Climbing Chamundi Hill

by Ariel Glucklich

  The old man searched his mind for a few moments, then said, “Imagine two cars colliding at an intersection. Four people are injured. How many sets of karma have to operate for such a catastrophe to happen? Could you sort such a thing out?”

  His example made me think of medieval theological disputations, and I blurted out, “I don’t know, but it’s all theory anyway. I mean, that’s only one of the things that makes karma so absurd. You don’t really believe in this karma business, do you?”

  The old man smiled expansively, showing stunningly white teeth. “You’re right. Not quite like that. But let’s look at it a bit differently. Suppose karma is just a symbol for something. What would that something be? Is it destiny? Morality? Justice? Well, of course it could be all of those. But let’s take a risk. Say that regardless of what karma stands for, it always works more like a whole fabric than a single thread. You can’t separate one individual destiny from others. Everything you do, no matter how trivial, is connected to what others do and what they experience. You throw away a rusty nail. For one person it might mean a flat tire and a missed appointment, for someone else it may mean a great find—a trade for a rotten banana, a modest meal. When we speak of karma in India, we often mean that people, all beings, are tethered to each other.”

  “I think that’s a scary image. I prefer to think of my destiny as mine alone and, barring any more major accidents, up to me. It may sound cocky, but in some basic way I feel free…Oh, and one other thing, if I do something wrong, I expect to be personally accountable; no one else should be.” My words came out a bit self-righteously, perhaps too…American. I expected a rebuke.

  “That’s very well put. We Indians are not so fond of this situation either—we call it samsara. Everything is tied together in endless interweaving strings of action and counteraction, death, rebirth, and redeath. That’s the condition of the world, unfortunately.” Off to the west and above us an eagle suddenly dropped like a rock and disappeared around the shoulder of the hill. “And if you think the Brahmin had it bad, you should see what happens in the next story.”

  THE DEATH SENTENCE

  There was a woman called Gautami who lived on the edge of the forest. One day as her son was playing in the woods, he was bitten by a snake and died. A fowler, hearing the woman’s cries, came running and captured the snake. He held up the animal, which was squirming and protesting loudly, and spoke.

  “Dear madam, this wretched creature is the cause of your son’s death. Tell me what to do with it. I can throw it into the fire or cut it to pieces. Personally I’d prefer to burn it alive—it deserves a slow painful death.”

  “Oh, Arjunaka,” the mourning woman replied, “you are completely misguided. Let the serpent go. It does not deserve to die.” The fowler was stunned by the bereaved woman’s response, but she spoke to him patiently, softly. “You will just be compounding one sin with another. Killing the snake will not bring my boy back to life, and surely the snake can do you no harm. And, not least, this snake has a mother too, who will grieve for him as I do for my dead boy. Would you want to go to hell for causing her grief by killing her beloved son?”

  The fowler’s confusion now gave way to reproach. “Madam, yours is the view of exceptional individuals, those with a great soul. Most of us are more practical. I know that if the victim were my boy, I would feel a deep satisfaction from revenge. Everyone you ask would tell you that I should kill the snake.”

  Gautami responded, “No, I don’t agree. This kind of grief can’t be healed by revenge. Besides, basically good people should try to remain good. The resentment that breeds revenge can only lead to further pain. Only forgiveness reduces pain. And let me assure you that you don’t have to be a saint to think this way. At any rate, this may surprise you, but I feel that the death of my boy was predestined.”

  That last statement, a new twist in the debate, did not catch the fowler off guard, for he responded immediately, brushing it aside. “I beg to differ, madam. This snake is your enemy and killing the enemy is always a good thing. And moreover,” he added with passion, “it’s not just the matter of your son. This creature will continue to attack others—virtuous animals and people—who count on me for protection.”

  None of this made any difference. Despite his repeated, sensible appeals, the fowler could not get the mother’s permission to execute the snake. She maintained that since her son would not be brought back to life, there was no point in compounding with revenge the violence that killed him. Even the fowler’s arguments that gods sometimes kill and that sacrifices can be violent did not sway her. In the meantime, the snake kept trying to interrupt and say something, but every time he opened his mouth, the fowler tightened the noose and choked off his words.

