into the mouth of a whale that was sucking up water. The whale swam a long way and then sprayed them out through his spout in a burst of water that looked like the Sea-God’s unfolding banner embroidered with gold. Sent flying through the sky, the women fell onto a passing aerial chariot where a young couple was playing dice. It took the women a moment to recover from their shock. When they opened their eyes, the young couple took pity on them and gave them dry clothes, comforting them. ‘Who are you?’ the couple asked them. ‘How did you happen to fall into our vehicle?’ Still shivering, the women answered in melodious tones.
The young woman was astounded as she stared at their lips, red as if they had just been kissed. She was afraid her lover might fall in love with them, since they were so charming; and the coquettish manner of their speaking disturbed her still more. She said to her lover, ‘Stop staring. Leave them alone. Concentrate on the game. Stop trying to gain time. You’re losing.’ She addressed the women, ‘Please don’t take offense at what I just said. This man is always trying to distract me, then he claims to have won and argues with me. I can’t stand to hear it any more.’
“Then, again, to him: ‘Did you have your turn?’ Picking up the white dice, which looked even whiter in her delicate, pale hand, she shook them with her fingers and cast them to the jingle of her bracelets.
“‘Stop cheating! This is a serious game,’ he yelled.
“‘Keep your voice down. The “birds”12 will get scared.’
“‘I just “ate” one of your pieces.’
“‘You won’t get full on that.’
“‘Those two are mine: don’t touch them, lady.’
“‘But your mind is always on those two.’
“‘If you hit twice, they’re good for cooking.’
“‘Sure. I’ll have you boiling like rice.’
“‘Where did you learn this doubletalk?
“‘From being your double.’13
“They went on bantering like this in the midst of the game.
“Poets praise the cakravaka birds for their love-sickness for one another every night, when they are separated.14 But the ‘birds’ in the game come together in broad daylight and die as soon as they are separated. Anyone can see who are more in love.
“The couple fought one another like soldiers. When they suffered a hit, they didn’t get discouraged but struck back at once, throwing the dice hard against the gameboard as if hurling them against an elephant. Their only goal was to win.
“Finally, the man won. Since they had wagered on drinking wine from the loser’s mouth, he pouted his lips, demanding she pay up. But she shook her head and winked, pointing out the presence of other women. That turned him on even more. He threatened her, begged her, and cajoled her with his eyes to get her to do it anyway. The four women turned their heads away, embarrassed. He pulled his wife’s face to his. She had wine ready in a jeweled cup, and now she sipped it, filling her mouth, and kissed his mouth, feeding him the wine, though the whole time she kept glancing at those women, to make sure they weren’t watching. As if that were not enough, they went on drinking, getting more and more excited and savoring the reflection of each other’s faces in the glistening wine in the cup. Cheek to cheek, with an eye to those reflections, tasting the many fragrances, they went on sipping mouthful after mouthful and kissing, biting each other’s lips, feeding all five senses. Their sense of shyness disappeared as they got more and more drunk, their wo
rds coming out slurred and indistinct. Soon they lost all shame. Their eyes became heavy and red.
“After a while, she saw her own face and her husband’s staring back at her from the shiny cup. ‘Hey, who is that other woman?’ she said, lisping. ‘You brought in somebody else to drink with? That was fast.’ She was so angry she stopped drinking.
“‘Have a good look, lady,’ he replied. ‘There’s no other woman here. It’s your own reflection.’
“She pointed at the four Brahmin wives. ‘What about them? Do you want to say that they’re all my reflections, too? And if that’s the case, are you planning to make love to them like you do with me? No way. Get rid of them.’
“She was really drunk and had no sense of limits. She was suspicious of those women and wanted to throw them out of the vehicle. Suddenly, en route through the sky, they were almost level with a tall building near Dharmapuri on the banks of the Godavari River. It was a bordello run by the city’s chief courtesan. The drunk woman directed the vehicle to the upper terrace, open to the moonlight, and one by one, she helped the four women down from the plane. Her lover wasn’t too happy about this. She looked at him and said, ‘Get away from them. I swear that any man who approaches them out of lust will suffer the consequences—from me.’ And she climbed back onto the plane.
“He said, ‘I wasn’t thinking about that at all. My only worry is what they’re going to eat in this godforsaken place.’
“She coolly pointed out to him the shelves and cabinets visible as they flew past the tall building.
“‘See, they have rice and ghee, saris, ornaments—as if stacked up as free gifts for a king. They won’t lack for anything. And if any fool tries to touch anything in this building, he won’t survive.’ She pronounced these charged words and went away with her lover.
“She was jealous and anxious less her lover’s mind wander, and she was also drunk; and the words she spoke in this state of mind actually served to protect the Brahmin women.”
“They had been put down on the roof of a building with many stories that belonged to a madam in charge of a bordello. And the madam heard and saw everything without being seen. She was very frightened. ‘Whoever they are, these women came from heaven and took over this place. We can’t hope to use anything from here from now on.’ She slipped out of the building and, from outside, bowed to the women and said to them, ‘You who have taken over this building—I hereby offer you everything inside it as a gift.” She poured out water and yellow rice as a sign of the offering. ‘It’s all yours now, the building, the garden, the whole property all around. Please stay away from us and save us. Even a touch of your feet will help us.15
“She gathered all the whores from the building and informed them as well as the rest of the town’s population. They were all amazed. Meanwhile, the Brahmin women saw it all from the roof. ‘God protects those in distress,’ they thought and went down into the building. They lived there in comfort, never opening the front door.
