"A hawk?"
Dr. Robert pointed to where, halfway between their eyrie and the dark roof of the forest, a small brown incarnation of speed and rapine lazily wheeled on unmoving wings. "It reminds me of a poem that the Old Raja once wrote about this place." Dr. Robert was silent for a moment, then started to recite:
"And the secret, I take it, is this empty space."
"Or rather what this empty space is the symbol of-the Buddha Nature in all our perpetual perishing. Which reminds me . . ." He looked at his watch.
"What's next on the program?" Will asked as they stepped out into the glare.
"The service in the temple," Dr. Robert answered. "The young climbers will offer their accomplishment to Shiva-in other words, to their own Suchness visualized as God. After which they'll go on to the second part of their initiation-the experience of being liberated from themselves."
"By means of the moksha-medicine?"
Dr. Robert nodded. "Their leaders give it them before they leave the Climbing Association's hut. Then they come over to the temple. The stuff starts working during the service. Incidentally," he added, "the service is in Sanskrit, so you won't understand a word of it. Vijaya's address will be in English-he speaks in his capacity as president of the Climbing Association. So will mine. And of course the young people will mostly talk in English."
Inside the temple there was a cool, cavernous darkness, tempered only by the faint daylight filtering in through a pair of small latticed windows and by the seven lamps that hung, like a halo of yellow, quivering stars, above the head of the image on the altar. It was a copper statue, no taller than a child, of Shiva. Surrounded by a flame-fringed glory, his four arms gesturing, his braided hair wildly flying, his right foot treading down a dwarfish figure of the most hideous malignity, his left foot gracefully lifted, the god stood there, frozen in mid-ecstasy. No longer in their climbing dress, but sandaled, bare-breasted and in shorts or brightly colored skirts, a score of boys and girls, together with the six young men who had acted as their leaders and instructors, were sitting cross-legged on the floor. Above them, on the highest of the altar steps, an old priest, shaven and yellow-robed, was intoning something sonorous and incomprehensible. Leaving Will installed on a convenient ledge, Dr. Robert tiptoed over to where Vijaya and Murugan were sitting and squatted down beside them.
The splendid rumble of Sanskrit gave place to a high nasal chant, and the chanting in due course was succeeded by a litany, priestly utterance alternating with congregational response.
And now incense was burned in a bass thurible. The old priest held up his two hands for silence, and through a long pregnant time of the most perfect stillness the thread of gray incense smoke rose straight and unwavering before the god, then as it met the draft from the windows broke and was lost to view in an invisible cloud that filled the whole dim space with the mysterious fragrance of another world. Will opened his eyes and saw that, alone of all the congregation, Murugan was restlessly fidgeting. And not merely fidgeting-making faces of impatient disapproval. He himself had never climbed; therefore climbing was merely silly. He himself had always refused to try the moksha-medicine; therefore those who used it were beyond the pale. His mother believed in the Ascended Masters and chatted regularly with Koot Hoomi; therefore the image of Shiva was a vulgar idol. What an eloquent pantomime, Will thought as he watched the boy. But alas for poor little Murugan, nobody was paying the slightest attention to his antics.
"Shivayanama," said the old priest, breaking the long silence, and again, "Shivayanama." He made a beckoning gesture.
Rising from her place, the tall girl whom Will had seen working her way down the precipice mounted the altar steps. Standing on tiptoe, her oiled body gleaming like a second copper statue in the light of the lamps, she hung a garland of pale-yellow flowers on the uppermost of Shiva's two left arms. Then, laying palm to palm, she looked up into the god's serenely smiling face and, in a voice that faltered at first, but gradually grew steadier, began to speak:
Raising her arms, the girl made a gesture that hinted at the ecstatic devotion of a hundred generations of dancing worshipers, then turned away and walked back into the twilight. "Shivayanama," somebody cried out. Murugan snorted contemptuously as the refrain was taken up by other young voices. "Shivayanama, Shivayanama..." The old priest started to intone another passage from the Scripture. Halfway through his recitation a small gray bird with a crimson head flew in through one of the latticed windows, fluttered wildly around the altar lamps, then, chattering in loud indignant terror, darted out again. The chanting continued, swelled to a climax, and ended in the whispered prayer for peace: Shanti shanti shanti. The old priest now turned towards the altar, picked up a long taper and, borrowing flame from one of the lamps above Shiva's head, proceeded to light seven other lamps that hung within a deep niche beneath the slab on which the dancer stood. Glinting on polished convexities of metal, their light revealed another statue- this time of Shiva and Parvati, of the Arch-Yogin seated and, while two of his four hands held aloft the symbolic drum and fire, caressing with the second pair the amorous Goddess, with her twining legs and arms, by whom, in this eternal embrace of bronze, he was bestridden. The old priest waved his hand. This time it was a boy, dark-skinned and powerfully muscled, who stepped into the light. Bending down, he hung the garland he was carrying about Parvati's neck; then, twisting the long flower chain, dropped a second loop of white orchids over Shiva's head.