The Eyes of the Eternal Brother
The Eyes of the Eternal Brother was written in German by Stefan Zweig and published in 1922 under the title Die Augen des Ewigen Bruders. It has since reverted back into the public domain under German copyright laws.
In the process of engaging in this translation, I’ve taking a few liberties to make Stefan Zweig’s work more accessible to a modern readership — the original was composed in quite old-fashioned German — even as I’m endeavoring to remain true to the original spirit of the text.
For easy reading, I’ve subdivided the text into subchapters. These do not occur in the original text.
Martin Adams
November 2017
Introduction
To my friend Wilhelm Schmidtbonn
— Stefan Zweig“One does not attain freedom from karma by merely abstaining from actions. Nobody can be free from actions even for a moment.”
— Bhagavad-Gita, third song“What is action? What is inaction? Even the wise are confused about that. One should be aware of action, forbidden action, and nonattached action, for the nature of action is profound.”
— Bhagavad-Gita, fourth song
Part I: The Lightning of the Sword
This is the story of Virata,
who was honored by his people with the four names of virtue,
of whom, however, nothing is written about
in the chronicles of the rulers
nor in the books of the wise,
and whom the people have forgotten.
Along time ago, even before the Buddha roamed the Earth and instilled the light of self-realization into his followers, lived in the kingdom of the Birwagher under King Rajputas a nobleman called Virata. They called him the Lightning of the Sword, because he was the most daring warrior of all — as well as a hunter whose arrows never missed, who never threw a spear in vain, and whose arm came crashing down like thunder when he wielded his sword. Yet his forehead was bright, and a sincere concern for the plight of humankind radiated from his eyes: His hand had never been seen clenched in an angry fist, nor his voice ever heard in a fit of rage. Virata loyally served the king, and his slaves served him in turn with great respect, for nobody among the five rivers was known to be more righteous than him. The pious bowed in front of his house when they passed by it, and the children smiled at the twinkle in his eyes when they saw it.
One day, however, misfortune came upon the king whom he served. The king’s wife’s brother, the viceroy, whom the king had appointed as administrator over half of his kingdom, lusted for the kingdom in its entirety, and so he had secretly bribed the king’s best warriors into his service with gifts. And he had persuaded the priests to bring him the sacred lake herons, which had been symbols of the Birwagher royal blood lineage for thousands and thousands of years. The traitor assembled both herons and elephants in a field, gathered the dissatisfied people from the backcountry into an army, and drew menacingly toward the city.
The king ordered his men to sound the copper cymbals and blow from white elephant tusks from dawn to dusk. At night, his men lit fires from the towers and threw crushed fish scales into them so that the scales would glow brightly under the stars as a sign of distress. Few men, however, came; news of the theft of the lake herons had weighed down the hearts of leaders and had made them timid. The highest-ranking warrior as well as the keeper of the elephants — the most senior veterans — already dwelled in the enemy’s camp. The forsaken king vainly sought out friends, for he had been a harsh ruler, strict in judgment and a ruthless collector of the tax. He saw no veterans among his captains and no generals in front of his palace — only a bewildered horde of servants and slaves.
In his despair the king thought of Virata, who had sent him a pledge of loyalty at the first sounding of the horns. The king had his ebony carriage readied and brought to Virata’s house. As the king stepped out of the carriage Virata bowed down to the Earth, but the king pleadingly embraced him, and bade him to lead his army against the enemy. Virata bowed and said: “I will do so, my lord, and shall not return to this house until this burning revolt has been stamped out by the feet of your servants.”
So Virata gathered his sons, relatives, and slaves, and joined them with the group of assembled loyalists, and prepared them for war. They marched for an entire day through the bush until they reached the river where, on the opposite riverbank, the enemy had gathered in seemingly infinite numbers, boasting of their size, and cutting down trees for a bridge to cross the next morning so that they themselves, like a flood, might drown the entire kingdom in blood.
But from a recent tiger hunt Virata knew of an upstream ford, and once darkness had descended he led each one of the loyalists, one by one, across the stream so that by night they swooped down in surprise on the sleeping enemy. They swung torches to terrify the elephants and buffalos so they would flee and trample on the sleeping soldiers, and so that the tents would catch on fire. But Virata was the first to storm into the tent of the rebellious ruler, and before the sleeping soldiers had even roused he already struck down two with his sword and a third just as he was rising up and reaching for his own. The fourth and fifth man, however, he fought blow-by-blow in the dark, striking one on his forehead and the other into his still bare chest. But once they lay silently, shadow among shadow, he placed himself squarely across the entry of the tent in order to fight anyone who might try to gain entry to save the white herons, symbols of the gods. But no one came, for the enemy scurried away in senseless fright, and behind them the victorious servants screaming with joy. Virata then sat down calmly and cross-legged in front of the tent, his bloody sword in his hands, and waited for his comrades to come back from their scorching hunt.
It didn’t take long for the day of the Lord to arise from behind the forest; the palms burned in the golden red of the morning and sparkled like torches in the stream. The sun rose bloodily, a blistering wound in the east. It was then that Virata got up, took off his gown, approached the stream with his hands raised above his head, and bowed in prayer before God’s luminous eye. He then descended into the stream for the holy cleansing, and the blood washed off his hands.
Now that the light was touching him in waves of white, he went back to the riverbank, clad himself in his gown, and walked back with a bright countenance to the tent to view the deeds of the night in daylight. Fright was inscribed into the facial features of the dead; they lay with open eyes and torn gestures: the viceroy with a cleaved forehead, and the treacherous one, the one who had formerly been the leader of the army in the land of the Birwagher, with a lacerated chest. Virata closed their eyes and went on to see the others whom he had slain in their sleep. They were still half covered by their mats; two faces were foreign to him: they were the traitor’s slaves from the south and had curly hairs and black faces. But when he turned to see the face of the last one, his gaze darkened, for this was his brother Belangur, the prince of the mountains, whom the viceroy had called to assist, and whom he had unwittingly killed at night with his own hands.
Twitchingly he bowed down over the slumped body’s heart. But it did not beat anymore; the open eyes of the dead one were rigid and their black circles penetrated his heart. At that moment Virata’s breath became very short, and, like someone who had also died, he sat among the dead with averted eyes, so that the rigid eye of the one whom his mother had given birth to before him might not accuse him of his deed.
Soon, however, shouts were heard; cheering like wild birds from their hunt, the servants approached the tent with abundant loot and in good spirits. When they found the slain viceroy in the midst of his own men and the sacred herons secure, they danced and jumped, kissed the draped gown of Virata, who was sitting aimlessly among them, and honored Virata with a new name: Lightning of the Sword. And many more came; they loaded the loot onto carriages, but the carriage wheels sank so deeply due to their weight that they had to whip the buffalos with thorns while the barges threatened to sink. A messenger jumped into the river and raced ahead to herald the king; the others, however, hemmed around the loot and cheered their victory. Virata, on the other hand, sat silently, like a daydreamer. He only raised his voice once when they wanted to rob the garments from the bodies of the dead. He then got up and ordered logs to be gathered and the corpses to be stacked upon a stake, so that they might be burned and that their souls might rejoin Saṃsāra — the cycle of death and rebirth — in a pure state. The servants were surprised that he did the way he did with these traitors, whose limbs ought to have been torn up by the forest coyotes and whose bones ought to have been bleached by the sun’s ferocity; they did, however, as they were told. Once the stake was constructed, Virata himself lit the fire and threw fragrance and sandalwood into the glimmering fire; then he turned his face and stood in silence until the red logs came crashing down and the glow sank down to the earth as ash.