“Reading from omens that they would be reunited with their husband, they kept their spirits up and also took good care of their bodies. The townsfolk would see them through the windows as they came and went on the street, and they would bow to them, but no one ever dared desire their beauty. They remembered the story the madam had told. ‘They must be goddesses, spirits, women from heaven. Look how radiant they are. If anyone looks at them with lustful eyes, he’ll surely die.’ Still, the honest people of the city would wait for an opportunity to catch a glimpse of them. ‘These women who came from the sky are living like anyone else, cooking and eating the supplies the madam left them. How lucky she was to have her gift accepted! What is the nature of the vow they have taken? How long will it last? Will they accept food from us as well?’ They cleaned the entrance to the house with cowdung and began to leave lentils, rice, ghee, and milk on their doorstep. They would then stand at a distance with folded hands until the women took in the food.
“After some days the women began showing signs of pregnancy. As the pregnancy advanced, the little boys in their wombs would sometimes chant sections of the four Vedas or argue over fine points in the learned texts or, at other times, recite from the epics and enjoy discourses on statecraft. In the course of time, the four women delivered four sons in the proper order, beginning with the eldest wife, at an auspicious moment. It so happened that a certain Yogi was passing by; he performed the birth rituals and gave them names. At the time of the naming ceremony, he looked into the future with his inner eye and knew: these four boys were the four Vedas in person. So one by one he named them: Agama One, Agama Two, Agama Three, and Agama Four.
“The four mothers knew at that moment what their father-in-law had meant when he said the four Vedas would be born to them. They begged the Yogi to come back when it was time to perform the boys’ initiation. Although the boys already had within them all there was to learn, still they studied all the texts in a very short time with the Yogi, in order to have a teacher’s approval.
“The mothers realized that they were unlikely to find their husband if they stayed in that place; they wanted to move on. When they informed their sons, the boys said, ‘If women as beautiful as you move around without a master, we will lose respect. People will talk. Stay here a little longer, maintaining the illusion that you are women from heaven. In the meantime, we will search for a king and win his patronage. Until such a time, it will not be easy for us to go looking for our father.’ And they left the house in secret.
“They walked through the town and learned that its ruler was a man called Madasaya. They went as far as the entrance to the palace, where they gathered from people around that the king was a great scholar in his own right, but that no Brahmin could see him without the permission of the royal family priest. And since this priest was an ignoramus and was constantly afraid his ignorance would be exposed, he controlled access to the king through a dense net of gatekeepers and guards. The king, moreover, had wanted to perform a Vedic ritual and had asked the priest about it, but the latter insisted there was no one around capable of singing the chants. The priest feared that the king might come to know about some great scholar or other, in the course of conversation with visitors to the palace; so he instructed the gatekeepers to let no one in from outside, for any purpose, with the exception of inarticulate morons. Moreover, anyone in the latter category who was allowed to enter was coached on how to behave: ‘If the king asks you how you are doing, just answer, “So long as you are our king, everything is just fine.” If he asks you what’s new, say, “We’re simple people who stay at home; we don’t know anything else.” ‘ Unless they swore to keep to such responses, they were not allowed in.
“The boys, hearing all this, developed a strategy. They dressed themselves as low-caste villagers and practised a certain cryptic way of speaking. Like coolies, they came to the gate of the palace carrying baskets full of mangos, and they spoke to the doorkeepers in a suitably low-caste dialect. Allowed to enter, they put down the baskets in front of the king. As they politely backed away, the king looked at them kindly and asked, ‘Are you well? Is everything going well for you in life? I hope you have no worries. Tell me honestly; you can be frank.’
“They answered in unison,
māya mmāna su nīve
rāyala vai kāva devarā je je je/
māyātuma lāninayadi
pāyaka santosa munna palam ilasāmī//
We swear by our mother
that since you are king, unbroken
happiness fills our hearts. All good things
come from that.
“The king saw that while the surface meaning of the words meant that these boys were happy so long as he was ruling, there was really a hidden meaning that was an appropriate answer to his question and which directed him to perform rituals and to take care of scholars. Observing them with astonishment, he could see they were like burning coals covered with ashes—their glow of wisdom hidden. He stood up and fell at their feet in deep humili
ty.”
Kalapurna was listening to all this. “I didn’t know until this moment,” he said, “that our Madasaya is a great linguist.” He looked at him with respect. “Please take a seat,” he addressed him, repeating his request three times until Madasaya sat down. The king asked Madhuralalasa to tell what happened next. She continued,
“Madasaya bowed to the four boys and offered them proper seats in the court. He said to his courtiers, ‘You’re probably wondering what there was in what they said that makes me honor them so much. Let me explain the hidden meaning. It looks like a Telugu sentence, but actually it’s in Sanskrit, the gods’ language. Those among you who have learned about words can see that the phrases divide in two ways. In Sanskrit it means:
“‘Money isn’t everything.
Your good character is your capital.
Only such wealth is indestructible.
That is what brings fulfillment.
Wealth comes to a king who performs rituals
for Vishnu; evil can’t touch him.
You are our protector.
When learned people approach, don’t turn away
in pride. Enjoy their company.
They are your true riches.”16
“Madasaya then turned to Agama One and asked him, with folded hands, ‘Who are you? Why did you come here in disguise? Tell me everything about the four of you.’ And Agama One related to him the whole story beginning with their father’s vow to feed Brahmins and all that they had heard from their mothers, up to the point where they saw the king. The king was ashamed that he had allowed himself to be influenced by the weakness of his priest and had therefore turned away scholars deserving of respect. ‘That’s probably why people call me Madasaya—Deluded Heart,’ he said.17 ‘Just look how I behaved. Swayed by the priest, I couldn’t see my own scholars.’
The Sound of the Kiss Page 16
