Putta sighed. Disappointed, he agreed, “All right then.”
Praneshacharya, preparing to go, said, “When do I see you again? Tell Padmavati I’ll see her on my way back to Kundapura. Shall I move on then?”
Putta stood there, thinking. “How can I send you alone through the dark forest? I’ll come with you,” he said.
Praneshacharya was nonplussed. It seemed impossible to chase away this man by any tactic. “I don’t really want you to be bothered on my account,” he said. Putta didn’t budge.
“No bother, no trouble. I too have some business in Durvasapura. I’ve cousins in Parijatapura. You probably know my friend Naranappa there. When I went to Parijatapura once, I got to know him just as I got to know you now. O yes! I’m glad I remembered. The whole town knows Naranappa squandered his property. He can’t pass up anything wrapped in a sari, he’s that type. This is strictly between ourselves, Acharya-re. If you happen to know him, please don’t mention anything about Padmavati, and the way she invited you. Okay, why hide it from you? As soon as I got acquainted with Naranappa, he stuck to me like a leech, insisting I introduce him to Padmavati. But I don’t do such things, I’m not that cheap. Still, you know, what can you do when a brahmin falls all over you? Padmavati didn’t like his ways. He was such a horrible drunkard, she told me later. ‘Don’t you bring him here any more,’ she said. You’d better keep all this to yourself. I started on something and ended somewhere else. I told you, didn’t I, my village is a little beyond Tirthahalli. Naranappa owns an orchard there. It’s now razed to the ground, ruined out of sheer neglect. It’s years since he received from it a single arecanut due to him. Knowing him as I do, will he say No to me if I ask? So I’d like to try and ask him: ‘Rent out the orchard to me. I’ll work on it, improve it, it’ll also bring you some profit.’ That’s why I said, I’ll come with you, Acharya-re. You too will have company on the dark road. And I’ll get some work done.”
Praneshacharya listened to Putta restlessly. “Shall I tell him Naranappa is dead? Shall I tell him my true dilemma?” But he didn’t want to raise a big storm in that simple heart. In case he really decides to come along, it would be impossible not to tell him. Then it suddenly seemed a good thing to have Putta for company. “How can I face all those brahmins alone? First, let me try it all on Putta, bosom-friend of the present. Let’s see how I look in his eyes—that may be a good way of doing it.” Now the sky had become cloudless, bare. From the temple issued noises of gongs beaten, conches blown for worship. Must go now. “Let’s go then,” he said.
Just then a covered wagon came trundling along. Putta said, “Wait a minute.” He held out his hand and stopped the cart. From within the cart, a Smarta man in a gold-lace shawl put out his head and asked, “What do you want?”
“Does your cart, by any chance, go via Agumbe?” said Putta.
“Ha,” nodded the lace-shawled gentleman from within the cart.
“Do you have place for two? We want to get to Durvasapura,” said Putta.
“But we’ve place only for one.”
Putta took hold of his hand and said, “You’d better go, Acharya-re.”
“No, no. Let’s go together, on foot,” said the Acharya.
“Che, Che, you shouldn’t walk all the way and tire yourself out. I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” said Putta. The man in the shawl wanted them to hurry. “Then, are you coming? We’ll turn off a mile or two before we reach Durvasapura. One of you can come with us. Get into the cart. Quick.”
Putta insisted on Praneshacharya getting in, and pushed him in. Praneshacharya, not seeing any way out, climbed into the cart and sat down. The cart started moving. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Putta. “All right,” said Praneshacharya. Four or five more hours of travel. Then, what?
The sky was full of stars. The moon, a sliver. A perfectly clear constellation of the Seven Sages. A sudden noise of drum beats. Here and there, the flames of a torch. The hard breathing of the bullocks climbing the hillock. The sound of the cowbells round their necks. He will travel, for another four or five hours. Then, after that, what?
Praneshacharya waited, anxious, expectant.
NOTES
THESE rather minimal notes are part of the translator’s effort to “translate” and a confession of failures. They include:
(a) glosses on myth, ritual, flora, food, names, quotations (exx. Madhva, Matsyagandhi, saru);
(b) the original Kannada or Sanskrit words (exx. tamas, ekadashi), which I have replaced in the text by English glosses (exx. “Darkness,” “eleventh day of the moon”).