Meanwhile the slaves had finished working on the bridge that the viceroy’s servants had yesterday boastingly begun; ahead went the warriors, garlanded with plantain flowers, followed by the servants, and on horseback the princes. Virata let them march ahead, for their singing and screaming rang in his soul, and as he went there was a distance between them and him, in accordance with his wish. In the middle of the bridge he halted and for a long time looked into the running water to his right and to his left — in front of him, however, and behind him the astonished warriors had stopped so as to keep their distance. And they saw how he raised his arm with his sword, as if he had wanted to draw it toward the sky, but in the sinking of his arm he let his grip slip carelessly, and the sword sank into the river. Naked boys jumped from both shores into the water in order to bring it back to the surface, believing it had accidentally slipped him, but Virata strictly rebuked them and marched on with a motionless face and darkening forehead among the astonished servants. No words left his lips anymore while they were headed on the yellow road toward home.
They were still far from Birwagha’s jasper gates and jagged towers when a white cloud rose up in the distance; and the cloud drew near, runners and horsemen chasing through the dust. And they halted when they saw the army’s procession, and spread carpets on the streets so as to indicate that the king would come up to meet them — for the king’s feet had never touched earthly soil from the hour of his birth unto his death, since holiness envelops his purified body. And there already approached the king on the old elephant, surrounded by his boys. The elephant, obeying the thorn, lowered down to its knees and the king dismounted onto the spread-out carpet. Virata wanted to bow in front of his lord, but the king proceeded toward him and embraced him with both arms, an honor toward a lesser that had not been heard of in these days, nor had ever been written about in the books. Virata had the herons brought, and as they were flapping their wings, cheers arose that reared the horses, while the veterans had to tame the elephants with thorns. The king embraced Virata another time as he viewed the results of the victory, and beckoned to one of the servants. The servant brought the sword of the hero of the Rajputas, which had been in the royal treasury for seven times seven hundred years; a sword, whose grip was white with jewelry and in whose blade secret victory words had been engraved with golden symbols in the language of the ancient ones, which even the wise and the priests of the Grand Temple did not understand anymore. And the king handed Virata this sword of swords as a bestowal of his gratitude, and as a mark that from now on he was the highest-ranking of his warriors and the general of his people.
But Virata touched his face to the ground and did not raise it while he spoke:
“May I pray for a mercy from the most gracious, and a favor from the most generous of kings?”
The king looked down upon him and spoke:
“It shall be granted to you, even before you open your eyes toward me. And should you demand half of my kingdom it shall be yours as soon as your lips shall move.”
Thereupon Virata spoke:
“Then grant, my lord, that this sword remain in the treasury, for I have made a vow in my heart to never touch a sword again since killing my brother today, the only one born from the same womb as I, and who had played with me on my mother’s hands.”
Astonished, the king looked at him. Then the king spoke:
“So then be without a sword, leader of my warriors, that I may know my kingdom to be safe from all enemies, for no hero has ever led an army better against a superior force: take my belt as sign of authority and this, my horse, so that everyone may recognize you as the highest-ranking of my warriors.”
But Virata touched his face to the ground once more and replied:
“The Invisible One sent me a sign, and my heart understood. I killed my brother so that I may now understand that anyone who kills a man kills his brother. I cannot be a leader in war, for there is violence in the sword, and violence is at enmity with justice. Those who take part in the sin of killing are dead as well. But I don’t want fear to emanate from me, and would rather eat beggars’ bread than do injustice against this sign, which I recognized. Life in eternal Saṃsāra is short; let me live my part as a just man.”
The king’s face darkened for a while, and a frightful silence hovered around him just as there had been cacophony before, for it was unheard of in the times of the fathers and grandfathers that a free subject of the king had refused — and a prince had not accepted — a gift from his king. But then the monarch looked up to the sacred herons, the victory symbols Virata had captured, and his features lit up anew as he spoke:
“I have always known you to be courageous against my enemies, Virata, and just toward all servants in my kingdom. If I must miss you in war, I shall not do without you in my service. Since you understand fault and contemplate fault as a righteous man, you shall be the highest-ranking of my judges and pass judgment on the steps of my palace, so that truth shall be preserved within my walls and justice safeguarded in this country.”
Virata bowed down in front of the king and touched his knees as a sign of gratitude. The king signaled him to mount the elephant to his side, and they moved into the city with the sixty towers, whose cheers crashed against them like a storming sea.
Part II: The Fountain of Justice
From the height of the rose-colored steps, in the shade of the palace, Virata now passed judgment from sunrise to sunset in the name of the king. His word, however, was like a weighing scale which trembled for a long time before it measured a weight: his sight pierced into the soul of the culprit, and his questions pressed into the depths of the crime like a badger would into the darkness of the earth. Strict was his judgment, yet he never gave a verdict on the same day; he always placed the cool span of the night between the hearing and the sentence: in the long hours until sunrise his family would then often hear him pace restlessly upon the roof of their house while he was contemplating the nature of justice and injustice. But before he spoke a verdict he submerged his hands and his forehead in water so that his judgment might be untainted by the heat of passion. And always, after he had passed judgment, he asked the offender if his word was erroneous. But it only happened rarely that a person objected; silently they kissed the threshold of his seat and accepted the sentence with bowed stature as if from God’s mouth. But never did Virata bring the tidings of death even unto the guiltiest one, and he fended off those that urged him to do so: For he shunned blood. The circular well of the ancestors of the Rajputas, upon whose edge the executioners had placed the heads for the blow and whose stones had been black from gored blood, was being washed white again in these years by the rain. And yet there was no injustice anymore in the country. He incarcerated the wrongdoers into the stone-walled dungeon or put them into the mountains, where they had to break stones for the walls of the gardens, and into the rice mills by the river, where they turned the wheels with the elephants. But he honored life, and the people honored him, for there was never a flaw to be found in his judgment, never lack of concern in his questions, and never wrath in his words. Farmers came from far away in their buffalo carriages with their disputes, so that he might mediate amongst them; the priests listened to his words and the king to his counsel. His fame grew like a fresh bamboo shoot: uprightly and luminously overnight, and the people forgot the name they had once given him, when they had called him the Lightning of the Sword, and now called him the Fountain of Justice throughout the land of the Rajputas.
In the sixth year, however, in which Virata had passed judgment from the atrium of the palace, it happened that prosecutors brought a youth from the tribe of the Cazars, the wild ones that lived above the rocks and served other gods. His feet were chafed, so many days had they thrust him forward, and chains encircled his mighty arms four times so that he could not harm anyone, as his eyes, which rolled fumingly beneath his darkened brows, threateningly foretold. They placed him by the stairs and threw the captive forcefully onto his knees in front of the judge, and then they themselves bowed down and raised their hands as a sign of grievance.
Virata looked surprisingly upon the foreigners: “Who are you, brothers, you who have come from far away, and who is this, whom you are bringing in chains before me?”
The oldest among them bowed down and spoke: “We are shepherds, my lord, we live peacefully in the eastern province; but this is the most evil of the evil tribe, a brute who has killed more men than there are fingers on his hands. A member of our village refused him his daughter in marriage — for they practice ungodly customs: they are dog eaters and cow slayers — and gave her to a merchant from the valley. Thereupon this man, a thief, went in his rage into our flock; he killed the father and his three sons by night, and whenever a man would steer his cattle to the foothills of the mountains he would kill him. Eleven from our village he had carried from life to death in this manner until we grouped ourselves together and hunted down the evildoer like game and brought him here to the most righteous of all judges, so that you might bring salvation to this country from this violent man.”
