Vishnu is believed to assume ten transfigurations: Matsya, the fish; Kurma, the land tortoise; Varaha, the boar; Narasimha, the man-lion; Vamana, the dwarf; Parashurama; Rama; Krishna; the Buddha; and Kalki. According to the Brahmans, Vishnu, assuming the form of the Buddha, purposely introduced a heretical religion so that believers would be led astray, thus presenting the opportunity for the Brahmans to lead them back to their true religion—Hinduism.
Thus, along with the decline of Buddhism the cave temples at Ajanta in western India fell into ruin and became known to the world only twelve centuries later, in 1819, when a British Army corps chanced upon them.
The twenty-seven stone caves in the cliffs of the Wagora River were originally excavated in three different periods: in the second century B.C. and in the fifth and seventh centuries A.D. With the exception of caves 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13 constructed during the Hinayana period, all the rest belong to the age of Mahayana Buddhism.
After visiting the living holy land of Hinduism, Honda wanted to seek out the ruins of Buddhism, now extinct in India.
Ajanta was where he must go. Somehow it was his destiny.
This idea was substantiated by the fact that the caves themselves and the hotel and its surroundings were extremely quiet and simple, devoid of surging crowds.
As there were no facilities for lodgings around Ajanta, Honda registered in a hotel in Aurangabad with the thought of visiting the famous Hindu site of Ellora. Aurangabad was only eighteen miles from there, but sixty-six from Ajanta.
The best room in the hotel had been reserved for him by Itsui Products, and the finest car placed at his disposal. These advantages along with the Sikh chauffeur’s deferential attitude turned the English tourists in the hotel hostile. That morning in the dining room before setting out on the all-day tour, Honda had already felt the silent pact of antagonism that united the Britishers against the lone Asian tourist. It was even expressed overtly when the waiter brought a plate of bacon and eggs to Honda’s table before serving anyone else. An arrogant old gentleman with a handsome beard, doubtless some retired Army officer, seated with his wife at the next table, called the waiter over and admonished him sharply and curtly. After that, Honda was served last.
An ordinary traveler would have at once taken umbrage at such a situation, but Honda was obstinately impervious to trivia. Since Benares, some incomprehensible, thick membrane overlay his heart and everything slipped off its surface. Since the excessive respect of the waiter was surely the result of a generous tip paid in advance by Itsui Products, such incidents never affected the withdrawn dignity he had acquired during his term as judge.
The beautiful black car, assiduously cleaned and polished by more than five hotel employees with nothing else to do, stood in readiness for Honda’s departure, the various flowers of the front garden reflecting in its shining surface. Soon, with Honda as passenger, it was rolling over the lovely plains of western India.
The vast expanse revealed not a single human figure. Sometimes the supple, dark-brown forms of mongooses splashed in the swamp water beside the road or scurried across in front of the car; or a group of long-tailed monkeys would peer out at him from the branches.
Hope for purification arose in Honda’s heart. Purification in the Indian manner was too disgusting, and the sacraments he had witnessed in Benares were still in him like a raging fever. He craved a ladle of clear, cool Japanese water.
The expansiveness of the plains comforted him. There was no rice paddy nor other field under cultivation: only endless, beautiful plains stretching away, dotted with the deep indigo shadows of mimosa trees. There were swamps, streams, yellow and red flowers, and over it all, a brilliant sky hung like some colossal canopy.
There was nothing miraculous or extreme in this natural setting. The dazzling greenery radiantly exuded idle sleepiness. The plain itself had a tranquilizing effect on Honda whose heart had been seared by frightening and ominous flames. Instead of the spatter of sacrificial blood, a virginally white heron fluttered up from the jungle. The whiteness sometimes darkened when it passed before the deep green shade, but would emerge pure white again.
The clouds in the sky ahead were delicately convoluted, and their irregular borders gave out a silken sheen. The blue was fathomless.
Needless to say, a large component of the comfort Honda felt came with his awareness that soon he was to enter Buddhist territory, even though Buddhism had long been extinct.
