A Digit of the Moon

DAY 19

Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, now I may offer water97 to my happiness, and this is the beginning of the end. For three days only now remain to me, and these will assuredly follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, and so shall I98. Then will my sun set for ever. Alas! I read my fate in the sorrow that filled my beloved's eyes, as she looked at me like a frightened fawn. O that she were either less beautiful or less intelligent, for in the union of these two virtues lies my destruction. Away with the portrait, which burns me like a fire. So the King passed the night in a state of delirium, paying no heed to the portrait. And when the sun rose, he rose also, and passed the day, half living and half dead, in the garden with Rasakósha. And when the sun set, they went again to the hall of audience. And there they saw the Princess, clad in a robe of cloth of gold and a bodice studded with turquoises, and her crown and other ornaments, sitting on her throne. And she looked at the King with eyes in which joy and grief fought for the mastery: and the King sank upon a couch, speechless and fascinated, under the spell of her beauty. Then Rasakósha came forward and stood before her and began again:

Lady, there was once a Brahman named Kritákrita99, who neglected the study of the Wédas, and walked in the black path, abandoning all his duties100, and associating with gamblers, harlots, and outcasts. And he frequented the cemeteries at night, and became familiar with ghosts and vampires and dead bodies, and impure and unholy rites and incantations. And one night, amid the flaming of funeral pyres and the reek of burning corpses, a certain Vampire101 of his acquaintance said to him: I am hungry: bring me fresh meat to devour, or I will tear you in pieces. Then Kritákrita said: I will bring it, but not for nothing. What will you give me for it? The Vampire replied: Bring me a newly slain Brahman, and I will teach you a spell for raising the dead. But Kritákrita said: That is not enough. And they haggled in the cemetery about the price. At last that abandoned Brahman said: Throw in a pair of dice that will enable me always to win at play, and I will bring you the flesh you require. So the Vampire said: Be it so. Then Kritákrita went away, and knowing no other resource secretly murdered his own brother, and brought him to the cemetery at midnight. And the Vampire kept his word, giving him the dice, and teaching him the spell.

Then some time afterwards, Kritákrita said to himself: I will try the efficacy of this spell that the Vampire has taught me. So he procured the body of a dead Chandála102, and taking it at the dead of night to the cemetery, placed it on the ground, and began to recite the spell. But when he had got halfway through, he looked at the corpse, and saw its left arm, and leg, and eye moving horribly with life, the other half being still dead. And he was so terrified at the sight, that he utterly forgot the rest of the spell, and leaped up and ran away. But the corpse jumped up also, and a vampire entered its dead half, and it rushed rapidly after him, shuffling on one leg, and rolling its one eye, and yelling indistinctly: Underdone, overdone, undone103! But Kritákrita fled at full speed to his house, and getting into bed lay there trembling. And after a while he fell asleep. And then suddenly he awoke, hearing a noise, and he looked and saw the door open, and the corpse of that dead Chándála came in, and shuffled swiftly towards him on its left leg, rolling its left eye, with its dead half hanging down beside it, and crying in a terrible voice: Underdone, overdone, undone! And Kritákrita sprang out of bed, and ran out by another door, and mounting a horse, fled as fast as he could to another city a great way off.

And there he thought: Here I am safe. So he went day by day to the gambling hall, and playing with his dice, won great sums of money, and lived at his ease, feasting himself and others. But one night, when he was sitting among the gamblers in the gambling hall, throwing the dice, he heard behind him a noise of shuffling. And he looked round, and saw, coming swiftly towards him on one leg, the corpse of that dead Chándála, with its dead half rotting and hanging down, and its left eye rolling in anger, and calling out in a voice of thunder: Underdone, overdone, undone! And he rose up with a shriek, and leaped over the table, and fled away by an opposite door and left that city, and ran as fast as he could, constantly looking behind him through the forest for many days and nights, never daring to stop even to take breath, till he reached another city a long way off. And there he remained, disguised and concealed, as it were in a hole. But all the gamblers in that gambling saloon died of fear.