Virata raised his face toward the captive: “Is it true what they are saying?”
“Who are you? Are you the king?”
“I am Virata, his servant and a servant of justice, as I determine penance for fault, and separate the true from the false.”
For a long time the captive was silent. Then he said with a stern gaze:
“How can you know what is true and what is wrong, from a distance, since your knowledge is only imbued with people’s words!”
“Your words may contend against their words, in order that I may recognize the truth.”
Contemptuously the captive raised his eyebrows: “I don’t contend against them. How can you know what I did, even as I myself don’t know what my hands are doing when I’m overcome with rage. I have done justice against him who sold his daughter for money, justice against his children and servants. May they bring a charge against me. I despise them and I despise your judgment.”
Rage flared up in the others like a wildfire when they heard the angry captive scorn the judge, and the judge’s assistant had already raised the thorny rod for the blow. But Virata waved their anger aside and repeated once again question after question. Whenever an answer arouse from the prosecutors he would always ask the captive once again. But he just bit his teeth together to an evil grin and said only once more: “How are you able to know the truth from the words of other people?”
The sun stood tall above their heads at noon when Virata’ questioning had come to an end. And he rose and wanted, as had been his custom, to go home and deliver the verdict on the next day. But the prosecutors raised their hands: “Lord,” they said, “we traveled for seven days to be in your presence and our homeward journey will last seven more days. We cannot wait ’til tomorrow, for our cattle will die from thirst without water and the fields demand our ploughing. Lord, we beseech you, give your verdict!”
Once again Virata sat down upon the steps and contemplated. His features were tensed like those of someone who was carrying a heavy burden upon his back, for it had never previously happened to him to speak a verdict against someone who did not plea for mercy and failed to raise objections in his speech. He thought for a long time, and the shadows grew by the hours. Then he stepped toward the well, washed his face and hands in the cool of the water so that his judgment might be free from the heat of passion, and spoke: “May the verdict I am giving be just. This individual has taken upon himself the sin of death; he has chased eleven living beings from their warm bodies into Saṃsāra.”
“It takes one year for life to mature, locked up in the mother’s womb; likewise, this individual shall be locked up — one year for each person he has slain — in the darkness of the earth. And because he expelled blood eleven times from a human being’s body, so shall he be whipped eleven times in the course of a year, until blood dashes from him, in order that he may pay by the number of his victims. He shall not, however, be punished with the loss of his life, for life comes from the gods, and human beings are not permitted to interfere with the Divine. May the verdict which I spoke be just; it was spoken for no one’s sake but for the sake of universal retribution.”
And once again Virata sat down upon the steps, and the prosecutors kissed the stairs as a sign of veneration. The captive, however, menacingly stared into the judge’s eyes, which questioningly met with his. Thereupon Virata said:
“I have asked you that you might exhort me to be lenient and help me against your prosecutors, but your lips remained tight. Should there be an error in my judgment, do not accuse me before the Eternal One, but blame your silence. I had intended to be lenient with you.”
The captive was furious: “I don’t want your leniency! What is the leniency that you are giving in comparison to the life that you are taking from me in one breath?”
“I am not taking your life.”
“You are taking my life, and you are taking it more cruelly than the chieftains of our tribe are taking it, which they call the wild tribe. Why don’t you kill me? I have killed, man against man, but you have me buried into the darkness of the earth like a rotting cadaver, because your heart is afraid of blood and your innards lack in fortitude, so that I might decay with the years. Your law is fickle and your judgment excruciating. Kill me, for I have killed.”
“I have appropriated your penance correctly.”
“Appropriated correctly? Where is the measurement, oh judge, by which you measure? Who has whipped you, that you know the whip; how can you count the years playfully with your fingers, as if the hours by daylight are the same as the hours of darkness that are buried beneath the earth? Have you sat in the dungeon and thus understand how many a springtime you are taking from me? You are an ignorant, and not a righteous man, for only a person who feels the strike, not one who executes it, knows about the whip; only a person who has suffered, may measure suffering. The guilty ones are not able to chastise your arrogance and yet you are the guiltiest of all, for I have taken life in a fit of rage, under the compulsion of my passions, but you are cold-bloodedly taking my life away from me and do so with a measurement which your hand has never weighed and whose impact it has never probed. Depart from the staircase of justice, oh judge, that you might not slip from it. Woe unto him who measures with fickle measurements, woe unto the ignorant who believes he knows about the nature of justice. Depart from the staircase, oh ignorant judge, and do not judge living beings with the fatality of your words!”
Words of hate bounced forth from the pale-faced shouter, and once again the others fell upon him in rage. But Virata held them off again, turned his head away from the wild man, and spoke softly: “I cannot breach the judgment made upon these steps! May it have been just.”
Then Virata left, while the other ones grabbed the captive who was putting up a fight in his shackles. But the judge paused once more and turned around: the captive’s eyes were fixedly staring at him, glistening with malevolence. And with a shudder it went into Virata’ heart: how similar these eyes were to those of his brother at the hour in which he lay in the tent of the viceroy — slain by his own hand.
On that evening Virata did not speak to anyone. The captive’s gaze stuck like a burning arrow in his soul. And the entire night his family heard him, hour upon hour, walk sleeplessly upon the roof of his house until the red dawn broke forth between the palms.
Virata took a bath in the holy pond of the temple and prayed toward the east; then he went back into his house, chose the festive yellow robe, greeted his family seriously, which regarded, though not questioned, his festive manners in awe, and went alone to the king’s palace, which was open to him at every hour by day and night. Virata bowed in front of the king and touched the seam of his robe as an act of request.
The king looked down upon him with a bright countenance and spoke: “Your wish has touched my robe. It is granted before you give it words, Virata.”
Virata remained bowed.
“You have appointed me as the highest-ranking of your judges. For seven years I have passed judgment in your name and do not know if I have judged correctly. Grant me solitude for the duration of one moon, that I may walk the path towards truth and grant that I may keep the path secret from you and everybody else. I want to perform acts without injustice and I want to live without fault.”
The king was surprised:
“My kingdom will be deprived of justice, from this moon to the next. But I shall not ask about your path. May it lead you to the truth.”
Virata kissed the threshold as a sign of gratitude, bowed his head once again and left.
In the bright of daylight Virata stepped into his house and called his wife and children together. “You will not see me during the entire cycle of one moon. Offer me your farewell and do not ask.” His wife glanced shyly and his sons piously. To each he bent down and kissed their forehead. “Now go into your rooms, lock yourself in, so that no one sees where I go when I walk out of the door. And do not ask for me until the moon renews itself.” And they turned around, each in silence.
Virata took off his festive gown and changed into a dark one; he prayed before the effigies of the God of a Thousand Expressions, and etched many symbols into the leaves of palm trees, which he rolled up into a letter. With the darkness he then left his silent home and went to the rock cliffs in front of the city, where the deep ore mines and prison cells were. He knocked on the gatekeeper’s door until the sleeping guard got up from his mat and called who it was that was demanding him.
“I am Virata, the highest-ranking of all judges. I came to see after the one whom they brought yesterday.”
“He is locked up in the depth, lord, in the lowest room of darkness. Shall I lead you there, lord?”
“I know the room. Give me the key and lay down to rest. In the morning you will find the key in front of your door. And keep silent to everyone that you have seen me today.”
