“We’ve heard rumors of such a place.”
“Rumors are all they are. I never found any fabulous kingdom, but a land where all the people live in filthy huts and drink a brew fermented from the butter from those yaks.” He tilted his chin toward the strange animal that had calmed the goat. “I was robbed by bandits and rescued by this man and his village. They even sent their own men after the robbers. Didn’t catch them, but they did find some of my goods.”
“A likely story,” Jagai said.
Bhallika shrugged. “Surely you’ve seen others that have crossed these passes.”
Dandapani nodded. “Not many. None after the snows start.”
“When I had recovered enough to head home, it was late in the season. My guide said we would make it.” Everyone looked at the little man, who hadn’t moved. “He was right! But I wouldn’t do it again. When we reached your gates, I saw the flames. But this poor girl. I think if we don’t get her somewhere warm,” Bhallika said, “my efforts will have been for nothing.”
Sakhi had been hanging on the merchant’s every word and hadn’t even realized how cold she was.
Dandapani cocked an eyebrow at Jagai, who narrowed his eyes. “I can pay for any hospitality you provide. You can examine my goods and take what you like.” Bhallika tilted his chin at the bales on the yak’s back.
“Later,” the chief said. “Deepa will show your servant where to stable the animal. It’s warm enough for him, too. You will come with me.”
Bhallika said something unintelligible to the wizened man, who nodded and led the yak away.
Dandapani lifted Sakhi up out of the wet snow. She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes. “Forgive me, Sakhi,” he said in a soft voice. “You’re like a daughter to me, and I’ve shirked my duty to you and your mother.”
“I… I saw Dhara,” she began.
“What?”
Sakhi was too cold and tired to say any more. She drifted into unconsciousness as, flanked by Bhallika and Jagai, Dandapani headed to the chief’s hall.
All time exists at once
“Put more wood on.” Mala sat by the fire, watching her pupil. Rani curled next to her.
Dhara roused from a reverie and reached for a log. The girl had been subdued since she slipped away and saw her friend’s house burn. It had frightened her, traveling through the corridor of space-time.
The log snapped. Sparks sailed up.
That night of the blizzard, when Mala realized that Dhara’s consciousness was gone, rage, Mala’s most hideous weakness, seized her. The girl had no idea of the dangers. She could get lost, get caught on a bubble and find herself in another world. Mala had pulled her back, but once Dhara was safe the red aura enveloped her own being. Only gradually did she calm down enough to alleviate Dhara’s fear.
Her own fury stunned her. She’d not seen the aura since her outlaw days. In her years at the cave, she’d been lulled into thinking she’d progressed beyond it. At first, she didn’t want to take responsibility for the anger. Dhara’s disobedience required a strong response. The girl was rebellious, undisciplined, not serious in her studies. But when Mala reached through the ether to her friend Nalaka and shared her frustration, he sent back this message: “So you think that if the girl would be a better student, you would be a better teacher? You know it doesn’t work that way.”
His response made her more furious and she broke the mental connection. What did he know? He hadn’t yet taken up his duties as a guru to Siddhartha. It was no easy task, teaching a gifted pupil. Dhara tested her, reminded her of weaknesses she hadn’t faced while living alone.
When Dhara first arrived, Mala didn’t foresee the challenges. She hoped to become more than a guru: Ma and Guru-ji. But Dhara didn’t love her as a mother. Offended, Mala became contemptuous. This spoiled mountain child was nothing like the daughter of her own body. Kirsa was sweet, wise beyond her years, patient.
All the things Mala wasn’t.
For a time, Dhara’s nearness made the familiar ache for Kirsa overwhelming. Once again, she reached out to Nalaka. “Asita said you must regard Kirsa with detachment and sever ties to your former life,” he responded. “You and she could never be mother and daughter again. What would she think of your past?” Easy to say if one had never had a child, Mala thought, but she said nothing. “Remember that Asita chose you to tutor Dhara for a reason,” Nalaka reminded her. “Meditate on that.”
Grudgingly, Mala admitted Nalaka was right. She reflected that when Asita sent her to Dhavalagiri and told her about Dhara, she was humbled and proud, eager to explore the path as well as teach it. He told her there were dangers in being a guru, in guiding such an extraordinary student. Temptations. Obstacles. Challenges.
Like controlling her rage. How could she show Dhara the path when she could still lose her way?
Mala knew that Dhara lay awake with her eyes wide open, trying in vain to recreate what sent her to Sakhi the night of the fire. So young to experience such a power. So ignorant of its dangers.
Asita had said the girl had gifts that matched Siddhartha’s. But since the prince could toddle, he’d learned from the best preceptors all the arts and sciences a future monarch would need, along with training in yoga and other mental disciplines. King Suddhodana had done this so his son would fulfill both aspects of the prophecy. But aside from Chief Dandapani’s instruction in the martial arts, the girl had very little formal education.
Mala was no royal preceptor trained at the finest schools, but she had experience, the experience of seeing her parents murdered, of freeing herself from slavery, of loving a man, having a child, and losing both. She’d had the experience of living to avenge that loss.