And after some time he again accumulated wealth by gambling in that city, and lived in extravagance at his ease. But one night, when he was sitting with an hetæra whom he loved, in the inner room of her house, he heard the noise of shuffling. And he looked round, and saw once more the corpse of that dead Chándála coming swiftly towards him on one leg, with its dead half, from whose bones the flesh had rotted away, hanging down, and its left eye blazing with flames of rage, calling out with a voice like the scream of Ráwana: Underdone, overdone, undone! Then that hetæra then and there abandoned the body in her terror. And Kritákrita rose up, and ran out by a door, which led out upon the balcony, while the Chándála hastened after him. And finding no other outlet, Kritækrita flung himself down into the street, and was dashed to pieces, and died.

So now tell me, Princess, what did that corpse mean by his words? And Rasakósha ceased. Then the Princess said: There is no difficulty in this. Woe to the feeble souls that have not courage to carry through what they have the presumption to begin! They do indeed either too little or too much, and are themselves their own undoing. For the strong in virtue avoid sin altogether: while the daring in vice face the consequences of their own conduct: those attain heavenly rewards, and these the good things of this world; but the coward souls who are too weak to be either virtuous or vicious are punished by that very weakness in the form of their consciousness of guilt, and lose both worlds.

And when the Princess had spoken, she rose up and went out, looking and yet as it were not looking at the King, whose heart went with her. But the King and Rasakósha returned to their own apartments.

DAY 20

Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, I have been bitten by the beauty of this incomparable woman as by a black cobra, and now the poison works. I have but two more days to live. For certain it is that her answer to your last question will be my sentence of death, and equally certain it is, that she will give that answer; for her intellect is like the edge of a sharp sword, which while it cuts the knot of the problem will at the same moment pierce me to the heart. And the King passed the night in a state of despair, leaving his bed untouched. And when the sun rose, he rose also, and went out alone into the garden and wandered about, dreading the setting of the sun yet longing for reunion with his beloved, till his soul was almost riven in twain with opposite emotions. And he reproached Wináyaka, saying: O thou of the Ruddy Trunk, I have been deceived by thee: and instead of clearing my road to success, thou hast blocked it by an insurmountable obstacle in the form of this lady's piercing acuteness of understanding. And then he said: This is no time for despair. Let me not, like Kritákrita, leave my work half finished, but rather endeavour myself to discover some riddle that she cannot answer. And yet what hope is there that where Rasakósha has failed, I should succeed? For the Princess is not more skilful in answering his questions, than he in composing them, being as it were a very ocean of stories in human form. Or rather, no mortal, but only a god, could pose the ingenuity of this lovely lady. Then he prayed to Saraswatí, saying: O goddess of speech, my only refuge is in thy favour. O befriend me, and either cloud the mind of my beloved with temporary bewilderment, or else reveal to me some puzzle which she will be unable to answer. Truly, my puzzle is worse than hers.

And on the instant, Saraswatí put a thought into his heart. And he sprang up with a shout of joy, exclaiming: Ha! I am favoured. Victory to Saraswatí. The Princess is mine. And he ran quickly to find Rasakósha, whom he discovered buried in profound meditation on a story for the coming evening, and said: My friend, away with meditation. [Greek: Eureka]104! I will myself propose a riddle to the Princess this evening. Then Rasakósha said: O King, I congratulate you. But still, in a matter of such importance, let us risk nothing by presumptuous confidence. So propound your riddle to me first that we may make trial of its difficulty. Then King Súryakánta laughed in delight, and said: Your very doubt shows that it is unanswerable. My own case is the very problem. I will go to the Princess, and ask her what I ought to do. And if she tells me, then I will ask her to-morrow what she tells me to-day: and if she does not tell me, then she is mine according to the terms of the agreement, to-day: and so in either alternative, the bird105 is caged.