The gatekeeper bowed, and brought the key and a lantern. Virata motioned him; silently the servant stepped back and threw himself upon his mat. Virata, however, opened the copper gate which covered the abyss in the rock and stepped down into the depths of the dungeons. A hundred years ago the kings of the Rajputas had already begun to lock away their prisoners into these rocks and day by day each prisoner caved the mountain out more deeply and created new prison cells in the cold stone for new victims of the dungeon that came after.
Before he closed the door Virata cast one final gaze upon the opened square of the sky with the white, bouncing stars; he then closed the gate and a moist darkness swelled up against him over which the lantern light anxiously jumped like a scurrying animal. He still heard the soft rustle of the wind in the trees and the shrill screams of monkeys: in the first basement level, however, this was heard only as a quiet murmur far away; in the second basement level stillness was already present, like the stillness beneath the surface of the ocean, motionless and cold. Only moisture transpired from the stones, no longer the scent of terrestrial earth, and the deeper he went, the harsher his steps reverberated in the numbness of silence.
The captive’s cell was on the fifth basement level, deeper beneath the earth than the highest palms reached up toward the heavens. Virata entered and raised the lantern toward the dark mass, which hardly stirred until light stroke over it. A chain rattled.
Virata bent down to him: “Do you recognize me?”
“I recognize you. You are the one whom they made lord over my destiny and who trampled it with his feet.”
“I am no one’s lord. A servant I am, a servant of the king and of justice. I came to serve her.”
The captive looked up darkly and stared into the face of the judge: “What do you want from me?”
Virata was silent for a long time before he said:
“I have injured you with my word, but you, too, have caused me an injury with your words. I do not know if my judgment was just, but there was a truth to be found in your words: no one may measure with a measurement which is unbeknownst to him. I was an ignorant, and I want to become learned. I have sent hundreds into this night; I have done many things to many people, and do not know about my deeds. Now I want to experience, want to learn, in order to be just and enter into the Saṃsāra without fault.”
The captive was still staring. The chain rattled softly. “I want to understand what I adjudicated; I want to get to know the crack of the whip on my own flesh and the captured time in my soul. For the duration of one moon I want to step into your shoes so that I might know how much retribution I have meted out. Then I shall renew the judgment made upon the steps, knowing of its impact and weight. You, in the meantime, be free. I want to give you the key, which will lead you to the light, and want to release you into freedom for the duration of one month, as long as you vow to return — then there will be light in my knowing because of the darkness of this depth.”
The captive was motionless like a stone. The chain did not rattle anymore.
“Swear to me, by the merciless God of Revenge — everyone is in her reach — that you are silent to everyone for the duration of this moon, and I shall give you the key and my own gown. You will lay the key in front of the gatekeeper’s cell and go free. But with your vow you remain bound before the God of a Thousand Expressions that you bring this letter to the king after the moon’s return, so that I may be released and may judge once again in accordance with justice. Will you swear to do this, by the God of a Thousand Expressions?”
“I swear” — the words broke forth from the lips of the trembling captive like from the depths of the earth.
Virata released the chain and slipped off his own gown from his shoulders.
“Here, take this gown, give me yours, and hide your face, so that no guard shall recognize you. And now, take this shear blade and shear my beard and hair, so that I, too, shall be unrecognizable.”
The captive took the shear blade, but his hand sank, trembling. But the other’s gaze penetrated him sternly, and he did as he was told. He was silent for a long time. Then he threw himself down and screaming words bounced forth from him:
“Lord, I won’t tolerate that you suffer on my part. I have killed, have spilled blood with heated hand. Your judgment was just.”
“You cannot ascertain this, and nor can I, but soon I shall be enlightened. Go, now, as you have sworn, and step in front of the king on the day of the full moon so that he may release me: then I shall be understanding about the acts I commit and my word forever without injustice. Go!”
The captive bowed down and kissed the earth…
The door closed heavily into the darkness and one last time the light of the lantern jumped against the walls; then the night fell upon the hours.
The next morning they brought Virata, whom no one recognized, onto the field in front of the city and whipped him. When the jolting whip leaped onto his back for the first time, Virata screamed. Then he clenched his teeth. But on the seventieth stroke his senses darkened and they carried him away like a dead animal.
He awoke again in his cell, prostrated, and felt as if he lay with his back on top of burning fire. His forehead, however, was cool; with his breath he inhaled the scent of wild herbs: he felt a hand touch his hair and felt how tender drops trickled upon his head. Gently he opened the space between his eyelids and saw: the wife of the gatekeeper stood beside him and caringly washed his forehead. And as he now opened his eyes toward her, the star of compassion shone forth from her gaze. And through the burning of his body he recognized the meaning of life in the grace of kindness. He smiled gently up toward her and did not feel his agony anymore.
Onthe second day he was already able to get up and touchingly sense his cold cell with the aid of his hands. He felt how a new world grew with every step he made, and on the third day his wounds began to heal, and vigor and strength returned. Now he sat quietly and felt the hours only by the drops of water that were dripping from the walls and were dividing the great silence into many small time-units, which grew quietly by day and night, like a life that grows in and of itself, through thousands of days, into adulthood and old age. Nobody talked to him, darkness flowed rigidly in his blood, but now colorful memories arose from within in a soft murmur and flowed gradually together into a tranquil pond of observation in which his whole life was reflected. That which he had experienced separately now streamed into one, and a refreshing clarity and an absence of waves held the purified image in the suspense of the heart. Never had his spirit been as pure as in this feeling of tranquil observation of the reflected world.
With each day Virata’ vision got brighter; objects emerged from the darkness and their shapes became familiar to his sense of touch. And also, within, everything appeared brighter in relaxed observation: the tender air of contemplation, gliding without desire across all memories, recognizing them as appearances of appearances, played with the manifestations of Saṃsāra like the captive’s hands played with the strewn pebbles in the depth. Oblivious to himself, Virata, motionless and mesmerized, unconscious of the manifestations of his own essence in the darkness, felt the power of the God of a Thousand Expressions stronger than ever and felt himself walk amongst the appearances, attached to none, detached in utmost clarity from the bondage of will, dead in life, and living in death… all fear of transience transformed into tender yearnings for the deliverance from flesh. It seemed to him as if he sank deeper into the dark with each hour, toward the rock and black root of the Earth; and yet bearing new seed, like a worm, awkwardly digging in the earth or plant, rising up with thrusting shaft, or stone, residing refreshingly in the blissful unconsciousness of being-ness.
Virata enjoyed the divine secret of attentive contemplation for eighteen nights, detached from self-will and lacking in the tingle to live. Blessed it appeared to him what he had done as penance, and already he felt within him fault and fate as dream-like images suspended above the undying wakefulness of wisdom. In the nineteenth night, however, he jumped up from his sleep: an earthly thought had touched him. Like a glowing needle it penetrated his brain. Gruesome fear shook his body and the fingers trembled on his hand like leafs on a tree. Yet this was the thought of fear: that the captive could become unfaithful to his vow and that he must lie here thousands and thousands and thousands of days, until his flesh would fall from his bones and the tongue become rigid with silence. Once more his will to live jumped up like a panther within him and tore apart the hull: time poured in into his soul, and fear and hope — the confusion of human beings. He could not think about the God of a Thousand Expressions anymore, but only about himself; his eyes hungered for light, his legs, which scraped against the hard stone, wanted distance, wanted to jump and run. He had to think about his wife and sons, about his house and his possessions, about the ardent temptations of the world, which are taken in through the senses and felt through the conscious warmth of blood.