  Finally, when the argument reached an impasse, both people looked at the animal, who now sighed and spoke to the fowler. “Arjunaka, you fool. How can you blame me? I’m just a snake! Don’t you get it? A snake, a lowly ground-hugging reptile!” He puffed himself up, gathering momentum now that he was allowed to speak. “I don’t have a will of my own. I was sent by Death to kill the boy. You may not believe this, but I had no intention of hurting the child, and I certainly felt no anger toward him. It is Death that deserves your condemnation—it is his crime.”

  The fowler answered angrily, “Why, you pompous little airbag. Don’t try to pass on your guilt. Even if you killed the boy at the instigation of Death, you were still the instrument of the killing. Just as sure as the potter’s wheel and rod create the pot, you are the cause in the death of this child. You deserve to die!”

  But the snake was no mean philosopher, for he exhaled—like the great Shankara in debate—and said, “Ah, the pot and its causes. In order to make the pot, all the causes have to come together. There is no pot with just the wheel or only the rod. And to bring these causes together you must have an intentional will—a plan. If I am just one cause, like either the wheel or the rod, and I have no intention, I can only be innocent.” He shook his head in triumphant exclamation and snickered.

  The livid fowler looked at Gautami in frustration, but spoke to the snake. “Very well, you may not be the prime cause or even the agent. But you are the immediate cause. It was your poison!” He turned to Gautami again. “Let’s not lose sight of common sense, madam. It was he who killed the boy. How can anyone possibly deny that?”

  “I have to stick to my guns, sir.” The snake calmly shrugged what little shoulders he had. “I was merely a bit player here—a secondary cause—not the instigator. And because I have no will of my own, I am innocent. I mean, would you blame the branches of dry trees for spreading a forest fire?”

  The fowler turned red with rage. He screamed at the snake. “Words, you’re so clever with words. You killed the boy, and I should just kill you now and be done!” The snake was now in immediate danger of dying.

  Just then Death himself appeared and placed himself between the fowler and the snake. He seemed pale and smaller than one might expect. Looking at the snake reproachfully, he said, “Snake, it’s true that I sent you on this task. But don’t keep blaming me! Neither you nor I are responsible for the death of the child. Just as you were my instrument, I am the instrument of Time. It is Time, not Death, who controls all things. He pushes the clouds around, he mixes the particles of matter, spins the planets and stars, and blows the wind. Time is the mover of all things. You knew this, so why did you blame me for the death of the boy?”

  The snake remained unflappable. “I did not mean to blame you, O Death, for this tragedy. I’m only saying that I was sent by you. Whether any blame is yours or not is not my business to pronounce. I’m trying to save myself here.” Then he turned to the fowler and added. “You heard Death. He does not deny sending me to kill the boy. You can let me go now.”

  However, the fowler only dug in his heels more deeply. “I heard Death, yes—fine, but even if he is responsible, that does not absolve you. Both of you are to blame. I curse Death for harming the innocent boy, bu
t I shall kill you for doing the dirty work!”

  Now Death spoke again. “Neither one of us is a free agent, fowler. We both depend on Time. It is not proper for you to find fault with us.”

  The fowler scoffed at this. “That’s absurd. If everyone were dependent on Time, as you put it, then there would be no freedom. And if that were true, how would pleasure possibly arise from doing good things, and anger from doing ill? The fact that these emotions do arise is a sign that we are in fact free. Now what do you say to that?”

  It was a terrific point that stumped both Death and the snake. Death merely mumbled again that they were both tools in the hands of Time, but he seemed to have lost some conviction. He started to sweat too. At that very moment Time himself arrived on the scene. He turned his grandfatherly head toward Death, then the snake, then the fowler, and finally the grieving mother.