Then Rasakósha said with a smile: Victory to your Majesty. Truly wonderful is the power of love: like a stone it at once blunts and sharpens the edge of intellect. For it formerly blinded you to everything in the world, and now it has sharpened your sight so as to discover what has escaped us all this time, though lying as it were on the road before us. But unless I am deceived by the external signs, I predict that the god of love will also blind the Princess; or rather, that she will throw herself gladly into the cage. For none are so easily caught as those who wish to be; and though the Princess has been adamant to my questions, she will be soft as a flower to yours.

Then in his impatience the King could hardly endure the remainder of the day, burning with desire to put his question to the Princess. But at last the sun set. Then Rasakósha said: O King, go you alone to the hall of audience. For my absence will do you more service to-day than my presence did before. There are cases, when a friend shows his friendship rather by his absence than his presence. Apropos, I will tell you a story: Listen. But the King said: My friend, this is no time for stories, even though told by you. And though I will go alone to-night, without you, yet know, that should I achieve success by the favour of Saraswatí and the Lord of obstacles, I shall nevertheless owe it to you rather than myself. For not only have you sustained my life daily, during the hours of separation, but your stories have been as it were a ladder, by which I have ascended step by step to the window of my beloved's chamber. And does not the lowest rung of the ladder contribute equally with the highest to the attainment of the summit of hope? Then Rasakósha laughed, and said: O King, it is well. Now go, and though you have not heard my story, yet I have attained in some measure the end I had in view in proposing it. For you have kept the Princess waiting, and expectation increases desire. Good luck be with you!

Then the King left him and went very quickly by himself to the hall of audience. And his right arm throbbed as he drew near the door, and rejoicing at the omen, he went in. And there he saw Anangarágá, clad in a robe of the hue of indigo106, and a bodice rainbow-hued like the neck of a pigeon, and studded with yellow sunstones, and her crown and other ornaments: but she had left her throne, and come towards the door, and was looking with anxiety for the King. But when she saw him she blushed107, and returned in confusion to her throne. And King Súryakánta went up to her, and fell down before her and took her by the hand, and said: Lady, there was once a King, who became suitor to a Princess, lovely like thyself, on this condition, that if he could ask her a question that she could not answer, she should be his. Now tell me, O thou lovely incarnation of wisdom, what should he ask her?

And instantly the Princess rose up quickly, and exclaimed in delight: O clever one, thou hast guessed. And she threw round his neck the necklace of her arms, and so chose him as her husband108. And she said: See, thy image is reflected a thousand times in these gems that resemble thee; yet look in my eyes, and thou shalt see thyself through them reflected in my heart. Then the King looked into her eyes, and saw himself reflected in them like the sun in a deep lake. And he whispered in the shell of her ear: Thou hast robbed me of myself: give me back myself in thy form. Then the Princess said, in a low voice, looking down: Would'st thou take my sweetness for nothing? What did the bee give the lotus? And the King trembled with passion, and putting his hand beneath her chin, he raised her face and kissed her on her ruby mouth. And in that moment he forgot everything, and he felt his life surging through him like a wave of the sea, and he became blind and deaf, and tottered on his feet. Then Anangarágá roused him from his stupor by saying: Wert thou afraid of losing me? And he said: O my beloved, I am saved from the mouth of death. Then she laughed low, and said: There was no cause for fear. For had I again answered a question to-day, I would have refused to answer to-morrow, even though thou hadst asked me nothing but my own name. But I could scarcely endure to wait till to-morrow, and it is better as it is. Then the King said: And why, O thou rogue, didst thou not refuse to answer before, and save me from torture? And Anangarágá said: It was torture also to me. And yet I know not why, but there was nectar in the poison, and know, O my lord, that this is the nature of women, that they love to torment their lover, and refuse him what they themselves most of all desire.

Then King Súryakánta almost swooned away from excess of joy. And he said: Come, let us leave this place, which is hateful to me as the scene of my sufferings, and let us return without delay to my capital. And the Princess said: As my lord pleases.

