And as he listened to the squabble, all at once he uttered a solitary shout of laughter. And instantly, those two very foolish disputants took to their heels, and fled away at full speed in opposite directions, taking his laughter for a thunderbolt. And seeing them go, the Daughter of the Mountain said to her lord: Well might thy laughter be aroused by the exceedingly contemptible behaviour of that pair of silly Brahmans. Then said Maheshwara: Nay, it was not that which caused my laughter. For these ridiculous mortals commonly dispute in precisely this manner, making use of abuse, and even blows, instead of reasoning, blinded by vanity and arrogance and passion. And if I were to laugh at every instance of the kind, I should never stop laughing, night or day. For there is no end to just such arguments as these. Then said Párwati: At what then didst thou laugh? And the moony-crested god said slowly: I laughed, to think of the amazing self-ignorance of that big boasting Brahman. For he is the very man, who in one of his former incarnations so egregiously failed, in exactly such an effort of asceticism as that which he described himself now just about to undergo, though he has utterly forgotten all about it, and never even dreams that he is travelling fast, not towards emancipation, but away from it: since all his acts in recent births are nothing but so many steps downward into the abyss of reincarnation, out of which he will not find it so easy, again to reascend. For when a soul is on the downward path, nothing in the world is so difficult as to alter its direction into that of the ascent, or even to stop at all; seeing that every fresh error adds weight to its burden, and impetus to its speed. And if he only knew it, this down-goer would be utterly appalled at the prospect of the innumerable myriads of years that lie before him, stretching away like a never-ending desert of waterless sand, through which he must absolutely pass, in birth after birth, each terminated by a death, before he will succeed in changing his tendency to darkness. For the waves of the sea of works are over his head, and he resembles a stone, sinking continuously down, down, in a bottomless and clammy slough of evil, created by himself.
Then said Párwati: And what then was this old endeavour, the very recollection of whose contrast with his brag so moved thy laughter? And the god said: It is a long story, and travelling at this pace, if I begin it, we shall arrive at Kailàs long before it ends. But if, as it seems, I must absolutely tell thee all about it, I will regulate the speed of our advance, so as to keep pace with the movement of the tale, ordering matters so, as to arrive at Kailàs and the conclusion of the tale exactly at the same moment. Moreover, it would be a shame to hurry. For I love to watch the lustre of my moon, noiselessly stealing like a thief into the shadowy gorges of thy father's huge valleys, and stripping from his sides that carpet of rich colour which the setting sun bestows upon them, to spread over them instead that cold and melancholy pallor of her own, which resembles an atmosphere of the camphor of death.
Know then, O thou Snowy One, that long ago, in a former birth, this boaster was a Brahman, and his name was Trishodadhi,[12] and he was, by hereditary descent, the minister of a king, named Ruru. And as it happened, King Ruru was a spoiled child. And then, being betrayed by his queen in his youth, he fell into a violent hatred of all women, that, strange to say! exhibited itself in the form of love. For wishing as it were to wreak his vengeance on the whole sex for the crime of one, he began like a mad bee to rove furiously from flower to flower, making love to every woman in the world that took his fancy, and then throwing her away as soon as won – taking all possible pains to obtain the love of each, only to flout her, the moment it was his. And like a deadly plague, he gradually corrupted the women of his kingdom, who nearly all found him irresistible, not merely because he was a king, but still more because of his extraordinary beauty, being as he was a good thing changed and converted into evil by the misconduct of his wife. And he was dreaded by the husbands and fathers of his kingdom, and above all by his minister, Trishodadhi. For Trishodadhi possessed a wife much younger than himself, and recently married, named Watsatarí.[13] And she was well named, resembling, in youth and beauty, the horns of the new moon; and she hovered between the charm of the woman and the child, as the moon does between the two incomparable moments of delicate epiphany and round perfection. And yet, unlike the moon, she was always invisible to everybody, save only himself. For his natural jealousy, which was extreme, was accentuated by her extraordinary beauty, and his own age. And fearing all the men in the world, above all he feared the king, and passed his life perpetually trembling lest Ruru should set eyes on her; and he kept her very scrupulously hidden, like a priceless pearl, from all eyes but his own. And though he doted on her, yet against his will he was obliged to leave her much alone, for all the burden of the state was thrown upon his shoulders by the king, who utterly neglected all affairs, intent on nothing but pursuing his amours. And being thus preoccupied, Trishodadhi had only his intervals of leisure for his wife. And yet, all the while he was not near her, he was everlastingly tormented by his jealousy and fear, which like busy painters drew him endless rows of pictures of his wife, surrounded in his absence by innumerable lovers, created out of nothing by his own imagination, and all, as it were, but so many copies of the king; as if, like the slayer of Kamsa,[14] King Ruru possessed the power of self-multiplication, appearing in just as many bodies as he pleased. And though Watsatarí was in reality purer than a tear, he was haunted by a swarm of suspicions, which like bees buzzed for ever in the ear of his uneasy soul, and drove him almost into madness, while like a gardener he strove to preserve his blue honey-laden lotus from the onslaughts of their importunate and greedy troops. And in order to place her as far as possible beyond the reach of any danger, he kept her in a residence that resembled a fortress, and shut her in a garden, surrounded by a lofty wall. And he never went to see her without quivering with anxiety, lest he should discover, on arriving, that what he was always fearing had actually come to pass. And so in fact it did. For one day, returning from his duties long before he was accustomed, as if destiny had determined to gratify his apprehensions, when he entered the garden, where his wife was in the habit of wandering for her diversion, he looked, and saw her, in the very arms of the king.
So when he saw it, Trishodadhi stood for a single instant, silent, gazing at that pair with eyes that were suddenly filled to the very brim, first with amazement, and then with anguish, and next with anger, and finally with ice. And then he turned away, saying slowly to himself: Miserable wretches, what after all is the use of astonishment, or pity for myself, or even wrath with you? It is not you that are to blame, obeying as ye do the incorrigible instincts of your sex and your depravity, and rewarding one who has loaded both of you with benefits with the blackness of ingratitude. But it is rather I myself who am to blame, for putting any faith whatever, were it fleeting as a jot of time, in this treacherous and unsubstantial world, filled full to the very brim with lovers and women, snakes and tigers, and betrayers and betrayed; on which I will this very instant turn my back for ever, as indeed, had I not been utterly blinded by passion and delusion, I should have done already, long ago. And even as he said, so he did. And he went straight away, there and then, never to return. And abandoning his wife and his office and his home, counting them all as grass, he threw away his skin, like a snake, and becoming a pilgrim, turned his steps, without losing a single instant, to the wilderness of the Windhya hills.
And as he went along, that very miserable Brahman said angrily to himself, with tears in his eyes: Ha! what was the Creator about, in creating such a world as this, where evil-doers prosper, and virtue comes to ruin, and fidelity and service and devotion gain nothing in reward, but villainous ingratitude, and bitter disappointment? Surely it was a blunder; and why, then, do the rulers of the world allow it to continue? And all at once, rage rushed into his soul against the very constitution of the world,[15] as if that, rather than himself, were the author of his misery. And he exclaimed, in an ecstasy of grief: Ha! Did not Wishwamitra, when he found this world not according to his taste, create another of his own? And by what means did he acquire the power that enabled him to perform his extraordinary feats of world-creating and other such miracles, but by penance and asceticism? Did he not prove, by his own example, that nothing is impossible to perfect asceticism? And cannot others do what he did, by the very selfsame means, provided only that their resolution is thorough and complete? So then, now, I also will rival and surpass him, and by means of the intensity of my extraordinary penance bend the very gods to my will, and compel them to