(a) is meant for the unspecialized non-Indian or non-Kannada reader,
(b) for fellow-Indians and Indianists.
No transliterations, only approximate Roman spellings, have been used.
Maruti: name of Hanuman, Monkey-god, and devotee of Rama (an incarnation of Vishnu). Hanuman is worshipped by devotees of Vishnu; his temple is usually outside the village, as here.
agrahara: “villages or land assigned to Brahmins for their maintenance” (Kittel); an exclusive settlement of brahmins.
Praneshacharya: the title acharya, “spiritual guide, learned man,” is added to certain brahmin names, especially among the Madhva sect to which most of the brahmins in this book belong.
Kashi or Benares: a holy city of North India, especially known for Sanskrit scholarship.
five-fold nectar: Panchamrita, the five nectarious substances: milk, curd, ghee, honey, and sugar, and a compound made of them, offered to gods and distributed to devotees on special days.
Narayana: one of the many names of the god Vishnu, uttered frequently as exclamation, blessing, etc. Such names have the power to redeem and protect.
saru: a well-seasoned sauce regularly eaten with rice.
consecrated water: aposhana, a ritual sipping of water from the palm of the hand at the beginning and end of a meal.
holy legends: Purana, a tale of the past, about gods, saints, etc.
lowcaste: shudra, the fourth caste.
Madhva and Smarta: brahmin sects, traditional rivals. Madhvas are the followers of the philosopher Madhva (13th century) who taught dvaita or dualism (soul and godhead are two entities, not one). Smartas follow Shankara (7th century) who taught advaita or monism (soul and godhead are one and the same). Madhvas are strict worshippers of Vishnu, and bear only Vaishnava names. For instance, Durgabhatta (a Smarta) is named after Durga the goddess, a manifestation of Shiva’s consort; nor does his name carry the suffix acharya. Note also how the name of heretic Naranappa (set against the entire brahmin community) is a form of Narayana (or Vishnu), localized to Naranappa, with none of the Sanskritic “markers” of orthodoxy like acharya, bhatta.
dharma: a central word in Hinduism, therefore multi-vocal, untranslatable; usually glossed “law, righteousness, duty, code, etc.”
Shankara: philosopher of monism: according to legend, the celibate philosopher was challenged in argument by a woman-philosopher and disqualified because he had experienced no sex. He qualified himself, without losing his celibate status, by magically entering the body of a king just dead and having intercourse with the queen—and returned to finish the argument.
wedding-string: tali, ceremonially tied by the bridegroom around the bride’s neck, as part of the wedding-ritual.
holy stone: saligrama, a black river-stone, worshipped as sacred to Vishnu.
“sharp”: cittini, “intelligent woman,” one of the eight types of women in Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra (manual of love).
eleventh day of the moon: ekadasi, a day of fasting for orthodox brahmins.
uppittu: salted (and spiced) dish made out of cream of wheat, rice, flattened rice, etc.
widows: some brahmin orthodox sects like the Smarta (Durgabhatta’s sect) insist on certain austerities for their widows; one of them is a shaven head.
Manu: “a generic name for fourteen successive mythical progenitors and sovereigns of the earth”; the first of these is supposed to be the
author of the Code of Manu, the most influential codification of Hindu laws and rules of conduct.
parijata: the coral tree, one of the five trees in heaven. Note that all these flowers are sacred to Vishnu, as Durgabhatta’s are sacred to Shiva.
Konkani: a person from Konkan on the west coast.
hot months: Chaitra (March–April), the first month of the Hindu year, a month of spring, and Vaishakha (April–May), the second month.
eighth month: Kartika (October–November).
rainy month: Shravana (July–August), the fifth lunar month.
Great Commentator: Tikacharya, a revered commentator on Madhva’s works.