Then the King sent Rasakósha, with all the retinue of the Princess, on before. But he himself set out at night alone with his bride. And they rode on slowly, side by side, through the forest in the moonlight, he on a white horse, and she on a black, looking like the beauty of day and night incarnate in mortal form. And at midnight they stopped to rest in the forest. And the King lifted Anangarágá from her horse, and placed her in a bower of creepers under a great tree. And the moon shone with warm rays through the interstices of the leaves as through the marble trellis of a palace terrace. And there on a bed of leaves and flowers, he made her his wife by the Gándharwa109 marriage rite. And he played with the nooses of her blue-black hair, through which her eyes shone like moonstones in the moonlight; and he wove red ashóka flowers in her hair, and hung blue lotuses on her bosom, and put a girdle of white lotuses round her waist, and tied anklets of jasmine blossoms on her feet. And in the ecstasy of his passion, bewildered by her beauty, he exclaimed: Well are thou called Anangarágá, O my beloved; and yet a single name is insufficient to describe the infinite variety of thy thousand-rayed loveliness. Thou art Mrigalóchaná, for thine eyes are lustrous and frightened like the antelope's; and Nílanaliní, for thy dark hair is like a pool for the lotuses of thine eyes; and Madanalílálólatá, for those eyes dance with the tremulous light of love; and Shashilékhá, for thou art fair and fragile as a digit of the moon; and Bujalatá, for thy arms are curved and cling like creepers; and Kusumayashtí, for thy body is straight and slender like the stalk of a flower; and Kambukanthí, for thy neck is like a shell; and Rajanícháyá, for the sheen of thy beauty is like that of the night; and Láwanyamúrtí, for thou art the very incarnation of the perfection of loveliness: and Manóháriní, for thou ravishest my soul; and Madalaharí, for thou art a wave of the sea of intoxication; and Alipriyá, for the bees resort to the honey of thy lips, mistaking them for a flower; and Wajrasúchí, for thy intellect is like a diamond needle: and Hémakumbhiní, for thy bosom resembles a pair of golden gourds; and Pulinákrití, for the curves of thy hips are like the swell of a river bank; and Nánárúpiní, for thy beauty is infinite; and Bhrúkutíchalá, for the play of thy brows is like the lightning in the clouds; and yet all these names are powerless to paint thy celestial and overpowering fascination, which maddens me as I gaze at it. Then Anangarágá said, with a smile: O my lord, thou hast omitted, among all these names, the only one that really belongs to me. And the King said: What is that? Then she said: Thou art my deity, and I am possessed by thee in every particle of my being; and therefore call me Nílírágá, for my devotion110 to thee shall be constant and indelible as the dye of indigo. And know, O sun of my soul, that without this all the beauty of women is but nectar-poison.

Then the King's heart almost broke in his joy, and he exclaimed: Ha! I have obtained the fruit of my birth. All else is nothingness and futility. What can the future hold for me but this, or its absence, which would be worse than a thousand deaths? And he prayed to the all powerful and self-existent One111, saying: O Mahéshwara, let this heaven continue for ever, and let the chain of my existence be broken at this point! Or rather, let Time be destroyed for me, and let me remain, beyond its influence, for evermore in this present, this moment of union with my beloved!

And that moon-crested god heard him, and granted his wish. And he shot at that pair of lovers, as they slept in one another's arms in the moonlit creeper bower, a glance of his third eye, and reduced them to ashes. But he said: The chain of their existence cannot yet be broken, for they have not yet earned emancipation by penance and austerities. But they shall meet again, and be husband and wife, in another birth.

1

The last lines contain recondite philosophical allusions to the Creation, Preservation, and Destruction of the World, and other matters, in technical terms which defy translation. Life in Hindoo philosophy, as in that of the Middle Ages, carries about with it a perfume of death: there is in its atmosphere something melancholy, and even a little morbid, like the slow tolling of a bell.

2

Sansára-ságara-manthanam.