From this day of remembrance on, time, which had thus far lain silently before his feet like a black, reflecting pond, rose up into his thinking; like a stream it thrust forward, but always against him. He wanted it to carry him away and wash him along like a jumping piece of timber toward the transfixed hour of liberation. But it flowed against him: with gasping breath he, a desperate swimmer, struggled to extract one hour after another from the stream. And it seemed to him as if the drops of water on the wall henceforth prolonged their fall — to such an extent the span of time between each drop seemed to increase. He was not able to remain any longer upon his mat. The thought that the captive would forget him and that he had to rot here in the chamber of solitude, drove him mad between the walls. The silence suffocated him: he screamed curses and words of lament at the stones; he cursed himself, the gods, and the king. With bleeding nails he clung to the mocking rock and ran with his head against the door until he fell lifelessly to the ground, only to jump up again, once awakened, and run up and down the cell like a racing rat.
In these days from the eighteenth day of solitude to the new moon Virata lived through worlds of utmost horror. Food and drink disgusted him, for fear filled his body. He was not able to hold one thought, for his lips counted the drops that fell down, in order to split up the unending time from one day to the next. And unbeknownst to him his hair had turned gray upon his pounding head.
On the thirtieth day, however, clamor arose in front of the door and fell back into silence. Then steps resounded, the door was pushed open, light entered, and in front of man who had been buried in the darkness of the earth stood the king. Lovingly he embraced Virata as he spoke: “I have learned of your deed, which is greater than any ever recorded in the scriptures of the ancient ones. Like a star it will shine above the lowly expressions of our lives. Step forth, that God’s fire may illuminate you and that the people may see with grateful eyes a righteous man.”
Virata raised his hand in front of his eyes, for the light pierced his vision too harshly, and purple blood billowed within. He got up, like a drunkard, and the servants had to hold him up. But before he stepped in front of the gate he spoke:
“King, you have called me a just man; but now I know that everybody who passes judgment does injustice and fills himself with fault. Still there are people in this depth who suffer because of my word, and only now I know about their suffering and know: nothing may be punished for any reason. Let them free, king, and shy the people away before I step forth, for I am ashamed of their praise.”
The king motioned, and the servants shied the people away. Silence was surrounding them once again. Then the king said:
“To pass judgment, you sat on the uppermost stair of the palace. Now, however, since you had been wiser than any judge has ever been through felt suffering, you shall sit beside me, in order that I may listen to your speech and that I myself may become educated through your righteousness.”
But Virata touched his knee as an act of request: “Let me be relieved of my office! I cannot speak truth since I know: no one may be anyone’s judge. It is of God to punish, not of human beings, for who interferes with fate falls into fault. And I want to live my life without fault.”
“So be,” replied the king, “not judge in my kingdom, but advisor to my dealings, that you may advise me in matters of war and peace, fair rates of tax and interest, and that I may not err in decisions.”
Once more Virata touched the king’s knee.
“Do not give me power, king, for power leads to the temptation to act, and which actions, my lord, are just and not opposed to anyone’s fate? If I would advise war, I should sow death, and what I speak grows into actions, and every act begets a purpose of which I do not know anything. Only those can be just who do not have part in any destiny and work, and who live alone: never before was I closer to this realization, while I was there alone, without the words of people, and never freer from fault. Let me live peacefully in my house, without an obligation other than tending to the offerings for the gods, so that I may remain pure from fault.”
“Reluctantly I will let you go,” spoke the king, “since who can disagree with a wise one and spoil the will of a righteous man? Live according to your will; it is an honor to my kingdom that one lives within its borders and acts without fault.”
They both stepped in front of the gate, then the king left him. Virata went alone and drew in the sweet air of the sun; light was his soul as had been never before while he walked, free from all responsibilities, toward his house. Behind him the soft sound of fleeing bare feet resounded, and as he turned around he saw the one he had sentenced, whose anguish he had taken: he kissed the dust of his path, bowed shyly and disappeared. At that moment Virata smiled again for the first time since he had seen the rigid eyes of his brother, and joyfully entered into his house.
Part III: The Field of Good Counsel
Inhis house Virata experienced days of light. His awakening was a thankful prayer that he was allowed to see the brightness of the sky instead of darkness; that he felt the colors and scents of the holy Earth, and the transparent music which arose with the dawn. Daily he witnessed the breath and the miracle of unshackled limbs as a great gift; humbly, he felt his own body, the soft one of his wife, and the strong ones of his sons; blissfully he felt the all-encompassing presence of the God of a Thousand Expressions; his soul was winged with tender dignity, for he never reached beyond his life and muddled with another’s destiny and never adversely touched one of the thousand expressions of the invisible God. From dawn until dusk he read in the books of wisdom and practiced himself in the ways of devotion, which were the sinking into silence, the loving submergence into the mind, benefiting the poor, and the sacrificial prayer. But his mind had become serene; his talk gentle even to the lowliest of his servants, and his family loved him more than they had ever before. He was a helper of the poor and a comforter to the unhappy. The prayers of many people hovered around his sleep, and they called him not like before the Lightning Sword or the Fountain of Justice, but the Field of Good Counsel. For not only the neighbors came from the street to ask about his views, but also foreigners came from a distance and stepped before him, so that he might settle their disputes, even though he was not a judge in this land anymore, and they complied with his words without hesitation. Virata was happy about this, for he felt it was better to give counsel rather than to command, and to mediate rather than to condemn: he felt his life free from fault since he did not constrain anyone’s destiny and yet brought about shifts in the destiny of many people. And he loved the zenith of his life with tranquil senses.
And so three years passed and another three years, like a bright day. Virata’s temper got progressively tender: if a fight appeared before him, he barely understood in his soul why there was so much commotion on Earth and why the people jostled with self-seeking jealously, since they had the spacious life and the sweet scent of being. He envied none, and none envied him. His house stood like an island of peace in the evened life, untouched by the torrents of passion and the current of desire.
One evening, in the sixth year of his silence, Virata had already gone to rest when he suddenly heard a horrid scream and the sound of beatings. He jumped up from his mat and saw how his sons had hurled a slave onto his knees and whipped him with the hippopotamus whip, causing blood to gush from him. And the eyes of the slave, wrenched wide-open in gnashing pain, stared at him fixatedly: again he saw the gaze of his slain brother of long-ago in his soul. Virata hurried onward, held their arm tight, and asked what had happened here.
It followed from both arguments that the slave, whose duty had been to fetch water from the stone-brimmed well and bring it home in a wooden barrel, had, in the heat of midday, arrived too late with the burden, professing exhaustion; he had been chastised repeatedly, until he escaped after an especially hard punishment. Virata’s sons had chased after him by horse and had reached him in a village beyond the river; they had him tied with a rope to the saddle of the horse, so that he, partly dragging, partly running along, had to come home again with chafed feet, where a moment ago punishment had just been administered to him as a warning to both him and the other slaves (who had tremblingly been observing the prostrated slave with shivering knees), until Virata had interrupted the violent torture through his approaching.
Virata looked down to the slave. The sand beneath his soles was moist with blood. The eyes of the frightened one gaped openly like those of an animal that is meant for slaughtering, and Virata saw behind their black stare the horror that had once been his own dark night. “Let him go,” he said to his sons, “his transgression has been atoned for.”
