Read Online THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 by Ramesh Menon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ramesh Menon
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went through the wooded foothills, crossing biting rillets. She climbed over the sheerest faces of rock and ice, which nimble kinnaras would have shunned for being too hazardous. Through breathtaking gorges, hidden in the naves of towering ranges, she climbed on and on, like a spirit who had lost her way in eternity.
Magical sunrises and sunsets lit the landscapes around her in reverberant colors and her tiny form as she went along, at times crawling on all fours through sculpted snowdrifts. She had no eyes for their incomparable beauty; locked into her obsession, she plunged blindly on. At night unparalleled moons bathed her in ethereal luster. Some nights, just the stars, seeming like small moons themselves at this height, shone down in distant kindness. But she hardly noticed that they sought to comfort her with their subtle influences.
On she went, while knots of sapphire-eyed kimpurusha fauns and their oread mates stepped out of caves embedded in the ice-faces of deep valleys and paused their pale orgies to stare at her. Grave siddhas heard her footfalls pass them, where they sat in meditation, often covered entirely by snow. Snowflakes fell off their eyelids as they blinked at the human princess. For princess she so obviously was who climbed along this secret way with darkness filling her heart to bursting. Once a young gandharva Elf whistled hopefully to her, his mellifluous note echoing off glassy slopes. But Amba did not hear him.
She went grimly past five mountains, one of them a secret, golden pyramid. She ate just wild berries on her white way. At last, she crossed the Himalaya and arrived at a solitary massif that thrust its peak at the sky to the north of the great range. Seeing that most sacred of all mountains, Amba’s eyes softened. The lone mountain was her destination; here she hoped to find the redress she had not found anywhere else. She lay on her face in the snow and worshipped Kailasa, looming like a full moon before her. She called out, in agony and devotion, to the master of that mountain: Siva, Lord of Gods.
She climbed halfway to the summit of Kailasa and she was exhausted now. She made her home in a shallow cave and began a tapasya fiercer than her penance in the forest. This one lasted years.
One day, when spring flushed on ice-bound Kailasa after a savage winter, Amba felt impelled to open her eyes that had seen nothing for a year but the inner spaces. There, in glory and in an eternal hermit’s guise, stood Siva the Mahayogin. He smiled at her, while the emerald cobras he wore as ornaments on his ash-coated body twined around him.
With a sigh, Amba prostrated herself at the Lord’s feet. Smiling, Siva said, “Stop your tapasya, my child, or you will melt all the snow on Kailasa! I have come to bless you with what your heart desires and I see it wants just one thing.”
Amba cried, “Who will kill Bheeshma?”
His eyes, which had seen the constellations begin, twinkled at her. “Why, you yourself, Amba, for nothing would please you more.”
“I, my Lord? But I am no kshatriya, certainly not one to match Bheeshma.”
“Not as you are in this life, but as you shall be in your next one.”
She was dismayed. “But I will not remember anything of this life. What sweetness will revenge have if I don’t know what it is for?”
But Siva, whose power turns the nebulae on their axes, replied, “But you will, Amba. You will remember every bit of this life, as clearly as if there was no break of death between it and the one to come.”
Her cry of joy rang among precipices and she fell to kissing his feet. She was light as a bird, when Siva had blessed her.
“Lord, where will I be born when I am dead?”
“Where a garland of lotuses hangs, waiting for you.”
He melted out of her sight, leaving just the ineffable memory of his presence and his boon. Feverish Amba built herself a pyre from dry branches. She kindled it with a twig she set alight with the power of her mind. With no
Magical sunrises and sunsets lit the landscapes around her in reverberant colors and her tiny form as she went along, at times crawling on all fours through sculpted snowdrifts. She had no eyes for their incomparable beauty; locked into her obsession, she plunged blindly on. At night unparalleled moons bathed her in ethereal luster. Some nights, just the stars, seeming like small moons themselves at this height, shone down in distant kindness. But she hardly noticed that they sought to comfort her with their subtle influences.
On she went, while knots of sapphire-eyed kimpurusha fauns and their oread mates stepped out of caves embedded in the ice-faces of deep valleys and paused their pale orgies to stare at her. Grave siddhas heard her footfalls pass them, where they sat in meditation, often covered entirely by snow. Snowflakes fell off their eyelids as they blinked at the human princess. For princess she so obviously was who climbed along this secret way with darkness filling her heart to bursting. Once a young gandharva Elf whistled hopefully to her, his mellifluous note echoing off glassy slopes. But Amba did not hear him.
She went grimly past five mountains, one of them a secret, golden pyramid. She ate just wild berries on her white way. At last, she crossed the Himalaya and arrived at a solitary massif that thrust its peak at the sky to the north of the great range. Seeing that most sacred of all mountains, Amba’s eyes softened. The lone mountain was her destination; here she hoped to find the redress she had not found anywhere else. She lay on her face in the snow and worshipped Kailasa, looming like a full moon before her. She called out, in agony and devotion, to the master of that mountain: Siva, Lord of Gods.
She climbed halfway to the summit of Kailasa and she was exhausted now. She made her home in a shallow cave and began a tapasya fiercer than her penance in the forest. This one lasted years.
One day, when spring flushed on ice-bound Kailasa after a savage winter, Amba felt impelled to open her eyes that had seen nothing for a year but the inner spaces. There, in glory and in an eternal hermit’s guise, stood Siva the Mahayogin. He smiled at her, while the emerald cobras he wore as ornaments on his ash-coated body twined around him.
With a sigh, Amba prostrated herself at the Lord’s feet. Smiling, Siva said, “Stop your tapasya, my child, or you will melt all the snow on Kailasa! I have come to bless you with what your heart desires and I see it wants just one thing.”
Amba cried, “Who will kill Bheeshma?”
His eyes, which had seen the constellations begin, twinkled at her. “Why, you yourself, Amba, for nothing would please you more.”
“I, my Lord? But I am no kshatriya, certainly not one to match Bheeshma.”
“Not as you are in this life, but as you shall be in your next one.”
She was dismayed. “But I will not remember anything of this life. What sweetness will revenge have if I don’t know what it is for?”
But Siva, whose power turns the nebulae on their axes, replied, “But you will, Amba. You will remember every bit of this life, as clearly as if there was no break of death between it and the one to come.”
Her cry of joy rang among precipices and she fell to kissing his feet. She was light as a bird, when Siva had blessed her.
“Lord, where will I be born when I am dead?”
“Where a garland of lotuses hangs, waiting for you.”
He melted out of her sight, leaving just the ineffable memory of his presence and his boon. Feverish Amba built herself a pyre from dry branches. She kindled it with a twig she set alight with the power of her mind. With no
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