As queen of the outlaws, she’d tasted occult powers, used them for evil ends. She knew the truth in what Asita taught: that the combination of martial and spiritual power could spawn holocausts. “A ruler may bring the sharpened intelligence that comes from yoga’s practice to strategy, tactics to the very battle itself. Indeed, some say it is dharma for the Kshatriya caste to do so in a righteous cause. But using yoga’s supernatural powers against an enemy can only lead to evil.”
That was what Mala would teach this wild girl.
Dhara drained the last mint-infused water from her wooden cup. She folded an old blanket atop her deer skin, settling herself cross-legged and straightening her spine. Without Mala’s prompting, she lowered her gaze and began an exercise to focus her attention. She placed a finger on her left nostril to block it, then took a breath through her right nostril. In the space between her inhalation and exhalation, she released the left nostril and closed the right, then let her breath out slowly. After several repetitions, she stopped.
“Mala-ji?” Dhara said.
“Yes?”
“I was so sad after the fire. Not for myself. For Sakhi. She’s lost everything! I—I think it’s helped my concentration. Since that night, after my breathing exercises I feel—I feel more alert than I ever have before.”
Mala nodded. “Suffering one’s own pain can lead down a bottomless, internal spiral of grief or rage. But suffering another’s pain leads to awareness of suffering in the world. That’s compassion, my girl. Compassion is one of wisdom’s foundations. The wiser we are, the more aware we are.” Mala closed her eyes a moment to hold Kirsa’s image.
Dhara tilted her head as if trying to digest this thought. “Mala-ji, would you teach me how I traveled through the ether? I mean truly, so I can understand how I did it.”
Mala couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “You’re a bold one. You disobeyed me! A guru can expel a student from the ashram for that. I should kick you out into the snow, not instruct you in yoga’s powers.”
“Never again, I swear!” The girl’s eyes glittered in the firelight.
It occurred to Mala that maybe Asita had his own doubts when he taught her, yet he had trusted her
with his most profound teachings. Dhara was young, but youth had its own wisdom. “Then we will begin. The techniques for transporting consciousness are not difficult to put into practice when one understands them.” She paused. “But they are difficult to understand.”
Dhara pressed her lips together in excitement.
“Calm yourself, my girl,” Mala said.
“I’ll try with all my might.”
Mala had to hope she would. “The first principle, the teachings say, is that all time exists at once. It is known as the Imperishable.”
Dhara nodded again.
“You understood that very quickly,” Mala said.
Dhara reddened. Rani raised her head and looked at the girl with an expression that seemed to say, Fool. Then she lowered her head and began to clean an enormous paw with her long pink tongue.
“I meant to ask, how can all time exist at once? And what is meant by the Imperishable?” Dhara said.
“The sages describe it like so.” Mala began to chant:
“It is without shadow or darkness,
Without body, breath or mouth,
Without speech or mind.”
The ancient verses filled with riddles and paradox flowed from Mala in a low sing-song.
“It sees but cannot be seen,
Hears yet is not heard,
Thinks yet can’t be thought,
Knows but can’t be known.”
Mala kept chanting. Verse followed verse followed verse until her pupil’s eyes were glazed, and still she continued.
“It has nothing within it or without,
It is measureless, infinite.
Yet at the command of the Imperishable,
Hours and days, months and seasons,
And years upon years pass.
At its command the gods need the sacrifice and mortals make offerings… ”
Mala halted. Dhara blinked and reddened again. It was plain she hadn’t really been listening. But then, neither had Mala, the first time. She continued.
“But without understanding the Imperishable,
Even if one made thousands of sacrifices
Or performed austerities for thousands of years,
One would not achieve liberation.”
Mala fell silent. Rani let out a loud sigh.
“It’s… so strange. All those riddles.”
“Think of it this way. You are just a thought, born of a desire that arose out of the great Mind. At our birth, we forget the way back to unity with that Mind, to the knowledge that we are one with everything. ‘Tat tvam asi,’ the sages say. “It means ‘You are that.’ When you truly understand those simple words, you will discover the way back to unity, you will achieve moksha, perceive the Imperishable. You are liberated from birth, death, and rebirth. That is the goal of the yogi’s long and arduous path.”
“How long did it take you to understand it? This ‘tat tvam asi,’ I mean.”
“Don’t expect to understand all at once. Sages spend lifetimes seeking that understanding. I only see glimmers.”
“You? Really?”
Mala nodded. “So, what is the first principle?”
“All time exists at once.”
“The second principle is that space is woven on the warp and weft of time. Is that clear?”
Dhara shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, and gave a pained laugh. Rani raised her head, yawned, gave Dhara an irritated look, and settled back down again.
“It is ineffable,” Mala said. “The wisest rishis have a saying that those who understand everything are reduced to silence and do not try to describe it, while those who understand nothing describe it all too clearly, and fools believe it.”
“Oh, Mala-ji. I’ll never understand.”
Mala suppressed a smile. Humility was a good sign. She put a small log on the fire, and the dry wood crackled into flames right away. The cave’s former occupants had drawn little figures to illustrate poses. The firelight made them seem to dance. “If you really believe that, you should go back to the village,” she said, matter of fact.
