Creation (25 page)

We were stopped by armed troops whenever we came to a frontier, which was at least once a day. Not only are there numerous principalities in that part of India but each principality is subdivided into a number of semi-autonomous states whose chief revenues come from the taxing of caravans. As the Great King’s ambassador, I was exempt from such taxes. But, in practice, I made it a point always to pay something. As a result, we were often granted an honor guard, which would accompany us to the next frontier. Presumably the thieves were intimidated by these escorts.

Only a strong king can make the countryside safe for travelers and at that time there was only one strong king in all of India. This was Bimbisara, to whose court at Magadha I had been accredited. Although Pasenadi of Koshala governed a larger, older and richer kingdom than Magadha, he himself was a weak ruler, and Koshala was a dangerous place for travelers.

We rode through jungles where bright parrots screamed, and maneless lions fled at our approach. Once I looked up and saw a tiger crouched on the branch of a tree. As I stared into the bright sun-yellow eyes, he stared into mine. I was terrified. He was, too, and vanished into the green wet darkness like a mirage or waking-dream.

The most dangerous of all Indian animals are the wild dogs. They travel in packs. They are mute. They are irresistible. Even those animals that are swifter than the dogs fall victim to them in the end for the pack is willing, day after day, to trail a deer or a tiger or even a lion until it grows weary and falters, and then, in absolute silence, the dogs attack.

Outside the deserted city of Gandhai, I noticed a series of small burrows arranged in a neat semicircle to one side of the muddy trail. When I asked Caraka what they were, he said, “Each dog digs himself a hole. Then he backs into it and sleeps. Or keeps watch. See? The shining eyes.” Through the driving rain, I could make out the bright eyes of the wild dogs. They watched our every move.

That evening, somewhat abruptly, our escort left us at the gates of Gandhai. “They think,” said Caraka, “that the city’s haunted.”

“Is it?” I asked.

“If it is,” he said with a smile, “the ghosts are of my people. So we’re safe.”

We rode down a wide central avenue to the main square of a city that had been built by the original Indians thousands of years before the arrival of the Aryans. The city is very like Babylon, with houses of burnt brick and straight main avenues. To the west of the city are the ruins of a citadel, which the Aryans tore down. Then, for some reason, they drove away the native population and the city has been empty ever since.

“The people who built this city were called Harappas. I suppose that those who were not killed went south.” Caraka sounded bitter.

“But that was so long ago.”

“Thirty-five generations is not long for us,” he said. “You sound like a Babylonian,” I said, which he took as a compliment.

Shortly before the sun set, we moved into a large building that had once been a granary. Although the ancient tile roof was in better condition than the new roof of government house at Patalene, the beams of the ceiling sagged ominously. After we had driven away a colony of angry monkeys, I ordered my tent to be set up at one end of the hall. Then fires were lit, and the evening meal was prepared.

At that time Caraka was introducing me to Indian food—a slow process, since I am a cautious eater. Although my first experience with a mango was disagreeable, the pineapple was an immediate delight. I also liked the Indian fowl, a white-fleshed bird so tame that Indians keep them not only for their eggs and flesh but for the feathers, which are used in cushions. These birds are closely related to what the Greeks call the Persian fowl, a current novelty here at Athens.

As a rule, I dined alone with Caraka. For one thing, the Persian officers preferred their own mess; for another, I was occupying the place, as it were, of the Great King. So I was hedged around with some of his dignity.

“You see what a high culture we had.” Caraka indicated the enormous hall. All that I could think of were those weakened beams. “Most impressive,” I agreed.

“We built this city a thousand years before the Aryans came.” Caraka sounded as if he himself had been the architect. “We were builders, traders, makers of things. They were tent dwellers, cattle herders, nomads—destroyers.”

Whenever I asked Caraka—or anyone else—to tell me just who and what the Harappas were, I got no coherent answer. Although their princes and merchants used to roll cylindrical seals on wet clay in order to make what are often quite beautiful picture-writings, no one has ever been able to read their texts.

“They worshipped the mother of all the gods,” said Caraka somewhat vaguely. “And the horned god.”

But I never learned much more than that from him. Over the years I heard a bit more about such Harappa gods as Naga the dragon, Nandi the bull, Honuman the monkey, as well as various animal and tree gods. Apparently the snake god is the most powerful, while their most ominous manlike deity has a snake coming out of each shoulder like Ahriman.

Without much help from Caraka, I soon learned to speak the proper Indo-Aryan of the rulers. I was startled to discover that both Persians and Indo-Aryans use the same term for that common Aryan homeland, from which also came the Dorian and Achaean Greeks. This homeland is somewhere at the north of the world, which is why the north star is sacred to all Aryans. I must say that I’ve always found it hard to believe that we are so closely related to those blond, fierce, cattle-keeping tribes who, to this day, descend upon the small dark peoples of the south in order to sack and burn their cities—as the Turanians did Bactra.

