“Why not?” Dhara said. “Who is he?”
“Your eyes give you away, my boy,” Harischandra said. “Dhara, meet your cousin.”
Siddhartha. The Sakyan prince. They looked at each other, transfixed. “I’m Dhara,” she said, her heart doing somersaults. There was a roaring in her ears.
Siddhartha’s face fell. “Yasodhara.” When he spoke her name, Dhara felt every nerve come alive. She didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t know you would be so beautiful.”
“Is this the one Nanda is to marry?” Chandaka said.
“Marry?” Dhara was astonished. “Who is this Nanda? I’m not marrying any—any Nanda!” Siddhartha gave her a brilliant smile.
“Why are you here?” Siddhartha said. “I thought you were a Koli. That you lived near Dhavalagiri.”
“My clan was attacked. My guru said it was dangerous for me to stay, and so we flew away—”
Siddhartha cocked his head. “You flew?”
“You flew? You expect us to believe that?” Chandaka said, contemptuous.
“I don’t care what you believe.” It was true; this Chandaka didn’t matter. But Siddhartha did. She wanted him to believe her.
Chandaka rolled his eyes. The unconscious man at his feet groaned. “We should go.”
“Yes,” Harischandra said. They began to walk as two soldiers wearing black antariyas and red sashes approached, followed by a woman taking slow, deliberate steps and leaning on a tall staff of polished, dark wood.
“Let them pass.” Harischandra gave Siddhartha a warning look. “Keep your head down.”
A ragged, scrawny man ran up to the woman. He fell to his knees. “Bless me, Bhadda-ji!”
The woman halted. Her handsome face was lined and her short, wiry hair was grey.
“Get away.” A guard kicked the man aside and raised his arm to strike.
“Stop.” A single word from Bhadda and the guard stepped back. “May you find true freedom in this life,” she said to the ragged man.
The soldiers plowed ahead like bulls, knocking observers aside. Poor folk calling for blessings rushed forward. Siddhartha and Dhara were still close behind the rishiki but the crowd pushed Harischandra and Chandaka back. Dhara glanced back but lost sight of them. She should have been afraid, but she felt safe with Siddhartha.
She felt his eyes on her. They both looked away quickly. She didn’t mind that they were forced close together by the crush of people.
The excitement in the crowd was palpable. Bhadda reached the dais where the Brahmin Dhara had seen earlier sat on a set of cushions. The people stepped away.
Bhadda planted her staff on the ground and straightened herself, looking the Brahmin in the eye without fear.
“Valmiki!” Bhadda’s voice was not loud, but it silenced the crowd. “Let us debate.”
“Bhadda Kundalakesa! Brave seeker of truth,” Valmiki answered with genuine respect. “Speak and I will answer.”
To Dhara’s eye, he was much less imposing; thin and pale-skinned, with a sunken chest. His jaw and head were shaved, and he had a little topknot of thin grey hair.
“What say you, Valmiki: Why does an enlightened man need your rituals and sacrifices?” The rishiki was confident, vigorous, and much more charismatic than the Brahmin.
Everyone started talking at once.
“Bhadda,” Valmiki called out, but his voice was quickly lost in the hubbub.
Dhara looked for Harischandra and Chandaka, but there was no sign of them. A prickle of anxiety went up her neck.
“Let Valmiki speak!” At the sound of Bhadda’s firm voice, the crowd quieted.
“Bhadda.” The Brahmin had a beautiful voice despite that sunken chest. It was like Sakhi’s father Bhrigu’s. Dhara could feel it in her bones. “Vac, the Goddess of Speech, gave the Vedas to the Seven Sages, and they passed them to our ancestors. The Vedas tell us what the gods want, and what offerings to make on the fire altar to gain their favor in our mortal lives. Over many generations, the priests have offered sacrifices to the gods thousands of times. Each hymn and gesture must be performed without error, with full knowledge of the many subtle meanings of every sacred word. Thus men need us to make their perfect offerings, which the fire god Agni eats and sends to the celestials on his smoke—”
“It’s all a sham!” someone shouted. “It’s all so we have to pay you priests!”