“No! I want to learn! Please explain.”
“I’ve just told you that only those who don’t really know what they’re talking about pretend to understand and explain,” Mala said, a little sharp, just to toy with her.
Dhara looked like she would cry. “Mala-ji.”
“Yes?”
“Mala-ji, I thought I was learning so much, and I’d come so far already, but tonight I can’t keep my mind still and I’m so mixed up and afraid I’ll never understand, and I feel like—like.” She stopped in utter confusion, unable to articulate what she felt. “Like I don’t know anything.”
“Ignorance has no beginning, Dhara, but it has an end. And knowledge has no end, but it has a beginning.”
“Go on, Mala-ji.”
“All right. This is the teaching given by a great rishi to the wise woman Gargi in ancient days, and through a lineage of rishikis it came to Asita, who gave it to me.”
“The universe and all it holds,
This world and the worlds above the sky and below the earth,
All the beings, plants, and animals in all the worlds,
All we name Past, Present, and Future,
All this is woven on Space.
Space is a loom on which the universe takes shape.
The weaver pulls a single thread and changes the whole cloth.
The wise one, possessing complete understanding,
Takes hold of a strand of the universe and changes all of creation.”
By the look on the girl’s face, Mala could see Dhara grasped it.
“Oh! I see.” Then Dhara’s face fell. Mala understood. Understanding fled in an instant. So it had been for her, when she first started.
“You will see it again,” Mala said.
Dhara didn’t speak for some moments. “I thought only the gods could do such a thing.”
“When a mortal does, the gods tremble,” Mala said. “Nothing compares to a human who has the power to understand space, and time, and Mind. You must never abuse the power.”
“I won’t, Mala-ji. I swear.” Dhara gazed at her, her eyes filled with love and gratitude.
A look like Kirsa used to give her. It was sweet to see it again. “It will be simpler if you’ll call me Mala.”
Secrets
Ghosha placed a wooden bowl and a lamp on the table next to Dhara’s bed, where Sakhi had been ensconced since the fire. The smell of barley gruel rose with the steam.
“I’m not hungry.” It had been a week since the fire, but her fever had broken just two days ago. She could still barely think, much less eat. When she slept, her mother’s agonized screams filled her dreams. Waking was worse. Her mother and father were gone. She was alone.
“You must get your strength back,” Ghosha began. She lifted the bandage to examine the pink skin underneath. “It’s much better. You’ll be ready to get out of bed soon.”
“Oh, Ghosha, what am I to do? Where am I to go?” She started to cry.
“Poor motherless one. Dandapani and Atimaya will care for you.” Ghosha hugged Sakhi, enveloping her in the scent of wood smoke, sour sweat, and some pungent herb. “They feel terrible about everything.”
Sakhi drew away. Her own mother had always had a slight odor of sandalwood incense about her, the family’s one true extravagance. Agastya believed that one couldn’t really pray without it. But the sandalwood was gone, along with her father’s singing bowl and the little chest, burned with the house. Sakhi wiped her eyes. “I don’t think Dandapani really knew… ”
Ghosha grunted. “Atimaya did.” She shook her head. “That one. All her mother’s spirit and pride, but none of Yasodhara’s wisdom.” The old midwife plumped the bolster and helped Sakhi sit higher. “You’re too
young to remember Yasodhara.” She held the bowl up to Sakhi’s lips.
“Too hot.” Sakhi turned away.
Ghosha put the bowl down. “Ah, child, you must eat.”
“Let it cool.” Sakhi leaned back and sighed. “I do remember. Dhara adored her. She was so sad when she died.” Her throat constricted.
“Once Dhara’s grandfather died, Yasodhara became a shell of herself. Like your mother, when your father died.” Sakhi started to weep again. “Oh, forgive me, child. Cry, cry,” Ghosha said, enfolding her again. “You’ll feel better.” This time Sakhi did not draw away.
When her tears ended, Sakhi felt drained but well enough to indulge her curiosity. “Did Yasodhara really slip into the ravine and die? That’s what Atimaya said.”
Ghosha picked up the bowl. “Atimaya wants to keep up appearances, but truth cannot hide forever.”
“I don’t know everything,” Sakhi said.
Ghosha laughed. “We do keep things from you young ones. Maybe it’s time you heard the tale.”
“So it’s true?” Sakhi had heard the whispers. It had made her fear her mother would throw herself into the ravine. “She killed herself?”
“Yasodhara wanted life on her own terms, or not at all. So strong she was. When she first came here, she boxed my ears once, as if I were a serving girl and not a mistress of spells!” She chuckled. “I threatened some curse or other, and she looked me in the eye and dared me to do it. Said a witch couldn’t frighten one who had royal Sakyan blood in her veins. ‘We have powers, too, the women of our line.’ Only Dhara’s grandfather could handle her. Old Anjana was a rare man.” Ghosha sighed. “Still. That woman was the closest thing I ever had to a friend.” She began to dab ointment on Dhara’s burns.
“You were friends?” Sakhi prompted, imagining Dhara’s stern-faced grandmother and wrinkled Ghosha as young women sharing secrets under their blanket.
The Mountain Goddess Page 10
