The Mountain Goddess

by Shelley Elizabeth Schanfield

  “Do you think I’d disturb you for trifles?” Indra growled.

  “Well, stop cowering. Tell me.”

  Indra glowered. “Mahisa tricked Brahma into making him invincible.”

  “This isn’t my affair. Go to Brahma.” He shut his eye and bowed his head, resting his head on his chin.

  “Brahma doesn’t like to admit it when he makes a mistake.”

  Shiva raised his chin and opened his terrible eyes. Even my staunch tigress heart fluttered when he gazed over us. “Surely all of you together can defeat one buffalo.”

  “Are you listening? Mahisa is invincible,” Indra retorted. “If you don’t help us fight him, he will become the Destroyer and perform the Dance of Destruction when this universe collapses, not you.”

  “That’s serious, I agree,” he said. “But it will have to wait until I finish this practice.”

  “By the time you’ve reached samadhi,” Indra said, “it will be too late.”

  Shiva frowned. He turned his terrible eyes on Durga and me. He filled me with something beyond awe, but I did not flinch.

  “Durga, isn’t it? Come closer; let me take a good look at you.” It is known that all ascetics appreciate a beautiful woman, and the Supreme Ascetic was a great connoisseur of goddesses.

  With Durga straight and tall on my back, I padded proudly forward.

  The Lord of Yoga looked her up and down. “Gods,” he said, letting a rare smile play on his lips, “here is our savior. We should give this warrior goddess eight of the most potent divine weapons, one for each of her lovely arms.” He paused and gave her a penetrating stare. “I myself will lend my trident.”

  Durga slipped off my back and took the Great God’s glorious trident from his outstretched arm. Her eyes shone as she tested its heft, experimenting with grips and angles. Then Indra offered his thunderbolt and Vishnu his discus. Soon Durga had a spear, a mace, a bow, a flail, and the gods’ own conch shell as well.

  “Even with the gods’ own weapons,” Shiva said, “Mahisa may defeat you, fair one. But if you succeed, I’ll grant you any boon you wish.”

  Durga laughed. “I need no boon, though from you, Destroyer, I would accept one.” She turned to me with fierce and eager joy. “It’s what we have sought, Rani. This is no contest that’s over before it has begun. There is much evil in the world, and Mahisa has many allies. He may defeat us even if we’re armed with such powerful weapons, and if we fail it means the end of the universe.”

  “It’s been a while since I hunted a fine buffalo,” I replied. “I have an urge to sink my fangs into this Mahisa’s neck and feel the gush of good, hot blood in my mouth.”

  No doubt some poet of another age will write an epic that gets it all wrong, but in truth it was no fight. The instant she blew a shattering blast on the conch, Durga’s powerful radiance seduced Mahisa. His invincible strength deserted him so that she needed no divine weapon but only her own humble steel sword to behead him. Then I wheeled around and carried her into the midst of his demon army. Her eight arms whirled as she hurled Vishnu’s discus and Indra’s thunderbolt and wielded the other heavenly armaments, wreaking such slaughter that the asuras dropped their weapons and ran.

  When the last of them had scampered off the field, Durga and I laughed at their cowardice. She had just strapped Mahisa’s severed head to her back and leaped astride me when a green-skinned demoness rose from behind a pile of corpses and raised her bow.

  “Mahisa, my love, I will avenge you,” the rakshasa shrieked. “Durga! Drop your divine weapons and fight me with your own sword, if you dare.”

  “No, Rani!” Durga cried as I leaped toward the demoness with a roar. The hideous green creature’s arrow took me in the shoulder, and I tumbled to the ground. The goddess rolled away from me and jumped to her feet.

  “Now it’s a fair fight,” the rakshasa said.

  Those were her last words. Before the demoness could notch another arrow Durga had lopped off her head. Then the goddess rushed back to me. “Rani!” she cried.

  “It’s nothing. It will heal in no time. You must go collect your boon from Lord Shiva.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find a place in the forests along Ganga’s banks to rest and recover.” I knew already that the arrow was poisoned. The wound throbbed terribly, but I didn’t want to show Durga my pain.