But Virata was strangely overcome as the darkness now dashed from the walls: this was not his room anymore, which he was blindly sensing, but the dungeon of long-ago, in which he frightfully recognized that freedom was a person’s greatest right and that no one may lock up anyone, not for life and not for the duration of one year. But he had encaged this slave, he recognized, in the invisible circle of his will and chained him to the outcome of his decisions, so that no step of his own was free to him. Clarity came into him while he was sitting quietly and he felt how the thoughts had opened his chest so widely until light flowed from imperceptible height into him. Now he was conscious of the fact that here, too, fault had been in him for as long as he was binding people to his will and commanded slaves by a law that was only the fragile law of people, and not the eternal law of the God of a Thousand Expressions. And he bowed down in prayer:
“Thank you, Infinite Presence, you who send me messengers through all your manifold expressions; that they stir me up from my fault, ever closer toward you on the invisible path of your Will! Grant that I may recognize them in the ever accusatory eyes of my Brother, whom I am encountering everywhere, who sees through my sight and whose suffering I suffer, that I may walk my life purely and breathe without sin.”
Virata face had become bright again; with luminous eyes he stepped into the night, drank deeply the white welcoming of the stars and the swelling morning breeze into himself and walked through the gardens to the river. When the sun arose in the east he submerged himself into the holy stream and returned home toward his family, which was gathered for the morning prayer.
Hestepped into their circle, greeted them with a kind smile, motioned the women back into their rooms, and then he spoke to his sons:
“You know that for years only one concern has moved my soul: to be righteous and to live without fault on Earth; now it happened yesterday that blood flowed onto the earth of my house, blood of a living human being, and I want to be free from this blood and do penance for the offense that was committed under the shade of my roof. The slave, who had paid too harshly for a petty matter, shall have freedom from this hour on and shall go wherever it pleases him, so that he may neither accuse me nor you before the Final Judge.
His sons stood silently, and Virata felt hostility in their silence.
“I feel a silence against my word. I also do not want to act against you without listening to you.”
“You want to give freedom to an offender who transgressed, reward instead of punishment,” began the oldest son. “We have many servants in the house, and this one here would not count. But every action has an effect beyond itself and is connected to the chain. If you would let this one free, how then can you hold the others, who are yours, if they want to leave?”
“If they desire to leave my life I must let them. I do not want to control any living being’s destiny, for those who form destinies fall into fault.”
“But you dissolve the symbol of law,” raised the second son. “These slaves are ours like the earth and the tree of this earth and the fruit of this tree. As they are serving you, they are bound to you and you are bound to them. You are touching upon a tradition which has been growing for thousands of years throughout time: the slave is not master of his life, but servant to his master.”
“There is only one law given by God, and this law is the life which was given to everyone with the breath of their mouth. You admonish me, who was blind and believed to be free from fault: yet I took other people’s lives for years. But now I see clearly and understand: a righteous man may not turn people into animals. I want to give freedom to all that I may stand without fault before them on Earth.”
Defiance was written upon the foreheads of his sons. And the oldest one answered harshly:
“Who will irrigate the fields with water, so that the rice won’t dry out, and who will lead the buffalos in the field? Shall we become servants because of your insanity? You yourself have not troubled your hands with labor for the length of your lifetime and have never been concerned that your life grew on top of the service of other people. And isn’t there another person’s sweat in the woven mat, upon which you laid, and didn’t a servant watch over your sleep with a palm leaf? And suddenly you want to chase them away, so that no one might be troubled other than we, your own blood. Should we perhaps even release the buffalos from their ploughs and pull the ropes in their stead, so that the whip shall not strike them? For in them, too, flows the breath of life from the mouth of the God of a Thousand Expressions. Do not touch, father, upon the established matters, for these, too, are of God. The Earth does not open herself willingly; violence must be done to her so that fruit may well up from her. Violence is the law beneath the stars, we cannot do without.”
“But I want to do without, for the use of force is seldom just, and I want to live without injustice upon the Earth.”
“Force lies in every ownership, be it of man or animal or of the enduring Earth. Where you are lord you must also be a ruler: who possesses is bound to the destiny of men.”
“But I want to detach myself from everything that leads me into fault. Therefore I command you to free the servants in the house and to earn a livelihood by yourself.”
Rage swelled up in the eyes of the sons; they could barely keep their grumbling to themselves. Then the eldest said:
“You have said you don’t want to restrict a person’s will. You don’t want to command your slaves that you may not fall into fault; but us you command, and you intrude into our lives. Where, I ask you, is justice here before God and the people?”
Virata remained silent for a long time. As he raised his eyes he saw the flame of greed in their stares and his soul was filled with dread. Then he spoke softly:
“You have taught me correctly. I do not want to commit violence against you. Take the house and share it in accordance with your will; I do not have part anymore in possessions and in fault. You have said it well: he who commands imprisons others, but even more so his soul. Who wants to live without fault may not take part in house and in other people’s fate; may not derive sustenance from other people’s efforts, may not cling to the lust of women and the lethargy of gluttony: only who lives alone lives with God; only one who is active feels God, only poverty owns God completely. I, however, want to be closer to the Invisible than to my own property, I want to live without fault. Take the house and share it peacefully.”
Virata turned around and left. His sons were astonished; the satisfied greed burned sweetly in their bodies, and yet in their souls they were ashamed.
Part IV: The Star of Solitude
Virata, however, locked himself into his chamber, and neither listened to calls nor admonitions. Only when the shadows were falling into the night he prepared himself for his journey; he took with him a walking stick, a bowl of alms, an axe for cutting, a handful of fruits for nourishment and palm leaves with scriptures of wisdom inscribed on them for devotional prayers. He skirted his gown over his knees and left silently his house without turning around toward wife, children, and the community of his entire estate. He hiked the entire night until he reached the river into which he had once sunk his sword in an embittered hour of awakening; he crossed the ford and then moved upstream on the other shore were nothing was built and where the earth did not know the plough.
Around dawn he arrived at a place where lightning had struck an old mango tree and had burned a clearing into the brushwood. The river passed by smoothly in an arc and flocking birds clustered around the low waters in order to drink fearlessly. It was bright here due to the open waters and one had a shadow on one’s back due to the trees. Wood that had been splintered from the impact and cracked bushes were still lying around. Virata surveyed the bright solitary area in the midst of the forest and decided to build a hut here and to live his life completely in contemplation, far from the people, and without fault.
For five days he worked on the hut, for his hands were not used to labor. And even then during the day his work was full of exertion, for he had to find fruits for his diet, defend his hut from the forcefully encroaching undergrowth, and create a circular clearing with pointed pickets so that the tigers, which were growling in the dark, would not approach the hut by night. But no sound of humans penetrated his life and disturbed his soul; quietly the days flowed by like the water in the river, gently renewed by an unending source.
Only the birds still came, the quiescent man did not make them afraid, and soon they built nests on his hut. He sprinkled the seeds of the big flowers and hard fruits before them. Willingly they jumped onward and did not shy from his hands anymore; they flew down from the palms when he enticed them, he played with them and they let themselves be touched closely. Once he found in the forest a young monkey with a broken leg lying on the ground, screaming childishly. He took him and raised him until he became docile and playfully imitated him and served him. In such a way he was gently surrounded by living things, but he always knew that violence also lurked in animals, and evil, too, like within the human being. He saw, how the alligators bit and chased each other in rage, how birds snatched fish from the river with pointed beaks and how the snakes in turn wrestled themselves around the birds: the enormous chain of destruction, which the hostile Goddess had twined around the world, became obvious to him as a law which knowledge could not reject. Yet it was good to be present only as an onlooker beyond any of these fights, detached from any fault in the growing circle of destruction and liberation.