A murmur went up.
“Listen, my friends,” Bhadda said, and again the crowd obeyed.
“She’s a woman, and she commands them,” Dara whispered in Siddhartha’s ear.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” A man was watching her. His head was shaved like Valmiki’s, around a topknot of long hair that was wound around itself and fastened with strips of cloth. He wore a simple but blindingly white antariya wrapped around his legs. He was a Brahmin, but there was a sheathed knife tucked into his sash.
He looked so, so familiar, but Dhara couldn’t place him. He sidled up next to her and Siddhartha, who looked from her to this stranger and put a protective arm around her shoulders. His touch sent a shock through her.
The debate continued. “How do you answer, Bhadda?” Valmiki said.
“The gods demand these sacrifices to distract mortals. While a man worships Indra or Varuna or Kubera as something other than himself, he does not understand the true nature of the Self. The gods use him as we use cattle. He is no different from the bull he offers on Agni’s altar!”
Bhadda mesmerized Dhara. She forgot Siddhartha and the familiar man. Only the rishiki’s voice mattered.
“No different from the bull?” Valmiki interjected, smiling at the crowd. “A man is something much more than an animal. He has lived his past lives virtuously so that he can be reborn as a mortal, the only rebirth in which he may hope to perform the sacrifices that please the gods.”
“We are all one, Valmiki,” Bhadda replied. “Made of the same stuff. Hidden in a small cave in the human heart exists a little self, jivatman, the divine spark. Each animal has the same spark, and only one thing separates a man—or woman—from your sacrificial bull.”
The crowd murmured. Valmiki did not look happy. Dhara was enraptured. She would commit every word Bhadda said to memory and learn everything she could so she could dazzle a crowd with her brilliance. Who cared about leading armies? This was true power.
“And what is that one thing, Bhadda?” the Brahmin asked.
“An animal does not know that this little self is part of the supreme Self. Only a mortal knows that she and all creation are parts of the Whole.” Bhadda raised her staff and shook it. “To know this is to know the Truth!” She plunged it back to the packed dirt so hard Dhara thought it would crack. “Those who know it, outcaste or Brahmin, man or woman, have attained the highest wisdom and union with atman, the very goal the gods seek. The gods’ power over one thus enlightened disappears. There is no need to make the offerings at Agni’s altar. If there is no sacrifice, there is no food for fiery Agni’s smoke to carry heavenward. The gods starve. Therefore it does not please them when mortals become enlightened!” she cried.
There was utter silence. Dhara held her breath. Gradually, she became aware of Ganga’s whispering current. A breeze ruffled the leaves of the huge pipals.
“Ah, but honored Bhadda,” Valmiki said, as if soothing a child. “Even an enlightened man may make mistakes, may commit an act that stains his karma. We Brahmins know how to remove those stains with the proper ritual. When the sacrifice is done to perfection, not a single syllable of the hymns misspoken or a single gesture out of place, the gods cannot deny the sacrificer’s request.”
“I see,” Bhadda answered with a snort. “So, you can fix everything with the celestials, eh, my friend, if you chant the right hymn? By that logic, a man could even get around death if he had the money to pay and could find a good enough priest.”
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br /> There was a suppressed titter. Someone laughed out loud, and a couple of soldiers were soon upon him. “You don’t frighten me,” the man cried, but the whites of his eyes were huge. A soldier raised a truncheon and hit him over the head. His skull cracked.
Dhara started at the sound. She wanted to thrash the guard. Siddhartha squeezed her shoulder and sent another shock to her heart. One day she would be able to burn such brutes to ashes with her third eye.
A yogi uses such powers with care.
The voice was in Dhara’s head. She knew this man. The desert sage. Sakhi’s brother. Nalaka?
Each time Mala took her to see him, he’d been wearing nothing but a smelly lion’s skin and his hair was tangled and matted and crawling with lice. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him, clean-shaven with his elegant topknot.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a hand to his lips. Siddhartha noticed their silent conversation and looked at her, puzzled. He’s a friend, she sent, but of course Siddhartha wouldn’t have her voice in his head.