Durvasa: a sage notorious for his chronic bad temper. The five Pandava brothers are the exiled heroes of the epic Mahabharata. Draupadi is their wife. Dharmaraja is the eldest, known for his patience and fairness; Bhima, the second brother, is known for his rashness and strength.
twelfth day of the moon dvadasi: on this day orthodox brahmins break their fast begun on the previous day (ekadasi, the eleventh day).
bund: embanked causeway.
twice-born: dvija: the epithet applies not only to brahmins and the other two upper-castes (kshatriya, “warrior,” vaisya, “tradesman”) but also to birds, snakes, various grains, and to teeth, etc.—anything that may be said to have two births (e.g. birds and snakes are born as eggs and reborn from them). Snakes are considered sacred and therefore should be cremated ceremoniously.
Hedonist School: the Charvaka School, materialists and hedonist philosophers, who believed in the slogan quoted—equivalent to “Enjoy yourself, even if it’s on borrowed money.”
ghee: clarified butter.
decadent age: kali, the present age, the last and the most decadent of the four ages.
permanent perfume: a classic precedent for a sage lusting after a lowcaste woman. Sage Parashara took Matsyagandhi (“the fish-scented woman”) on the river as she rowed him across—and blessed her body with a perennial fragrance.
aposhana: see note on consecrated water.
Achari: a vulgar disrespectful form of Acharya. In Acharya-re “-re” is a respectful vocative suffix. Naranappa plays with both forms here.
Kalidasa’s heroine, Shakuntala: Kalidasa, the great Sanskrit poet and dramatist (5th century?). His most celebrated heroine is Shakuntala.
Hari: another name of Narayana or Vishnu.
Ash-Demon: Bhasmasura obtained from Shiva a boon—that he could burn to cinders anyone on whose head he placed his hands. As soon as he received the boon, he wished to test it on Shiva himself who ran to Vishnu for rescue. Vishnu assumed the form of a seductive woman, and enticed Bhasmasura to learn Indian dancing. One of the dance postures required him to place his palm on his own head, which sent the gullible demon up in flames.
raised verandah: jagali, pyol.
Vedanta: “the end of the Vedas,” or the essential creed, expounded by three great Hindu philosophers, Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva.
rule for emergencies: apaddharma, a relaxation of ethical or other rules (dharma) during an emergency.
Yakshagana: a popular dance-drama of South Kannada country on classical themes.
Kuchela: a poor thin brahmin, who was a devotee and a friend of Lord Krishna.
Trivikrama: one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu: Vishnu appears as a dwarf (Vamana) to demon-king Bali and asks only for a small gift of land, measured by three paces of his small feet, which Bali unwittingly grants him, whereupon the dwarf grows to cosmic proportions (Trivikrama) and measures all of earth with one step, all the heavens with another, and with his third step pushes the awe-struck but enlightened demon Bali into the nether-world.
Nine Essences: rasa, “flavour, essence,” a central concept in Indian aesthetics. The business of art is to compose, make, evoke, present, etc. one or more rasas in the listener, reader, etc. The feelings of real life are bhavas, the raw material; the work of art composes, refines, structures, generalizes, etc. these into rasas. There are, traditionally, nine rasas.
Menaka, Vishvamitra: see note on Vishvamitra.
ever-auspicious, daily-wedded: nitya-sumangali, etc., traditional (and often ironic) description of prostitutes.
Draupadi: in the epic Mahabharata, Draupadi, wife of the five Pandava brothers, is wagered and lost to their rivals and cousins, the Kauravas, in a dice game. One of the Kaurava brothers drags her into court by her sari. She cries out to Lord Krishna for help, who miraculously makes the sari endless—so the molester finds it impossible to disrobe her. On other occasions, too, Draupadi prays to Krishna for help, never in vain—a common theme in mythological plays.
Indra, Yama, Varuna: Vedic gods. Indra: God of Heaven, the Rain-God; Yama: God of Death; Varuna: God of the Seas.
sacred designs: rangavalli, rangoli, auspicious and ornamental designs drawn with various coloured powders on the floor, in front of a house or an idol.
gain-O gain: in measuring numbers one and seven are taboo. One is called “gain” (jabha), and seven “one more.”
FOOD TABOOS (for brahmins): Dasacharya, a Madhva, would be breaking a taboo and would lose ritual status by eating cooked food in a Smarta house. For Madhva and Smarta, see notes above.