He had not seen a human being for one year and a number of moons. But it happened once that a hunter was following the tracks of an elephant to the watering hole and saw a strange image from the other riverbank. There sat, enlightened by the yellow rays of the evening, in front of a narrow hut a white-beard; birds had peacefully settled in his hair, a monkey cracked open nuts with clear blows in front of his feet. But he was looking up to the treetops where blue and colored parrots swung, and when he once raised his hands they flocked, a golden cloud, downwards and landed upon his hands. The hunter, however, believed he had seen the saint of whom it was prophesied: ‘the animals shall talk to him with the voice of the human being, and the flowers shall grow beneath his steps. He can pluck the stars with his lips and blow away the moon with the breath of his mouth.’ And the hunter gave up his hunt and hurried homeward in order to relate what he had seen.
On the next day already curious people hustled together in order to spot the miracle from the other shore; their numbers grew until one of them recognized Virata, the lost one of his country, who had left behind his house and estate for the sake of the great righteousness. The tidings spread farther and they reached the king, who had painfully missed his faithful subject; he had a bark prepared with four times seven rowers. And they rowed upstream until the boat arrived before Virata’s hut, then they threw carpets in front of the king’s feet as he was approaching the wise man. It had been one year and six moons, however, since Virata had last heard the voice of men; shyly he stood and hesitated in front of his guests, forgot to bow like servant before his lord and only said: “Blessed be your arrival, my king.”
The king embraced him.
“For years now I am seeing your way move toward completion, and I came to see the rare, how a righteous man is living, so that I may learn from him.”
Virata bowed.
“My knowledge consists of only this: that I have unlearned to be with people, in order to remain free from fault. The hermit can only teach himself. I do not know if it is wise what I’m doing; do not know if it’s happiness I’m feeling — I do not know anything to counsel nor anything to teach. The wisdom of the hermit is of a different kind than that of the world; the law of contemplation a different one than that of action.”
“But to see already how a righteous man lives, is learning,” answered the king. “Since my eye has seen you I feel an innocent joy. I do not desire more.”
Virata bowed once again. And once again the king embraced him.
“May I fulfill you a wish in my kingdom, or bring some tidings to your family?”
“Nothing is mine anymore, my king, or everything on this Earth. I’ve forgotten that once a house amongst other houses, and children amongst other children, belonged to me. The homeless man has the world, the detached man the totality of life, and the faultless man peace. I have no wish other than to remain free from fault on Earth.”
“Then live well and be mindful of me in your meditations.”
“I am mindful of God, and so I shall also be mindful of you and of all others on this Earth who are a part of God and his breath.”
Virata bowed. The boat of the king drifted again downstream, and for many moons the hermit did not hear the voice of any man.
Once more Virata’ fame raised its wings and flew like a white hawk over the kingdom. News of the one who had renounced his house and possessions in order to live a true life of contemplation spread to the farthest villages and to the huts by the ocean, and the people called the god-fearing man the Star of Solitude. The priests praised his renunciations in the temples and the king before his servants; but if a judge spoke a verdict in the kingdom he added: “May my judgment be righteous, just as Virata’ judgment had been, who now lives with God and knows about all wisdom.”
It happened now once in a while, and more often with the years, that a man, when he had recognized the injustice of his actions and the dull meaning of his life, left behind his house and country, gave away all his possessions, and walked into the forest, in order to build a hut and live like him, close to God. For the living example is the strongest bond on Earth, which binds all people; every action awakes in others the will for righteousness, so that he arises from the slumber of his dreams and busily fills his time. And these awakened ones became aware of their lives; they saw the blood upon their hands and the sins in their souls. Thus they got up and went into the far land, in order to build a hut like him, living only for the naked need of the body and in endless contemplation. When they encountered one another on the paths during their gathering of fruits they did not speak with each other, in order to not form a new community, but their eyes smiled joyously and their souls offered peace to one another. The people however called this forest the forest of the pious. And no hunter roamed this wilderness in order to not disturb the holiness through murder.
Once, now, while Virata was walking about one morning in the forest, he saw a hermit lie lifelessly on the ground, and when he bowed down in order to help him up he realized that no life was present anymore in his body. Virata closed the eyes of the dead man, offered a prayer and wanted to carry his lifeless husk away from the undergrowth and build a stake for him so that the body of this brother might enter the transcendent world in a pure state. But the weight was too heavy for his arms which had been weakened due to his meager diet. Thus he went, in order to ask for help, across the ford of the river to the next village.
When the natives of the village saw the great man, whom they called the Star of Solitude, walk upon their street, they came to listen to his will with reverence and went right away to fell trees and consecrate the dead man. But wherever Virata walked women bowed down, children stopped and looked astonishingly after the one who was walking in silence, and many men stepped out of their houses in order to kiss the robe of this great visitor and receive a blessing by this holy man. Virata, on the other hand, went smilingly through this pure wave and felt how much and how purely he was again able to love the people since he was not bound to them anymore.
While he was walking past the last low house of the village, however, cheerfully responding to the greetings of the approaching people, he saw the eyes of a woman furiously staring at him — he startled, for it was as if he had seen again the rigid, long-ago forgotten eyes of his slain brother. And how he was startled! Hostility had become so foreign to his soul in this time of solitude. And he convinced himself that it had been a mistake by his eyes. But her stare still pointed black and rigidly toward him. And as he, once again a master of his disposition, released his step in order to walk toward her house, the woman retreated back into the corridor with hostility; however, he still felt the burning of her gaze coming out of this dark depth like the eyes of a tiger from behind the static brushwork.
Virata assured himself. “How can I have a fault against her, whom I’ve never seen, so that her hate leaps towards me?” he asked himself. “It must be a mistake, I want to clarify it.” He stepped calmly towards the house and tapped with his knuckles upon the door. Only the naked sound reverberated back, and yet he felt the hate-filled proximity to this unbeknownst woman. Patiently he continued to knock, waited, and knocked like a beggar. Finally the hesitating woman stepped forth, her stern and hostile gaze upon him.
“What more do you want from me?” she spewed out against him. And he saw she had to hold fast onto the pole, to such an extent her rage shook her.
Virata, however, only saw her face and his heart lightened up, for he was certain that he had never seen her before. For she was young and he had been removed from people for years; his path could never have crossed hers and he could never have caused something to her life.
“I wanted to pass on to you the good wishes of peace, unknown lady,” Virata answered, “and ask you why you are looking in fury upon me. Have I ever been hostile to you, have I ever done anything to you?”
“What you have done to me?” — an evil grin went forth from her mouth, “what you have done to me? Only a minor thing, a very minor thing: you have carried my house from fullness to emptiness; you have taken away my dearest ones and have thrown my life into the hands of death. Go, that I may not see your face anymore, or else I cannot keep my rage under control.”
Virata looked at her. Her eyes were so mad he assumed insanity had taken hold of the stranger. Already he turned around to go on and said only: “I am not the one you think I am. I live far away from people and do not carry the fault of other people’s fates. Your eyes mistake me.”
But her hate drove up from behind him.
“Sure I recognize you, whom we all know! You are Virata, whom they call the Star of Solitude, whom they praise with the four names of virtue. But not I shall praise you; my mouth shall scream against you until it reaches the Last Judge of the living. Then come, since you ask, and look what you have done to me.”
And she grabbed the surprised hermit and yanked him into the house, bumped open a door toward the room that was low and dark. And she pulled him into the corner where something rigid lay on the mat. Virata bowed down and startled back, terrified: a boy lay there, dead, and his eyes stared at him like the eyes of his brother of long-ago in eternal accusation. But next to him the woman screamed, shaken with grief: “The third, the last one from my bosom; and you have murdered him, too, you, whom they call the holy man and the servant of God.”
