When the Snake and the Turtle that the earth rests upon began to tremble, the gods got together again, aggrieved and grim. “Those two think of nothing but dice and sex. Tāraka could make slaves of us all, and they wouldn’t turn a hair. The world will have crumbled away beneath our feet before we know it,” said one of the Thirty-three. “We’ll go and ask Visnu’s advice again,” they agreed. This time Viṣṇu didn’t try to reassure them. “Śiva might perfectly well wait another whole aeon before releasing his seed,” he said pensively. He acted as their guide on the road to Mount Kailāsa. The gods walked along the path up the valley like a caravan of ants, until finally they sniffed the breeze of the locus amoenus where Śiva dwelled. They didn’t deign to give its delights so much as a glance. Coming out of the forest, they suddenly found themselves among Śiva’s Ganas. Some were asleep, some playing dice. “Where’s Śiva? You must tell us, our distress is crushing us.” “There’s not much to tell. One day, a long time ago now, Śiva withdrew into Pārvatī’s rooms. He still hasn’t come out. We don’t know what he’s up to. We’ve been left here yawning ever since,” said one of the Ganas. Cautiously, the gods pressed on, until they reached what Nandin the bull referred to as the Nocturnal Pavilion: an enchaunting, childishly embellished, polygonal structure that stood on thin columns and boasted a terrace where Śiva and Pārvatī gave themselves up to astronomy and pleasure. Viṣṇu had taken charge. It was he who dared to knock on the pavilion door, he who spoke, in a voice too shrill and tense: “Our supreme Lord, what are you doing in there? We have all come to seek refuge with you, oppressed as we are by Tāraka. Grant us your assistance.” From behind Visnu’s voice came a buzz of praise and celebration. Each of the gods was murmuring something.
That knocking on the door, the babble of voices, Viṣṇu’s shrill words: it all slid into Śiva’s mind like a splinter of some mineral whose composition he knew only too well. “The world again,” he thought, impatiently, slowly shifting the angle at which he was penetrating Pārvatī. Their coitus had been going on for some dozens of years. Initially it had been violent (they had just argued because Pārvatī was cheating at dice), then it had been like a liquid flow, then it had all dissolved like ashes in water, then it was all water, and the water trembled ever so slightly, as if it were feverish — and all at once Śiva had remembered how one day Pārvatī, the little-girl theologian, had appeared before him, self-possessed and resplendent, impeccably decked out in tree bark pulled tight with a belt of leaves at the waist, and announced in what was almost a rage: “How dare you presume to ignore the prakṛti you’re entwined to? How could your mind breathe if it didn’t devour your substance, myself?” Śiva had laughed. Then they had tried to touch each other using nothing but their teeth. For years Śiva had drenched himself in that substance, invading it, invaded by it, burning. But now, he felt, he was returning to a state not very different from the time he had stood fast in a motionless column deep in the waters, and shut the world out from himself. Yet from time to time he would feel nostalgic for that world. To go back to watching the sky and shooting his arrows or wandering around the forest with his animals, or going to the markets as a juggler or dancer, lost in the crowd. When would he be doing that again? It was the sign that Śiva was about to detach himself. He was only holding off because Pārvatī was still absorbed in her pleasure. And now this gaggle of gods. Śiva immediately crushed the profound irritation that had pricked him a moment before. He got up from his bed, opened the door, saw the gods’ faces, masks of fear and curiosity, their eyes not daring to meet his and at the same time taking advantage of the situation to sneak glances behind him, where they hoped to get a glimpse of Pārvatī in the half-light. Distracted by this ludicrous sight, forgetting himself for one tiny fraction of time, Śiva realized that his phallus was squirting out its seed. Quick as lightning, Agni darted forward and opened his mouth wide to take it. Regaining his composure, and likewise, his mocking smile, Śiva said: “Isn’t that what you wanted?” Behind him a door opened, slowly. And as the gods crowded around like a bevy of dim-witted school-children, Pārvatī appeared, her moist skin cloaked only in a thin and crumpled robe. The Mother of the Universe glared from furious eyes. She said: “I hate you and curse you all. It is you and the fear that consumes you that have stolen from me, from the Mother of the Universe, the happiness of giving birth like a normal woman. I shall be sterile, but likewise sterile shall be the wives that the demon Tāraka took from you and whom I hope he defiles, so that they may learn from him the pleasure that you were unable to give them. If they are sterile, then all the gods will be sterile. The era of these pusillanimous celestial families is over. There are too many of you, you are old and the world is impatient to be rid of you. Up there, where you live, there will be nothing but emptiness, and that emptiness will enchant men even more than you have enchanted them. Only Śiva shall be motionless, pervasive, intact, as he ever has been. I despise you.” Pārvatī shut the door. Without a word, the gods stepped contritely backwards and withdrew. Later they could be seen climbing down the mountain. On a litter, they carried a writhing Agni, his throat scorched by Śiva’s seed.
Śaravanodbhava, Born-in-a-reed-marsh: that was one of the names they gave. Skanda, Squirt, the boy who was to save the world. Fire burned by fire, Agni spat out Śiva’s seed into a meander of the Gangā. Still water, under moonlight. The Pleiades, the Krttikās who watch over from above, saw the scene. Then a glow in the water drew them irresistibly. Having conversed so often with sailors and helped them find their way, they were eager to know the earth. Only the ever punctilious Arundhatí stayed where she was, reluctant to touch the world. Six girls descended in line from the night sky. They hid among the reeds, as though behind screens. Śiva’s seed penetrated the pores of their pulsing bodies. They lay there, feeding it, six guardians of a single womb. Then the white torsos of the entwined sisters rose from the waters as they all gave birth together. There was a profound silence, but that was not to say no one was watching. Hidden behind bushes on the riverbank, impatient for a sight of the boy who meant survival for them, the gods gazed hard at that glowing swamp. The reeds rustled in a first breeze. They saw six pairs of hands lift and caress a child above the surface of the water. Pārvatī was far away, alone, shut up in the shadows, melancholy, despondent. Quite suddenly she felt the milk flow in her breasts. And at the same time a spasm more painful than any birth, because it meant that she would never give birth. The milk was a mockery. But it did confirm that Skanda was her child, even if he hadn’t been born from her womb. “Your flesh is made of my tapas and my pleasure. You exist because Śiva touched me,” murmured Pārvatī to her distant son. And already Skanda was laughing amid reeds and mud. Six women offered him their breasts. They looked more like playmates than mothers. The divine infant’s six mouths stretched out to suck the milk of the Pleiades.