A friend? Siddhartha asked. Who?
She was amazed, overwhelmed. She could touch Siddhartha’s mind. How had it happened so easily? He is Nalaka, a friend of my guru’s.
Valmiki’s ringing voice hushed the crowd again. “You and I know, Bhadda,” he said in the same condescending manner. “The offering must be made with a good intention, and some things must never be asked for. One must never, for example, offer sacrifice to request the gods harm another.”
Another titter.
“The Brahmins would be out of business if Prasenajit couldn’t offer sacrifices to bring plague and famine on his enemies,” someone in the crowd said with a low chuckle.
Bhadda raised her voice again. “Answer this, Valmiki. Even if you make an offering only for good, how can the rite not be tainted with the animal’s death? And if a perfectly done ritual has the power to force the gods to grant the sacrificer’s desires, do you not think that the power of such a ritual has dangers?” She lowered her arm.
Valmiki cleared his throat and pulled at his robes. “What dangers, Bhadda? I challenge you to give me an example.”
“The one who offers the sacrifice,” the rishiki continued, “a king, let us say, is only human, with human imperfections. His desires cannot be pure, no matter how good his heart. He will offer a bull to gain prosperity for his clan. That may mean war and death for the other clans he must impoverish to provide for his own.”
At this point, murmurs rose again. A few brave souls even shouted their own questions. “What do you say to that, Valmiki?” “And what about priests who don’t do the rituals perfectly? What happens then?” “Why do the Brahmins control everything?”
The soldiers began to shout. “That’s enough, now. Let his lordship speak.” They shoved people this way and that, whether they were quiet watchers or shouters. Bhadda’s guards edged in, crushing Dhara and Siddhartha even closer. The Kosalan soldiers looked up toward Valmiki, as if seeking instructions.
“My lord, Valmiki.” Siddhartha spoke quietly, but somehow everyone heard. Silence prevailed. Dhara’s stomach dropped. Everyone would see the light in those golden eyes that Harischandra had warned her cousin to hide. Someone would recognize him.
Dhara. Siddhartha. It was Nalaka. Be ready to run.
“Honored Valmiki,” Siddhartha said. “The Vedas contain much that is wise and good. Perhaps you think that we mortals have corrupted the wisdom that the Creator gave Vac, and which she revealed to the Seven Sages?”
The tension lifted for a moment.
“Yes, of course, my son,” Valmiki said, visibly relieved at this harmless question. “What we Aryas have considered sacred for fifty generations has not changed in its divine nature. Men have lost their way in the shadows of darkness, forgetting the dharma. Righteousness has almost disappeared in this chaotic age, the Kali Yuga. It is not the fault of the Vedas or the Brahmins who perform the rites that men now make their offerings for worldly gain—”
“Ha!” Bhadda interjected. “The rites themselves have become the source of evil. Each clan asks Indra’s blessing before battle. Does the god really care, do you suppose, who wins?”
The whole crowd gasped as one, then burst into tumultuous cries. “She’s a demon!” someone shouted.
“This talk is dangerous,” Nalaka said aloud.
“I didn’t mean to stir things up,” Siddhartha said.
“No doubt. But when people start talking about demons, it’s time to get away,” Nalaka said, taking Dhara’s arm. “We must go.”
Siddhartha gripped Dhara’s hand. “Can we trust him?”
“Yes!” A flash of insight took her breath away. For an instant, she had a profound knowledge of what karma really was. The overwhelming feeling that everything that had happened and was happening this day—the two men attacking her, Siddhartha’s rescue, encountering Bhadda, and finding Nalaka at this moment, in this place—was the result of a vast chain of events stretching back and forward in time. She was frozen as images of warriors galloping across great grassy plains, bloody sacrifices in the depths of thick forests, masses of sages or rishis and rishikis in orange robes, a king weeping over a hundred thousand slaughtered on a battlefield, raced across her vision. She must find her center or her mind would shatter. Blackness would engulf her.