And when Virata questioningly wanted to raise his word in objection, she pulled him to another place: “Here, look at this weaving bench, the empty one! Here stood Paratika, my husband, who weaved white linen by daylight; there was no better weaver in the kingdom. They came from far away and gave him work, and his work gave us life. Bright were our days, for Paratika was a kind man, and his diligence without end. He avoided the unrighteous and avoided the dark alleys; he begot three children out of my bosom and we raised them, hoping that they would become men in his image, kind and righteous. At that time he heard from a hunter — by God I wish the stranger had never come here — that there was a man in this kingdom who had left behind house and possessions in order to enter as a mortal into God, constructing a hut with his own hands. Thereupon Paratika’s mind got darker and darker, he thought often at night and seldom spoke a word. And one night, as I awoke, he had left my side and gone into the forest which they call the forest of the pious and where you dwelt in order to be mindful of God. But as he was mindful of himself, he forgot us and forgot that we were living off of his strength. Poverty came into this house, the children lacked bread; one died off after another and today this, the last one, died because of you. You have misled my husband. So that you might be closer to the true Presence of God the three children that came from my body had to be stomped into the hard earth. How will you do penance for this, you conceited man, when I shall call you before the Judge of the dead and living in accusation of the fact that their tiny bodies were twisting in a thousand pains before they passed away, while you were tossing crumbs before the birds and were far removed from any suffering? How will you do penance for the fact that you enticed a righteous man to leave behind the work that nourished him and his innocent boys with the foolish delusion that he is closer to God in isolation than in living life?”
Virata stood palefaced with trembling lips.
“I did not know about this, that I gave others the impetus to act similarly. I thought I acted on my own.”
“Where, then, is your wisdom, oh wise one, if you do not know what young boys already know, that every act proceeds from God and that no one escapes from God and from the law of fault through his or her own will! You were none other than a conceited man, you, who believed to be master of your actions and taught others: what was sweet to you is now my own bitterness, and your life is now this child’s death.”
Virata pondered for a while. Then he bowed down.
“You speak the truth, and I see: there is always more knowledge of truth enclosed in pain than in a wise person’s composure. And what I know I have learned from the distressed, what I saw I saw in the eyes of the tormented, the eyes of of my Brother. I had been not a humble servant of God, as I had thought, but an arrogant man: this I know because of your suffering, which I am now suffering. Forgive me therefore, that I may repent: I am indebted to you and perhaps to the fates of many other people as well who are as yet unbeknownst to me. For also the idle man commits an act which makes him accountable on Earth, and the hermit, too, lives in all brothers. Forgive me, woman! I shall return from the forest, so that Paratika, too, shall return and beget new life in your bosom for the departed.”
He bowed down once again and touched the seam of her dress with his lips. In that moment all her anger fell off from her and she looked astonishingly upon the departing man.
Part V: The Servant
Hespent one more night in his hut, watched how the stars broke forth in white brilliance from the depth of the sky and how they were extinguished at dawn; once more he called the birds to feed them and caressed them. Then he took his stick and his bowl of alms, and went back into the city as he had come years and years ago.
As soon as news had spread that the holy man had left his seclusion and abode once again within the walls of the city, people streamed forth from their alleys, grateful to see the rarely seen man; a few were even secretly afraid that his arrival from the God might signify the occurrence of a misfortune. Virata walked as through a waving wall of reverence and tried to greet the people with the serene smile that was usually tenderly present upon his face; but for the first time he was not capable of it anymore, his eyes remained serious and his mouth closed.
In this manner he arrived at the atrium of the palace. The hour of council was over and the king was by himself. Virata approached him who got up to embrace him. But Virata bent down towards the earth and took hold of the seam of the king’s robe as a sign of request.
“Your wish has been fulfilled,” said the king, “before even one word appeared on your lips. May honor shower upon me that I was given the power to serve a pious man and be of help to a wise man.”
“Do not call me a wise man,” answered Virata, “for my path was not right. I have walked in a circle, and stand here, pleadingly, before the threshold of your throne where I had once stood before, asking you to relieve me of my duties. I had wanted to be free from fault and avoided all actions, but I, too, was caught up in the net which was created by the gods for us mortals.”
“I find it hard to believe this of you,” answered the king. “How were you able to do injustice against people, you who avoided them; how could you fall into fault, you who lived with God?”
“I have done injustice unknowingly; I have fled from fault, but our feet are fastened to this Earth and our actions are bound by Eternal Laws. Inaction, too, is an action; I was not able to escape the eyes of my Brother on behalf of which we are constantly doing good and evil against our will. But I am guilty seven times, for I fled from God and refused to serve life; I was utterly useless for I nourished only my life and served no one else’s. Now I want to serve again.”
“Your talk seems strange to me, Virata, I don’t understand you. Tell me your wish, that I may fulfill it.”
“I do not want to be free from my will anymore. For the free one is not free and the idle one not without fault. Only he who serves is free, who dedicates his will toward another, who gives his power to a cause without asking. Only the center of every action is due to our effort — its beginning and its end, its cause and effect lie with the gods. Make me free from my will — for all will is confusion, all service wisdom — that I may be grateful to you, my king.”
“I do not understand you. I should make you free, you demand, and you ask me for a duty. So only he is free who takes over the duty of someone else, and not he who commands him this duty? I don’t understand this.”
“It is good, my king, that you do not understand this in your heart. For if you understood this how could you still be a king and command?”
The king’s face grew dark with anger.
“So you think that a ruling man is less before the God than a servant?”
“No one is less and no one greater before God. Only who serves and who dedicates his will without asking has shed fault from himself and given back to God. But he who desires and believes he can avoid wickedness through wisdom falls into temptation and into fault.”
The face of the king remained dark.
“Then one kind of service is equal to other kinds, and no one greater and no one lesser before God and the people?”
“It may be that a few things appear greater in the eyes of the people, my king, but the God sees only one kind of service.”
The king looked at Virata long and ominously. His pride curled up resentfully in his soul. But when he saw the fallen features and the white hair above the wrinkled skin he thought the old man had become childish over time, and said mockingly, in order to tempt him:
“Would you like to be overseer of the dogs in my palace?”
Virata bowed and kissed the step as a sign of gratitude.
From this day on the old man, whom the people of the kingdom had once praised with the four names of virtue, was keeper of the dogs in the stable of the palace and lived with the servants in the basement. His sons were ashamed of him; they walked past the house in a cowardly semicircle, so that they would not become aware of him and would have to admit to their blood relationship before the others; the priests turned their backs upon this unworthy man. Only the people stood and wondered for a few more days when the old man, who had once been the highest-ranking in the kingdom, came with the leash for the dogs. But he did not pay attention to them, and so they soon forgot and did not consider him anymore.
Virata faithfully did his service from the dawn of the morning until the dusk of the evening. He washed the flews of the animals and scratched off their scabs; he carried their feed and bedded their pads and cleaned away their feces. Soon the dogs loved him more than anyone of the palace, and it made him happy; his old fuzzy mouth which no longer talked often to people, always smiled at their delight, and he loved his years, which were long and without many events. The king went before him into death, and a new king came who paid no attention to him and hit him once because a dog had growled as he was passing by. And also the other people gradually forgot about his life.
But when his years, too, had been filled and Virata died and was dug in into the pit for the servants, none of the people bethought of him, whom the country had praised with the four names of virtue. His sons hid away, and no priest sung the song of death upon his outlived body. Only the dogs howled for two days and two nights, then they, too, forgot Virata, whose name is neither inscribed into the chronicles of the rulers, nor listed in the books of the wise.
The End