To be sure, after experiencing the weird and variegated mandala of Benares, the Buddhism he dreamed of was as refreshing as ice, and already he felt a presage of the familiar Buddhist quietude in the bright stillness of the plains.
Suddenly Honda felt nostalgic. He was returning from a noisy kingdom dominated by living Hinduism to a familiar country of temple gongs, a land which had been destroyed but which had taken on a purity by that destruction. As he thought of the Buddha waiting for him to return from the Absolute he had experienced in Benares, he felt he had perhaps never expected an Absolute in Buddhism. In the tranquility of the homecoming he had dreamed of, he felt an unremitting closeness to what was gradually perishing. Beyond the beautiful, radiantly blue sky, the graveyard of Buddhism itself, the site of its oblivion was soon to appear. Even before seeing it, Honda clearly felt the somber coolness soothing his overheated mind, the coolness of the rock caves, and the limpidity of the water there.
It was a kind of weakening of intent. Perhaps the odiousness of color and the deterioration of flesh and blood had driven him to seek another religion which had petrified itself in solitude. Simple, pure extinction was suggested even by the shapes of the clouds beyond. Here was the illusion of shade, perhaps a reward from a former life, in the beautiful, luxuriant foliage. In this world of absolute morning quiet, still except for the lazy vibration of the car engine, the smooth vista of the plains slowly unfolded beyond the window and slowly but surely carried Honda’s heart home.
After a time the car reached the edge of a ravine cutting sharply into the flat plain. This was the first indication of Ajanta. They drove along the meandering road descending toward the bed of the Wagora which glistened at the bottom of the gorge like the sharp blade of a knife.
The teahouse where Honda stopped to rest was aswarm with flies. He looked out of the window immediately before him across the square toward the entrance to the caves. Going in now, giving in to his impatience, he felt, might infringe on the tranquility he was seeking. He bought a postcard, and taking his fountain pen in a clammy hand, he scrutinized for some time the picture of the caves crudely printed on the front.
Again there was a suggestion of noise here as in Benares. Black people in white clothes with suspicious eyes were standing around, and skinny children were shouting in the square, selling souvenir necklaces. The space was filled with bright yellow sunlight that reached to every cranny. On a table in the dark room lay three small dried-up oranges with flies crawling over them. The heavy, acrid odor of fried food wafted from the kitchen. He addressed the postcard to his wife Rié, to whom he had not written for some time. Then he wrote:
I’m here to see the cave temples at Ajanta. The tour’s about to start. I can’t drink the orange drink in front of me, because I see the edge of the glass is all dotted with fly spots. But don’t worry, I’m being very careful about my health. India’s really astonishing. You’re taking care of your kidneys, I hope. Love to Mother.
Could this be thought of as affectionate? He always wrote the same. The nostalgia and affection that had begun to gather like a haze in his heart had suddenly made him resolve to write. But when he tried to put his feelings into words, his sentences invariably turned out ordinary and dry.
Rié would always welcome his return with the same quiet smile she had displayed at his departure, no matter how many years he might leave her alone in Japan. Though her hair might bear a few more strands of white since he had left, the face which had seen him off and the one which would greet his return would coincide as perfectly as the
two identical crests on the sleeves of a formal kimono.
A touch of kidney trouble had made her profile somewhat vague, like a moon in daytime; and this countenance, now that he called it to mind, seemed more suitable for being visualized in memory than seen in reality. Of course, no one could dislike such a woman. In his heart Honda felt deep relief as he wrote the postcard, and he offered thanks to an unnamable something. It was a relief altogether different from the assurance of being loved.
Having written the card, Honda placed it in the pocket of the jacket which he had taken off and stood up. He would mail it at the hotel. As he set out across the sunny square, the guide sidled up like an assassin.