Sitavva: avva or “mother” is a respectful suffix added to women’s names by servants, etc. So Sitadevi is called Sitavva here.
flaming camphor: mangalarati, the lamp-service in a temple, when gongs and drums are beaten, conches blown; flowers, fruits and flaming camphor are offered to the deity’s image.
epic war: in the epic Ramayana, Maruti, or Hanumana, the monkey-devotee of Rama, carried a whole mountain on which grew life-giving herbal plants which alone could save Lakshmana (Rama’s brother) who had received a death-wound. In Maruti’s temples, the Monkey-god is often represented with a mountain on the palm of his hand.
amma: an intimate form of address for one’s mother, like mom, mummy, etc., in English.
constellation of the Seven Sages: the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. The seven stars are supposed to be Seven Sages.
farmers’ section: keri, usually any exclusive street or section where the lower castes (farmers, etc.) live; the non-brahmin counterpart of the brahmin agrahara.
Hirannayya: once a famous actor on the Kannada stage.
Vamana, Trivikrama: see note on Trivikrama.
Sadarame, Shakuntale: Kannada names of heroines in popular plays; see note on Kalidasa’s heroine, Shakuntala.
life-breaths: prana, the soul (as opposed to the body), vital power. Tradition lists five such vital “breaths.”
baby monkey: probably a reference to the way of the Monkey, or markatanyaya. The soul has two possible kinds of relations with the Lord: (a) like a baby monkey (markata) he may hold on to the mother-monkey as she goes about her business, indifferent to the little dependent, (b) like a kitten (marjara) he may do nothing, letting the mother-cat pick him up and move him where she will; (a) is the analogue of the way of Works, and (b) of the way of Faith (and surrender to God’s grace).
mantras: the gayatri mantra, a Vedic prayer/hymn, repeated by every brahmin at his morning and evening devotions; also chanted thousands of times to accumulate merit.
Goodness: sattvika, rajasika, tamasika, “Men of Goodness, Energy, or Darkness” (Zaehner’s tr.). There are three constituents or “strands” (guna) in all natural beings: sattva (goodness), rajas (passion, energy), tamas (darkness). Human beings differ according to the predominance of one or the other. For a clear text, cf. The Bhagavadgita 8.40: “There is no existent thing in heaven or earth nor yet among the gods which is or ever could be free from these three constituents from Nature sprang.” References to gunas are translated here by “Good” nature, “Energy” etc. with capitals.
Urvashi: a celestial nymph (apsara). The sight of her beauty is said to have caused the generation of certain sages. She was also cursed by the gods to live upon the earth, and became the love of Pururavas. Kalidasa (see note on Kalidasa’s heroine, Shakuntala)
wrote a play about their love. Like the myth of Parashara earlier, here is another myth connecting human and divine, beauty and sanctity, erotic and ascetic,—sharpening one of the central themes of this novel.
counter-clockwise: ritually speaking , clockwise (moving to the right) circumambulations (of an idol, a brahmin, a holy place, etc.) are auspicious, counter-clockwise movements are not.
Matsyagandhi: the fish-scented woman, see note on permanent perfume.
five-fold breath of life: see note on life-breaths.
wet dhotis: after a cremation, the brahmins have to bathe and wash their clothes. Dhotis are unstitched pieces of cloth worn by men wrapped round the waist.
remains of his wife’s body: the remains after a cremation, the ashes, bones, etc. are immersed in a running stream.
Mari: the dark goddess of death, plague, etc.; often a term of abuse.
dualities: dvandvas, like pain/pleasure, love/hate, are to be transcended, cf. The Bhagavadgita 2.45.
Trishanku: a king who engaged Sage Vishvamitra (see note on Vishvamitra) to send him to heaven against the will of the King of Heaven, Indra. Vishvamitra rocketed him heavenwards with his spiritual power, but Indra didn’t accept him. So Trishanku hung between two worlds and became the symbol for all those who hang similarly.
Vyasa: the sage and compiler of the epic Mahabharata was the off-spring of an illicit union between the fisherwoman Matsyagandhi and Sage Parashara.
Vishvamitra: a king turned sage, often given to passions of lust, pride and rage; was frequently tempted and lost his spiritual earnings. A celestial nymph, Menaka, was once sent to tempt him away from his penances which imperilled Indra, the Rain-God.
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