read from within the tradition. Let the commentators guide you. Let the great Mallinatha guide you; you couldn’t hope for a better teacher than him. My job is just to hand you over to him.’
Skanda loves the commentators. They answer in him a deep need for teachers. And, even more than the main text of the poem, it is that paragraph of gloss, which unpacks the verse and seems to contain the ghost of the tutorial, that really excites him. His father used to say that that was the true link to the past: that was where you could actually hear a voice from ancient India.
‘Out of interest,’ Mackinson says, ‘where have you got to?’
‘The third sarga.’ Glancing at the open book – M.R. Kale – next to the computer, he reads:
K ā mas tu b ā ṇ ’ | âvasara | prat ī k ṣ a ḥ
pata ṅ gavad vahni | mukha ṃ vivik ṣ u ḥ
Um ā | samak ṣ a ṃ Hara | baddha | lak ṣ ya ḥ
ś ar’ | ā sana | jy ā ṃ muhur ā mamar ś a
‘Oh! A wonderful moment, Skanda Mahodaya. Love and Spring, in league with each other, have entered the forest, forcing the hot-rayed sun north. There is now suddenly a fragrant breeze in the woodlands. In which, the red palasha flowers, curved and crescent, appear like nail scratches. The female elephants – always a sign in Sanskrit poetics of rut in the air – are offering trunkfuls of water, scented with the pollen of lotuses, to their mates. Shiva is deep in meditation. And look at the descriptions of him here. Do you have the David Smith with you?’
‘No.’
Mackinson hurriedly searches a shelf of turquoise-coloured volumes. He finds the one he wants and flips fast through its rustling pages.
‘“The fierce pupils motionless,”’ he reads, and looks up with a smile. ‘Then, look at this, the classic description of meditation: “By restraint of his internal currents he was like a cloud without the vehemence of rain, like an expanse of water without a ripple, like a lamp in a windless place absolutely still!” One trembles at the thought that this is the man Kama is to disturb. Kama who comes into the forest, “avoiding the lamp of his eyes”. And now at the verse you are at we find him poised. “K ā mas tu b ā ṇ ’ | âvasara | prat ī k ṣ a ḥ . . .” What do you have for that, Skanda Mahodaya?’
A little embarrassed now of his own translation, he says, ‘It’s still very rough, Theo.’
‘Never mind.’
He reads, ‘“Having espied the opportunity for his arrow, Kama . . .”’
‘Fine. And for “Hara | baddha | lak ṣ ya ḥ ”?’
‘“His gaze fastened on Shiva.”’
‘Yes! Then?’
‘“With Uma near . . . in proximity”.’
‘Lovely: “vivik ṣ u ḥ ”? Do you see the desiderative here, reduplicating the verbal stem
vi ś
? Which related to the Latin v ī cus gives us such words as vicinal and vicinity, and means here: to enter, enter in, go into. In the desiderative, it is the wish to enter.’
‘Yes. Kama is described as a moth wishing to enter the mouth of the flame.’
‘Very nice. Fine. And, at last, coming at the end, the actual predication.’
‘I had trouble here.’
‘The verb is
ā -m ṛ ś
. To touch, to stroke, to handle, to finger. Here it is reduplicated, and in the perfect. So: “He, Kama, fingered . . .”’
‘“His bowstring”!’
‘Exactly. Again and again, Kama fingers the bowstring of his bow made of flowers, ready to shoot the arrow that is Fascination. The arrow that kills if it strikes, and kills if it doesn’t.’ Mackinson pauses and says with a smile of pure and childish excitement: ‘Skanda Mahodaya . . .’
‘Yes, Theo?’
‘Love is poised to strike!’
Toby looked a foreigner in India. It was not just the light eyes, nor the fair skin and floppy blondish-brown hair; it was that, above and beyond these things, there was an innocence, a naivety in his face that gave him away as someone who could not have grown up in India. Not, at least, in north India, where
Skanda loves the commentators. They answer in him a deep need for teachers. And, even more than the main text of the poem, it is that paragraph of gloss, which unpacks the verse and seems to contain the ghost of the tutorial, that really excites him. His father used to say that that was the true link to the past: that was where you could actually hear a voice from ancient India.
‘Out of interest,’ Mackinson says, ‘where have you got to?’
‘The third sarga.’ Glancing at the open book – M.R. Kale – next to the computer, he reads:
K ā mas tu b ā ṇ ’ | âvasara | prat ī k ṣ a ḥ
pata ṅ gavad vahni | mukha ṃ vivik ṣ u ḥ
Um ā | samak ṣ a ṃ Hara | baddha | lak ṣ ya ḥ
ś ar’ | ā sana | jy ā ṃ muhur ā mamar ś a
‘Oh! A wonderful moment, Skanda Mahodaya. Love and Spring, in league with each other, have entered the forest, forcing the hot-rayed sun north. There is now suddenly a fragrant breeze in the woodlands. In which, the red palasha flowers, curved and crescent, appear like nail scratches. The female elephants – always a sign in Sanskrit poetics of rut in the air – are offering trunkfuls of water, scented with the pollen of lotuses, to their mates. Shiva is deep in meditation. And look at the descriptions of him here. Do you have the David Smith with you?’
‘No.’
Mackinson hurriedly searches a shelf of turquoise-coloured volumes. He finds the one he wants and flips fast through its rustling pages.
‘“The fierce pupils motionless,”’ he reads, and looks up with a smile. ‘Then, look at this, the classic description of meditation: “By restraint of his internal currents he was like a cloud without the vehemence of rain, like an expanse of water without a ripple, like a lamp in a windless place absolutely still!” One trembles at the thought that this is the man Kama is to disturb. Kama who comes into the forest, “avoiding the lamp of his eyes”. And now at the verse you are at we find him poised. “K ā mas tu b ā ṇ ’ | âvasara | prat ī k ṣ a ḥ . . .” What do you have for that, Skanda Mahodaya?’
A little embarrassed now of his own translation, he says, ‘It’s still very rough, Theo.’
‘Never mind.’
He reads, ‘“Having espied the opportunity for his arrow, Kama . . .”’
‘Fine. And for “Hara | baddha | lak ṣ ya ḥ ”?’
‘“His gaze fastened on Shiva.”’
‘Yes! Then?’
‘“With Uma near . . . in proximity”.’
‘Lovely: “vivik ṣ u ḥ ”? Do you see the desiderative here, reduplicating the verbal stem
vi ś
? Which related to the Latin v ī cus gives us such words as vicinal and vicinity, and means here: to enter, enter in, go into. In the desiderative, it is the wish to enter.’
‘Yes. Kama is described as a moth wishing to enter the mouth of the flame.’
‘Very nice. Fine. And, at last, coming at the end, the actual predication.’
‘I had trouble here.’
‘The verb is
ā -m ṛ ś
. To touch, to stroke, to handle, to finger. Here it is reduplicated, and in the perfect. So: “He, Kama, fingered . . .”’
‘“His bowstring”!’
‘Exactly. Again and again, Kama fingers the bowstring of his bow made of flowers, ready to shoot the arrow that is Fascination. The arrow that kills if it strikes, and kills if it doesn’t.’ Mackinson pauses and says with a smile of pure and childish excitement: ‘Skanda Mahodaya . . .’
‘Yes, Theo?’
‘Love is poised to strike!’
Toby looked a foreigner in India. It was not just the light eyes, nor the fair skin and floppy blondish-brown hair; it was that, above and beyond these things, there was an innocence, a naivety in his face that gave him away as someone who could not have grown up in India. Not, at least, in north India, where
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