The twenty-seven stone caves had been excavated at midpoint in the cliffs overlooking the Wagora, where there were several layers of rocky outcrops. Starting from the river, the slope gradually steepened, going from rocks to grass; then it became a precipitous cliff covered with coppice. A white stone walkway connected the entrances to the caves.
The first cave was a chaitya, or “chapel.” There were the ruins of four chapels and twenty-three vihara, or “monks’ dwellings”; the first cave was one of the four.
Just as he had expected, the air inside had the musty coolness of dawn. A large image of the Buddha in a central recess was clearly visible; the smooth figure was seated in the lotus posture in the reflection from the entrance from which a patch of light the size of a doormat penetrated. There was not enough radiance to make out the frescoes on the ceiling and the surrounding walls. The ray of the guide’s flashlight unsteadily flitted here and there like a bat of light hovering about the cave. Again and again, depictions of an unexpected motley of worldly desires flashed into view.
Half-naked women with golden crowns on their heads and colorful sarongs wrapped around their hips appeared in various postures in the spot of the flashlight. Most of them held the stalk of a lotus flower in their hands. Their faces were all alike, like those of sisters. The extremely long, slanting eyes were half open and new-moons of eyebrows curved above them. The coolness of their intelligent, straight noses was softened by slightly flaring nostrils. The lower lip was voluptuous, while the mouth was pinched as though tied at both ends. Everything reminded Honda of what the face of Princess Moonlight in Bangkok would be when she grew up. The difference between these women in the frescoes and the little Princess lay clearly in their mature bodies. Their breasts were cloves of ripe pomegranate ready to burst, with necklaces of fragile gold, silver, and precious stones hanging loosely over them like ivy clinging to fruit. Some were half reclining, with their back turned, showing the voluptuous curve of their hips; some revealed an overflowing sensual abdomen barely covered by scant sarongs. Some women were dancing and others were on the verge of death. And as the flashlight shifted from one spot to another, to the incessant prattle of the guide spouting his usual lines, the women again disappeared one by one into the darkness.
As Honda emerged from the first cave, the tropical sunlight, like a violently struck gong, at once changed the murals into illusions. Musing in the daylight, one felt as if one had visited the caves in some long-forgotten memory. The only thing that offered reality was the Wagora gleaming below and the barren look of the rocks.
As usual, Honda was annoyed with the guide’s indifferent prattle. Thus, letting the others pass on, he remained for some time alone in the deserted ruins of a vihara which the guide had coldly passed by and which the other sightseers ignored completely.
The absence of any object enabled him to give free rein to his rich imagination. The vihara served this purpose well. There was no statue, no fresco, only thick, black columns standing at either side of the cave. A pulpit was situated in the center of a particularly dark recess inside, while a pair of large stone tables facing each other ran from the entrance to the back. Light streamed in and it seemed as if the monks had just risen to take the fresh air outdoors, leaving the stone tables which they used both for studying and eating.
The absence of color relaxed Honda’s mind, although by searching carefully he found a faint red spot of faded paint in a small depression on the stone table.
Had there been someone here who had just left?
Who could it have been?
Standing alone in the cool of the cave, Honda felt as though the darkness around him suddenly began to whisper. The emptiness of the undecorated, colorless cave awakened in him a feeling of some miraculous existence, probably for the first time since he had come to India. Nothing was more vividly real to his skin—clear proof of a fresh existence—than the fact that this existence had declined, perished, and was extinct. No, existence had already begun taking shape among the odor of the mildew that covered every stone in the cave.
He experienced an animal-like emotion. It was the mixture of joy and anxiety which he always felt when something was about to take shape in his mind; it was the excitement of a fox, who, having caught the distant scent of prey, slowly approaches his victim. He was not sure what it was, but the hand of his distant memory had already grasped it firmly in the back of his mind. Honda’s heart was turbulent with expectation.
He came out of the vihara and began walking in the outside light toward the fifth cave. The path described a wide curve and a new vista lay before him. The walkway before the caves passed inside some columns inserted in the rocks. The columns were wet, as they were located behind two waterfalls. Honda knew that the fifth cave was close by, and he stopped to look across the valley at the cascades.