  Judiciously clearing his throat, Time spoke. “Dear Arjunaka, you should know that neither Death nor the snake is responsible for the boy’s death. For that matter, I am not responsible either. If you want the responsible party here, you must look at karma. The boy was killed due to his own bad karma from a previous life. None of us has any bearing on the store of merit or demerit anyone accumulates. Karma clings to people as light and shadow are related to each other. It’s inevitable and tenacious. So there you have it—there is no other cause for this sad case.”

  The mother nodded, turning to the fowler to second Time’s words. “You see? It’s all the child’s karma. Maybe I also did something bad in the past that contributed, but certainly the snake had nothing to do with that. Now release the snake.”

  The fowler shook his head sadly. He was completely outnumbered and outranked. He did not like the idea of releasing the snake to bite again merely because of metaphysics. And if karma was a legitimate moral argument, what was he to make of his own violent profession? He laughed bitterly, but released the snake.

  The shady area at the foot of the hill was now behind us, and a large granite rock sloped on the right, with a few cactus plants and eucalyptus saplings clinging to the cracks. Heat radiated from the granite onto the path and I found myself standing on the hot soil of the monsoon runoff.

  I could not decide whether I admired this story or detested it. It started out with a noble woman showing compassion toward a killer, even making an idealistic case against capital punishment—at least one could look at it this way—but then the story degenerated into a vaudevillian act poking fun at personal accountability. I stared straight ahead, waiting to see if I needed to say anything. The old man, as usual when he finished a story, stopped climbing.

  “How do you like the metaphor of the pot and the wheel? I embellished it rather nicely, don’t you think?”

  I thought his question a bit mischievous, but his green eyes were as clear as a child’s. “I’m no philosopher, but if you’ll pardon me, I think the metaphor is ridiculous. I’m with the fowler on this one. Assembling a pot out of different elements and deciding to kill someone are in no way similar.”

  “Because one has a mind while the other is just a material product?”

  “Yes, sort of. It’s like a machine that will not run if it’s missing one part, a piston or a spark plug. All the parts are necessary. With the mind, say the intention to buy groceries, there’s just one simple conscious fact. Even if you have no money, or no shop, you still can have the intention.”

  The old man rubbed his hands together, relishing the conversation. “So cause and effect—chain links such as death, time, karma—these can apply to material things, but not to mind?”

  “Yes, roughly speaking, this is so. Even if those three characters—death, time, and karma—meant anything, say, like gravity or alcohol, they still would not be causal. Maybe circumstantial.”

  “Because intention is simple consciousness and therefore independent of material causes…”

  “Well, yes.”

  My guide looked at me with deep interest, as though he had misplaced something in my eyes that he was trying to locate. But he was smiling. “That’s a strange sentiment coming from a biologist, no?”

  “Maybe. I’m just a marine biologist, an ecologist. I really don’t know anything about philosophy of mind. Our fields are so specialized nowadays, you know.”

  “You mean fragmented? So, even though you are a doctor in biology—yes, almost—what you know about the brain and the mind is no different from what a layperson like me knows?”

  “Maybe. But sometimes we have to trust common sense, especially when it comes to consciousness. Only I know what I know, and I know it firsthand. This certainty, the way my thoughts and impressions feel to me, you can’t remove it with brain science.”

  “‘I know what I know’—I like that very much. With your permission I shall try to remember to use this in the future…But hypothetically, please bear with me, if mind were only matter, then wouldn’t it be subject to the laws of matter?”

  “Yes, I suppose it would.”

  “And then we could speak of intention as somehow connected with death, time, karma, or even gravity and beer, no?”

  I nodded. He shrugged, then pronounced the entire matter a mystery to him, as though the point of the exercise was just to find out what I thought. The old man pointed up at the rock, “See that spot, under the eucalyptus? It’s a favorite place for couples at sunset. Do you have a girlfriend—you’re a handsome young man!” The question was more irritating than the hot ground, but he winked and smiled at me. Then he began to walk, and I realized then that until that instant I had not thought about my feet in some time. Then he broke the silence.