  “How can I ride to the cave on Mount Kailash without you, Rani?”

  “If you would do me the honor, Goddess,” someone growled, “I will carry you.” It was Vishnu in his lion form.

  “Namaste, Narasimha.” Jealousy stabbed me in the heart. Someone else would carry my fierce rider.

  “Namaste, Rani.” He looked in my eyes, and I could see he understood. It was better this way. Durga would remember me as her courageous companion, not as a wounded and dying animal.

  Ah, bittersweet happiness to watch her ride on the lion god’s back towards Himalaya’s peaks. I limped toward the forest, where I wandered for days, unable to hunt because of pain and stiffness. Without food I weakened fast. My wound festered. Almost delirious with fever, I smelled a prey known for its weakness and stupidity, the only game I could hope to catch.

  The scent led to a clearing under a large fig tree with many aerial roots and thick branches. In front of the tree, a young man sat by a little fire, stirring a pot. He had long, matted hair and wore a white cloth around his lean, stringy loins. Not much, but he would do for a meal. Even as this thought crossed my mind, my legs buckled under me. I collapsed and knew no more.

  I awoke to searing pain. The young man was dressing my wound with a plaster of ground mustard seed mixed with cobwebs. I wanted to roar in agony, but could barely raise my head off the ground to produce a weak rumble.

  “I’m sorry to hurt you,” the young man said, gazing at me with eyes the color of amber. They seemed to see through me. I had to look away. “The sting means the poultice is working. It’s drawing the poison from your body. The pain will subside soon.”

  He offered me some water from his begging bowl. I lapped at it, spilling most. He went several times to a little well ringed with stones and drew water, brought it to me and took my huge head in his lap to help me drink. His sweaty smell was enough to drive me mad. I licked his salty skin but was too enfeebled to raise a paw and slash his neck.

  After my thirst was slaked, he eased my head to the ground, and I lost consciousness again.

  When I next awoke, the pain had indeed lessened. My hunger, however, was very great. I was so weak I could still barely raise my head, much less sit up. There was no hope of hunting yet. Nearby the young man sat in the lotus pose, deep in meditation. My first thought on seeing him was that I wasn’t so far away that I couldn’t drag myself there and make a meal of him.

  The idea made me faint all over again, and I closed my eyes. If I didn’t eat soon, death would be inevitable. My life or his? I was Durga’s mount, and he was just a hermit. I could accept the stain on my karma if I harmed this holy man, yet my desire to eat someone who had so nobly come to my aid shamed me. I opened my eyes and he caught them in his amber gaze.

  “Namaste,” he said after a moment, joining his palms at his heart and bowing over them. “My name is Mahasattva.”

  “Namaste. I am Rani.”

  He smiled into my eyes. “I’ve cooked some rice for you.”

  “Very kind, holy one.” He fed it to me and I ate greedily. It did not satisfy my hunger, but it helped. I was grateful, yet a tigress can’t live on rice. “Thank you, Mahasattva, for your generosity. But I fear if I don’t have meat soon, I will die. Can you hunt?”

  Mahasattva’s brow was troubled. “I’d bring you a deer if I could, but I cannot.”

  “Ah,” I said, “I see, you don’t have a bow, but perhaps you could use the rope from the well and set snares. A brace of rabbits will do just as wel
l—”

  “Lack of a bow isn’t what stops me.”

  “What then?” I asked. If he was going to be troublesome, perhaps I should eat him. I began to salivate.

  Mahasattva paused. “I’m the son of a great king, and was once his heir. As penance, I renounced my father’s throne and took a vow to seek the truth under a bodhi tree. I cannot harm a living creature.”

  “Penance?” If he were one of those ascetics with a distorted sense of ethics, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to make a meal of him.

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “For a terrible crime.”

  He seemed very young to have sinned so greatly. It’s a weakness of mine that a good story can distract me from important matters, even great hunger. “Tell me why you gave up a kingdom to seek moksha.”

  He bowed his head in prayer, then began.

