Time entered upon the scene between the surfacing of intention and the act that followed it. As long as there is only mind, intention is action. But, as soon as there is something outside mind, Time slips in between intention and act. And then one escapes forever from the mental universe through a breach that is still open, like an open wound, in Prajāpati’s groin.
Why did anything happen? Rudra, the obscure Archer, was guardian of the fullness that lacks nothing. But the fullness burned. And burning, it conceived the excitement of there being something it did lack, something on which to throw itself. Burning can easily generate hallucination. One begins to think that all does not lie within one’s own fire, but that something exists outside, that an outside exists somewhere over there. A white substance, the best to burn. One day they would call it soma. And that becomes the object of desire, that cold, external, intoxicating being whom the fire has yet to scorch.
Fullness had to be wounded, a breach of dispossession opened. Later that breach would be encircled, closed, albeit slowly, by the same power that had produced it, the same power from which it was born — Time, he who demanded but a single idol for his celebration: the arrow. In the compact surface of existence, that breach, that void, amounted to no more than a tiny crack, no broader than a grain of barley, like the wound that Rudra’s arrow opened in Prajāpati’s groin and that was never to close. But the idea that in some future time that tattered edge of bleeding flesh might close was enough to suggest the possibility of a higher level of fullness, something in respect to which the fullness of the beginning seemed crude and stifled. It didn’t matter whether that further fullness turned out to be — as indeed it would — unattainable. Its flickering image blotted out any desire to return to the earlier fullness.
When the ātman, the Self that observes the I, decided to create something distinct, a nature that would obey nature, it stretched a veil of opacity across the world. This was to be the great secret, the ultimate gamble, the novelty that would forever prevail, that the world should not communicate with the mind from which it had issued. But whether out of antique intimacy or mere amazement at the sight of that alien and, at last, unknown being, before abandoning it to its own devices, the mind went after the world, as if still in a position to caress it. Such was the incest of Prajāpati and Uṣas.
The Father lay on his back, dying. He was no longer an antelope now. He was a man again. A trickle of blood striped one thigh. The obscure Archer watched him. “Give me a name,” he said. “You are Bhava, Existence,” said Prajāpati, the rattle at his throat. “It’s not enough,” said Śarva, the Archer, “give me another name.” “You are Sarva. Everything,” croaked Prajāpati. The Archer demanded other names. One by one they issued in sobs from Prajāpati’s mouth, which was foaming blood. “You are Pásupati, you are Ugradeva, you are Mahādeva, you are Vāstospati, you are Īśāna, you are Aśsani.” “It’s not enough,” said Rudra. “You are Kumāra, Boy,” was Prajāpati’s last rattle. Rudra said nothing, leaning on his bow. “For every name you give me, a scale of evil falls from me,” he said in a whisper. So far Prajāpati had been stunned by the Archer’s ferocity. Like an evil hunter, he had shot him at the moment of utmost pleasure, utmost vulnerability. Now he was watching him die and tormenting him, insisting that the dying Father reward him with solemn names. But when Prajāpati heard him speak of this evil, he was startled: he recognized himself in the Archer. Only Prajāpati had had evil beside him like a brother, including the Evil of Death, from as far back as he could remember. What did the other gods know of that? So then Prajāpati gave up the fight, ready for the end. He could hear a confused buzzing, a chattering that came and went in waves. Half-opening his eyes, clouded with pain, he saw a number of figures busying themselves around him. They were the gods. Stooped and servile, those who had incited Rudra to wound him were examining his wound with fervor and apprehension. Their anger had been swiftly replaced by devotion. They were trying to decide how best to pull out the three-notched arrow buried in his groin. The rattle still in his throat, Prajāpati smiled to himself in contempt. “They’re afraid I’ll die,” he thought. “They’ll always be afraid I’ll die, and they’ll always be trying to kill me.” He strained to look beyond them. Running over the ground and down to a hollow, Prajāpati’s seed had formed a pond. And now that pond was surrounded by a circular wall of fire. “Other gods are about to appear…,” thought Prajāpati. So it was. Then the flames fell. Only here and there a few embers glowed. Prajāpati looked at them, far away, with affection: “You are the band of beautiful singers, you are the Aṅgiras…,” he murmured, as deft fingers slid over his belly, then the chill of a blade. They didn’t pull out the arrow. They sliced into the flesh and cut away a tiny scrap, along with the metallic point.
“Wherever life is felt more acutely, that is Rudra,” said a western dancer. The gods thought so too, and were afraid of Rudra. They would see him arrive, suddenly, from the north, a shadowy figure, cloaked in dark gowns, glowing embers in his eyes. Shrewd and smooth-tongued, they praised him, and kept out of his way. The important thing was never to use his name. When pressed, they used the adjective “rudric” rather than the name. They never invited him to their sacrifices. (And what else was life?) They were afraid something irreparable might happen in his presence, afraid the fire might flare up and engulf them all. The gods knew the risks of intensity, because they were intensity itself. They shrank from anything that might shake the world’s cage too fiercely. Even the seers were startled when Rudra appeared, for his mere presence aroused the gravest of suspicions, a fear that had dogged them from the beginning: that sacrifice might not be enough, that it might not be able to draw the whole of reality into itself. At the same time, they called Rudra “King of the Sacrifice.” Why? Again suspicion was at work. Perhaps, outside their rites, their meters, their calendar of ceremonies, another sacrifice was going on, silently, constantly, in the veins of all that is, in the name of Rudra. But how to distinguish such a thing from profusion and massacre?
They were always speaking of the dawn, as if they had never seen anything else. Though in India dawns are brief. The difference between the shortest and longest days is hardly considerable: just four hours. Were they remembering the dawns of another country, a northern homeland, whence they had once descended? Uṣas is everywhere, in the Ṛg Veda. Her name occurs three hundred times. There are twenty hymns in her praise. Some say they are among the oldest. Some say they are among the finest. Nor did they fulfill the function of forming the accompaniment to an offering, since no material oblations were made to Uṣas. The poetic word wrapped around her as though around itself. And no offering to any god could serve its purpose unless Uṣas was witness to it. Recipient of words alone, Uṣas was the precondition of every offering: that flaring up of consciousness that occurs when Uṣas steps forward, uncovering herself.