  “Look, my friend. I know it seems to you that we Indians are trying to avoid personal accountability with this karma and transmigration business…”

  “You bet,” I interrupted.

  But he continued calmly, “Let me show you why all of this is sad to us, and why it matters.” As we moved slowly, he told me the following story.

  THE MINISTER’S DEATH

  Quite some distance on a well-traveled road going north used to be a state called Anga, ruled by a young king who was famous for his good looks and great valor. He would have made an excellent king but for one thing. As a young and unmarried man, the king spent most of his energy at the royal harem. Little was left for administration and government. Fortunately, just as the ancient king of gods, Indra, had Brihaspati to assist him, Yashaketu enjoyed the wisdom and discretion of a great minister, Viveka, a Brahmin whose vision was always clear and expansive. It was the minister who ruled in practice, overseeing the life of a vast domain from a tiny office inside the palace.

  One day, rumor reached the ears of Viveka that the citizens of Anga suspected him of coveting the royal throne. Why else, they whispered, would he serve day and night as the de facto ruler, while his master absented himself? It must be some conspiracy! That same day, the minister went home despondently and told his wife about the rumor.

  “Why should you worry about rumors and false innuendos?” she asked sensibly.

  “Because even a false rumor can hurt the innocent. Look at what happened to Sita when Rama listened to the whispers of his subjects.” What happened, she knew, was that the king got rid of her, sent her to the forest forever.

  Viveka’s wife was a realistic woman who was quick to acknowledge and respond to a genuine problem. She had a ready answer. “Why don’t you pack your things and tell the king you are going on pilgrimage to the sacred rivers.” This was superb advice, for it would show the city folk that the minister lacked personal ambition and at the same time force the king to perform his duties.

  The young king was not very enthusiastic about the news, and he was still in charge. “You do not have my permission to go on pilgrimage, Viveka.” He said. “I need you here and order you to stay!”

  That very same night, in pitch dark, the minister bade his wife farewell and slipped out of the city unobserved by the guards or even stray dogs. He traveled simply, like a pil
grim, visiting sacred bathing places in many lands, accumulating great merit. One day he sat down to rest in a Shiva temple in the land of Paundra, near the sea, when a wealthy merchant approached him. The sophisticated merchant, easily recognizing the bearing of a man of distinction, invited the minister to rest at his home. The two men quickly became friends, and a few days later the merchant suggested that his guest join him on a seafaring expedition to the Island of Gold, where he traded cloth for precious metals.

  Viveka enjoyed the journey aboard the merchant vessel Durgatta. His stay on the island, under a warm sun, passed by lazily. However, on the third day of the return trip, the sails suddenly dropped lifelessly, and the ship came to a standstill. The sea looked as placid as a royal bathing tank at midday, but as a sailor tapped on his shoulder and pointed out to sea, the minister saw that the waves had started to gather up from every direction, amassing into a huge mountain of water that rose up into the sky, dwarfing the ship. The minister stepped back in horror, expecting the wave to crush the ship, but the merchant and the sailors remained perfectly calm. On the crest of the fantastic wave he saw a wishing tree, adorned with gold, coral, and jewels shaped like flowers. Under the tree stood a couch, and on it was a beautiful young woman holding a lyre.

  The woman gazed directly into the minister’s eyes, picked softly at the strings of her instrument, and began to sing. “Man eats today the fruit he has sown in his previous life. This, even fate cannot change.” As soon as the little song ended, the woman on the couch, the tree, and the wave silently returned to the depths of the sea, the water calmly closing in on the apparition.

  Viveka excitedly turned to quiz the other passengers. “Did you see that? Have I just seen the most beautiful woman in all of creation, or was it the goddess of auspiciousness, Lakshmi, herself?” But the others merely shrugged—to them the sight he thought miraculous was commonplace. The sailors told him that this fantastic sight materialized nearly every time a ship sailed by, and always vanished after the woman sang her sad song.