  “I was my father’s pride and joy, excelling in the warriors’ arts. I was just as at home in a soldier’s tent as my father’s luxurious palace. I proved myself so well in battle that at an early age he gave me a hundred beautiful concubines. That was my downfall. I became very greedy for pleasures of the flesh and forgetful of the restraint that is part of a king’s dharma.”

  “Humans could avoid much misery if you mated only to reproduce, as we tigresses do,” I interrupted peevishly. “A quick tumble, and that’s that. We mothers raise our cubs alone. It’s much easier than having a male around, who is as likely to eat his own flesh and blood as teach it anything useful.”

  “Perhaps so,” he said, returning my rudeness with quiet dignity.

  “Forgive me,” I said, annoyed with both my own bad manners and his courtesy. “Please go on.”

  “I conceived a burning desire for my brother Devapi’s betrothed, a beautiful young girl called Ahalya. They were much in love with each other, and for this I despised Devapi. I had so little knowledge of my own heart that I didn’t know I envied him. I brooded as to how I could seduce this virtuous girl. Obsessed as I was with her, I lost interest in my carousing, and thus hit on the perfect scheme.

  “I sent a servant to follow her and learn her routine. He told me that at a certain time each day, she went to pray in a secluded spot in the royal gardens where there was a stone image of Radha and her beloved Krishna. The next day I went to that spot and spread a sage’s black antelope skin on the ground near the shrine. Underneath an ashoka tree smothered with red blossoms, I bowed my head as if in prayer. When Ahalya came upon me, I clearly frightened her. She turned to rush away, but I begged her to stay. She hesitated, as I suspected she would. All women are fascinated by a debauched rogue.”

  “Thus I have heard,” I said, completely distracted from my pain. “Yet another way we tigresses differ from you humans. A tigress seeks a bold mate whose seed is strong, who has proved himself as a hunter, who understands the laws of survival.”

  Mahasattva inclined his head. “I bow to the superior wisdom of your race.”

  “But go on,” I said. “What happened then?”

  “I sat with eyes downcast,” Mahasattva continued. “I was following her, I told her, because I passionately admired her purity. Ahalya blushed and said she must go, but I begged her to stay and tell me how to mend my ways, raising moist, pleading eyes to her own.

  “I knelt before her and, taking her hand, raised it to my lips. A tear rolled down her cheek. At that, I knew she was mine. No woman can resist a sinner she thinks she has saved. I pulled her down. ‘No, Mahasattva,’ she cried, but I knew what she wanted. I fastened my mouth on hers while she writhed underneath me with equal passion, or so I thought.

  “At the very moment I took her, someone gasped and gave an anguished cry. ‘Ahalya! Mahasattva!’

  “I rolled away from the girl. Standing nearby was my brother Devapi, his face stricken and pale.

  “‘Devapi,’ cried Ahalya choking with tears. ‘He attacked me.’

  “‘I have eyes, Ahalya,’ Devapi whispered. He gazed at her a moment, mouth twisted in pain and revulsion. He gave me a look of utter hatred, turned on his heel and left.

  “I laughed. Ahalya turned to me, her face contorted and tearstained. Until that moment it had not occurred to me she did not want my attentions. My pride was wounded. ‘You little fool,’ I said contemptuously, and stalked away.

  “The next day, they found her hanging from a limb of the ashoka tree. Its red blossoms had all fallen and clung to her body like a bridal garment. My servant told me of this. I could not bear to go look myself.”

  “And you gave up everything after that?” I asked, deeply moved. Though human love often defies common sense, it does inspire great deeds.

  “I begged Devapi’s forgiveness and renounced the throne in his favor. I went to my Brahmin preceptor, whose teachings I had often mocked, and in true humility asked him how to atone for my wickedness. He said I should become a hermit and never harm another living thing, but live only to serve.”

  “I understand now why you can’t hunt.” I thought a moment. “But surely, if you set a snare for one small pheasant, and didn’t kill it but brought it to me…”

  He shook his head. “Alas, that would be just as if I had killed it.”

  He was silent for a long time, long enough that my hunger began to get the better of me. Maybe I should eat him. He looked at me as if he read my thoughts.