One of the two waterfalls was interrupted as it ran over the surface of the rock, while the other streamed down in an unbroken silver cord. Both were narrow and precipitous. The sound of the cascades falling down the yellowish green rock cliff of the Wagora resounded clearly on the surrounding cliffs. Except for the dark hollows of the cave entrances, everything behind and to either side of the falls was bright: the light green clumps of mimosa, the red flowers bordering the water, the brilliant light playing on the falls, and the rainbow formed in the mist. Several yellow butterflies fluttered up and down, as though clinging to the straight line of Honda’s gaze as he watched the water.
Honda looked to the top of the falls and was surprised at the amazing height. They were so lofty that he felt as if he were in a world belonging to another dimension. The green of the cliff to either side of the falls was dark with moss and fern, but at the top it was a pure light green. There were some bare rocks too; the softness and brightness of the green foliage was not of this world. A black kid was grazing there; and above, in the absolute blue of the sky, an abundance of luminous clouds rose in magnificent disorder.
There was sound, but complete soundlessness dominated. No sooner was Honda overwhelmed by the silence than the noise of the waterfalls came wildly to his ears. He was enchanted by the alternate stillness and the sound of water.
He was impatient to get to the fifth cave where the water splashed, but a strange feeling of awe held him back. It was almost certain that nothing was waiting there. Yet Kiyoaki’s feverish and delirious words fell like drops of water in his mind.
“I’ll see you again. I know it . . . beneath the falls.”
Since then, he had believed that Kiyoaki had been referring to the Sanko falls on Mount Miwa. Probably so. But it occurred to Honda that the ultimate waterfall he had meant must be these cascades at Ajanta.
10
THE S.S. Southern Seas, of Itsui Shipping, Ltd., on which Honda left India, was a six-cabin freighter. The rainy season was over, and the ship headed across the Gulf of Siam, which lay in the cool northeast monsoon breeze. After passing by Paknam at the mouth of the Menam, the ship made its way upstream to Bangkok, watching for propitious tides. The sky without rain this November twenty-third was a ceramic blue.
Honda was relieved to be returning to the familiar city from a land of such pestilence. His mind was at rest, but he carried a heavy load of terrifying impressions from his journey, and he remained leaning against the railing of the upper deck througho
ut the voyage, the cargo groaning deep in the hold of his heart.
They passed a destroyer of the Thai Navy, but there was no sign of human life along the quiet bank covered with coconut, mangrove, and reeds. Finally, when the ship began its approach, with Bangkok to the right and Thon Buri to the left, tall stilted houses with palm-thatched roofs could be seen on the Thon Buri side, and the dark skins of orchard workers were visible under the sparkling leaves, cultivating bananas, pineapple, mangosteen, and other fruits.
Betel nut trees, which the climbing fish preferred, thrived in one corner of the orchard. On seeing them, Honda remembered the old lady-in-waiting who chewed on betel wrapped in kimma leaves that tinted her mouth all red. The modernist Phiboon had already forbidden its use. The old ladies had apparently dispelled the gloom of the regulation by chewing the nuts away from the capital at Bang Pa In.
Sculled boats carrying water became more numerous, and at length the masts of commercial and naval ships formed a forest in the distance. It was Khlong Toei, the port of Bangkok.
The setting sun added a strange brilliance to the muddy waters, making them appear a smoldering rose color; it added further iridescence to the patches of oil, reminding Honda of the smooth texture of the lepers’ skin he had so frequently seen in India.
As the ship drew up to the pier, Honda recognized the obese branch manager of Itsui Products, two or three clerks, the director of the Japan Club, and behind them, Hishikawa, who looked as though he were hiding among the people waving their hats in welcome. Immediately he felt depressed.
As soon as Honda came ashore, Hishikawa grabbed the briefcase from his side before the Itsui clerks had the chance. He acted with unprecedented obsequiousness and diligence.
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