3

For milk the author has substituted a technical word which means the world considered as the scene of never-ending transmigrations. ('O world! O life! O time!') By this he implies that the nectar of his work it the residuum of much churning of life and experience of the world, and that it is destined to be immortal.

4

I have never experienced a stranger or more delightful sensation than when, as I was translating this work, I saw this very phenomenon on the Ghauts at Mahábaleshwar: a blood-red Moon going down into the hills at early dawn, with the Sun rising on the opposite peaks. Only the redness which the poet ascribes to the Sun was of course due to the haze of the atmosphere.

5

Though I make no attempt to assign a date to this MS., the reader should observe that in India printing has not superseded hand work. The Hindoos have religious prejudices against printed books, and they will not use them in their temples, or for sacred purposes.

6

A well written MS. in the Déwanágari character, is hardly if at all, inferior to print.

7

At some future time I hope to translate the remainder, or part of it.

8

Its principal beauty lies in the skill of its climax, which is lost by neglecting the order.

9

The poem is written in shlókas, or anushtubh, with occasional deviations (as e.g. the conclusion) into more elaborate metres.

10

Some such benedictory exordium as this is regarded as indispensable by every Sanskrit author: yet it is remarkable that Kálidás is careless of the rule; e. g. his Cloud and his Seasons begin at once without any invocation at all.

11

Shiwa.

12

Ganésha or Ganapati. See Day 1.

13

Saraswatí, the goddess of speech.

14

i. e. 'sun-beloved;' the name of a fabulous gem 'sunstone' (cp. 'moonstone'), said to possess magical properties and exhibit them when acted upon by the rays of the sun.

15

Ten millions.

16

A kind of play on the King's name: lóhakánta means a loadstone.

17

This method of bringing lovers together is part of a Hindoo story-teller's romantic machinery.

18

The Hindoo Cupid, who is said to possess five bewildering weapons.

19

Alluding to the King's name: see n. p. 1. 11 i. e. 'the passion, or the rosy-blush, of love.' (Pronounce the two first syllables to rhyme with 'among,' with a north-country g.)

20

These Nagas are beings of serpent nature, but often confounded with men: e. g. in Kathá Saritságara, I. 6, the nephew of the King of the Nágas is said to be a Brahman. Their women are of inconceivable loveliness.

21

Very few of the stories are really riddles, but they all give the Princess an opportunity of displaying her ready judgment and acumen. It will also be seen, that owing to the device with which the story concludes, there are really only nineteen days, instead of twenty-one.

22

Pronounce Russakósh. The name refers to the part he will play in the story: it means both 'a ball of mercury,' and 'a treasury of taste, wit, literary sentiments or flavours,' a sort of walking encyclopædia. The King's companion is a salient figure in Hindoo drama: he is a sort of Sancho Panza, minus the vulgarity and the humour.

23

This colloquialism is an exact facsimile of the Sanskrit expression.

24

A play upon his own name.

25

Ganésha, the god of obstacles and success. See Day 1.

26

An old name for Bhíls and other wild tribes.

27

'A tree with orange-coloured fragrant blossoms.'

28

The Hindoo Vulcan, sometimes, as here, used for the Creator, dhatri = Plato's [Greek: demiourgos]. Sanskrit literature is the key to Plato; much of his philosophy is only the moonlike reflection of Hindoo mythology.

29

Hindoo poets see a resemblance between rows of bees and eye-glances.

30

The Indian cuckoo. The crane is a by-word for inward villainy and sanctimonious exterior. The chakrawáka, or Brahmany drake, is fabled to pass the night sorrowing for the absence of his mate and she for him.

31

The very echo of Martial.

32

i. e. Rasakósha himself. The allusion is to a power, possessed by adepts in Yoga, of detaching the soul from the body. See Day 11.

33

The goddess of fortune and wealth, who was churned up out of the ocean, and according to some, appeared reclining on an open lotus. Coral is one of the nine gems.

34

i. e. an atheist. The opinions of this philosophical school may be found sketched in the Sarwa-Darshana-Sangraha, § 1.