  “I can offer you flesh,” Mahasattva said quietly. “My flesh.”

  I hated myself.

  “No.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I could—you mustn’t—it isn’t right!” I managed to choke out, while instinct told me to sink my fangs into his throat.

  “But don’t you see, Rani,” he replied. “It’s dharma to accept a gift, as well as to give one. Accept your life from me.”

  When I had eaten my fill, the few bones that remained of Mahasattva disappeared in a cloud of atoms, a sign of the great merit of his deed. His flesh gave me the strength to hunt on my own, and when I had fully recovered my strength I went to the Lord of Yoga.

  “A splendid act on Mahasattva’s part,” Shiva said when I finished my tale. “Really, I know several gods who could learn a thing or two from the example of such a noble mortal. However, you will need a great deal of merit, Rani, to undo the harm you did when you ate a holy man. This is a black stain on your karma, even though he offered you his flesh.” The lid of the Great God’s third eye fluttered a bit. “Yet I’m not one to judge. I murdered a Brahmin, and must drink out of this as penance.” He lifted the white skull he held in his left hand and gazed at it. “It is possible to make amends,” he said.

  “Whatever you command, Supreme Ascetic.”

  Shiva set his drinking vessel next to him on the antelope skin. “In spite of the stain on your karma, you deserve a boon for carrying Durga so fearlessly into battle with Mahisa. As a sign of my favor, Rani, I make your orange fur white like the ashes of the cremation grounds that are my home, and stripe it black with the charred remnants of the pyres that burn there. The time will come that you can give your life for a worthy human, as the noble Mahasattva gave his for you. When you have made this ultimate sacrifice, my boon is that you will attain moksha without having to take rebirth in human form. You will join Mahasattva in the eternal bliss of atman, the Ultimate.”

  And so I have wandered the forests between Himalaya’s peaks and Ganga’s waters for thousands of years, seeking the human to whom I could give my life. When I met Mala-ji, she was just a little outcaste girl, a few years younger than you, but the instant I saw her I knew I had found the one I sought.

  Oh, Rani! You haven’t really said why you call her Mala-ji. How did you know it was she you must follow?

  Don’t you feel her power?

  But what did she do to earn your devotion?

  That is her story.

  Tell me, Dhara wanted to say, but a gust of wind swept the question away and up a
mongst the millions of burning stars. It would have to wait until Mala wanted her to know the whole of it.

  Rani’s ears flicked as the tigress and Dhara stared into the moonless darkness, watching for an unseen enemy.

  The road to Varanasi

  The Uttarapatha stretched eastward, the road sometimes following along Ganga’s waters, glinting under the stars, sometimes winding through shadowy, thick forest where solitary tigers, dangerous thieves, and voluptuous apsaras and their demon lovers lurked. Kanthaka galloped through the night without tiring.

  At last Ushas spread her pink-tinged robe across the sky. Chandaka’s heart lightened as Surya’s chariot climbed. Dark shadows filled the forest on either side, but the sun-bleached dust of the Uttarapatha stretched bright before them.

  When the sun was at its zenith, they stopped to water Kanthaka at a spot where Ganga flowed near the broad white road, then proceeded at a slower pace.

  Heat shimmered on the horizon. “We should camp in the trees and not move again until dark,” Siddhartha said, taking off the white cloth tying his unbraided hair and wiping his face.

  “We’re lucky we didn’t encounter anyone,” Chandaka replied. “Or did you use some power to stop all trade?” He would never spend endless hours practicing yoga to learn those sorts of tricks, but he was glad his friend did.

  “I’m not that good. It’s all the fighting and banditry that’s keeping caravans away. But we should get off the road. Look for a path into the forest. We’ll find a hermitage where we can stay.”

  “How much money did you bring?” Chandaka said, looking doubtfully at the saddlebags. The one tied alongside the empty leather holster for Siddhartha’s bow and quiver was almost flat. The one tied on Kanthaka’s other flank could not be described as bulging either. Siddhartha had promised he would pack enough to get them to Varanasi, where they could live on alms. Live on alms! That would be a good lesson for the prince.