Siddhartha squeezed her hand tighter. “Dhara!”
She looked into his amber eyes. The blackness receded. Reality snapped back into place.
“We must go!” Nalaka shouted. He beckoned them forward as he shouldered through the crowd. Dhara, half in a daze, started to follow.
“Wait! We can’t leave Bhadda,” the prince cried.
Nalaka turned back, his face set. He shoved past them and planted himself in front of Bhadda. “Release her,” he commanded her two guards. One dropped his hands in surprise.
The other held tight. “Who do you think you are?” he snarled. Bhadda lifted her rosewood staff straight up and brought it down on his foot. The Kosalan howled in pain.
“He’s a friend of mine,” she said.
The fleeing masses forced them together. Nalaka held Bhadda’s arm as the jostling crowd pushed them this way and that along a wide boulevard. A troop of mounted soldiers appeared ahead and the swaying mass broke up, scattering down side streets.
They ducked into an alley. Dhara, still a little unsteady, leaned against Siddhartha. The arm he put around her filled her with strength and light.
“This way,” Nalaka said over his shoulder. They all took off.
Bhadda kept up for a time as they dashed through twisting lanes that got narrower and narrower, but she was tiring fast. At last, gasping and exhausted, they came to a little square surrounded by dark hovels and a two-story house that tilted crazily over its shorter neighbor. They halted in its shadow. Dhara’s lungs heaved as she tried to catch her breath.
There was no one about, save in the bright sunlit center of the square. An ancient, emaciated beggar sat propped against the pedestal of a wooden shrine covered in ribbons. Every bone was visible through the loose folds of his skin, each rib distinct, and his arms and legs were splayed without the muscle to support them. Thin, greasy white hair framed a face covered with grey grizzle and open sores and dripping sweat. He wore nothing but a few filthy rags around his loins.
“Asita?” Nalaka asked in a husky whisper. “Asita, is it you, holy one?”
The beggar’s palm was open on the ground, and in it rested an oddly shaped white begging bowl. When the beggar saw them, he struggled to lift it, and extended it to them with a shaking hand.
It was not a bowl. It was a human skull.
As he held it out, the beggar’s eyes lit on Siddhartha.
Dhara stared at the skeletal figure. Asita. She would not have recognized the beloved old sage who had once lived in Dhavalagiri’s sacred cave.
&
nbsp; “Ah,” the old man said, half rising on those fleshless limbs. “At last. You’ve come.” Then he collapsed onto his face.
The skull rolled from his hands and stopped at Siddhartha’s feet.
It landed upright, its dark sockets staring at Siddhartha. Dhara’s lungs burned but she didn’t dare breathe for fear that eyeless gaze would turn on her.
“Look,” Siddhartha whispered, pointing at the old man’s still form.
Dhara stared in wonder. The man’s body seemed to be melting in the hot sunlight, evaporating in a cloud of glittering particles, just the way Rani had said Mahasattva’s bones had disappeared. Suspended in the stifling air, they shimmered, then expanded, dancing around the little shrine and sparkling against the dark huts. They tingled against her skin.
Through the cloud the houses themselves seemed to ripple, as if they were not real but mere reflections on the subtle current of a mysterious river underlying the whole of existence.
Then the shimmering motes were gone, leaving no trace of the beggar’s corpse.
A shaft of sunlight poured over Siddhartha as he knelt and picked up the skull. Dhara took a ragged breath. Nalaka and Bhadda bowed their heads over joined palms.
“Seize them!”
The square filled with a dozen Kosalan guards.
The bed of arrows
Come now. Help us. The Kosalas have found Dhara and Siddhartha.
Nalaka needed her now. Mala could not stay in Dhavalagiri and explain this to Sakhi.
Outside the chief’s hall, Mala let awareness flow into her every nerve, to every part of her being, made ready to dissolve into the sea of vibrating particles that made up everything—sun, sky, trees, the entire world that ordinary folk saw. So few saw the underlying reality. Mala was one of them. She let go in a clap of thunder.
The Mountain Goddess Page 25