A thousand years ago, for reasons long since forgotten, certain Aryan tribesmen chose not to destroy but to settle the southern cities. When this happened in Media and Attica and Magadha, the Aryan tribesmen became civilized by their slaves. Also, despite every sort of taboo, they intermarried. When this happens, the wildest savage becomes like the civilized people that he has conquered. One can see this happening even now when Persia’s borders are constantly harassed by those wild folk from the steppes who are today what we once were and would like to be what we are now—civilized.

Incidentally, Cyrus was very much aware of the danger of his Persian highlanders becoming like the luxurious black-haired people that they had conquered. To guard against this, Cyrus insisted upon a strenuous military education for all young Persians. We were never to forget our Aryan heritage. But when Xerxes came to the melancholy conclusion that the Persians are now no different from the people they govern, he abandoned much of Cyrus’ educational system. I told him that I thought he was wrong. But he was the Achaemenid.

Although the Aryans were established in northern India long before Cyrus, it is my belief that the ancestors of both the Medes and the Persians arrived at what is now Persia at about the same time. But while the Aryan Persians settled the highlands, the Aryan Medes appropriated the Assyrian and Elamite civilizations. Eventually the Medes were so entirely absorbed by the dark ancient races whom they had conquered that by the time of Cyrus, the Aryan king of Media might just as well have been an Assyrian or Elamite king. Due to an accident of geography, the Persian clans were able to maintain their fierce Aryan spirit until Cyrus made himself universal monarch, as they say in India.

On the other hand, unlike the Medes, the Indo-Aryans have managed for close to forty generations to keep themselves unabsorbed by the Nagas or Dravidians or Harappas. They pride themselves on their fair skin, straight noses, pale eyes. Also, most shrewdly, they have divided themselves into four classes. First, the priests, whom they call Brahmans—creatures very like our own Magians; second, the warriors; third, the merchants; fourth, the farmers or artisans. Then there are the original peoples of this land. They are dark, sullen, overwhelmed—like Caraka. Millions of them still live in the north, reluctantly serving their foreign masters.

In theory, the four Indo-Aryan classes may not intermarry with one another, while intermarriage with the original folk is absolutely forbidden. Nevertheless, in the millennium that has passed since the Aryans arrived in India, they have become considerably darker of skin and eyes than their Persian cousins. Yet Indo-Aryans will tell you, quite seriously, that this darkness is due to the fierce sun of the dry season. I always agree.

Just as I was about to withdraw to my tent for the night, a tall naked man appeared in the doorway of the granary. For a moment he stood, blinking in the light. The hair on his head hung almost to his ankles. His fingernails and toenails were as long and as curving as parrots’ beaks; presumably, at a certain length, they broke off. He carried a broom. Once the man’s eyes were accustomed to the light he moved slowly toward me, sweeping the floor in front of him.

Those of my attendants who were still awake stared at him as dumbly as I. Finally one of the guards drew his sword, but I motioned for him to let the man pass.

“What on earth is it?” I asked Caraka. “Some sort of holy man. He could be a Jain. Or he could be mad. Or both.”

The man stopped in front of me and raised his broom, as if in salute. Then he said something that I did not understand, but Caraka did. “He’s mad,” said Caraka. “
And
he’s a Jain. That’s one of our most ancient sects.”

“Are all Jains mad?”

“Quite the contrary. But this one says that
he
is the maker of the river crossing, and he’s not. He can’t be. There have only been twenty-three crossing-makers since the beginning of time.”

None of this made the slightest sense to me. “What is a crossing-maker?” I asked. “And why is this man naked? And what is that broom for?”

Without permission, the man carefully swept a place for himself on the ground at my feet. Then he sat crossed-legged; and murmured prayers.

Caraka was so embarrassed by his countryman that at first he refused to tell me anything until I told him that the Great King was particularly interested in all the religions of India, which was true. If Darius was obliged to walk about naked with a broom in order to gain India, he would.

“A crossing-maker is a most holy man. The last one occurred about two hundred years ago. I have heard that a new one has appeared on earth, but I’m quite sure that this naked man isn’t the crossing-maker. For one thing, only extremists go about naked—or sky-clad, as the Jains say.”

“The broom?”

“To sweep away insects. A Jain must kill no living creature. So they often wear masks in order to keep from inhaling insects. They refuse to be farmers because insects are killed when the land is turned. They can’t eat honey, for that would starve the bees. They can’t—”

“What
can
they do?”

“They are excellent businessmen.” Caraka smiled. “My father was a Jain. But I’m not. The cult is very old ... pre-Aryan, in fact. The Jains have never accepted the Aryan gods. They do not believe in Varuna, Mithra, Brahma ...”

“Because they are devils.” I then quoted Zoroaster, briefly.

“They may be devils to Zoroaster, but they are true gods to the Aryans. To us, they are nothing at all. We are very different. Aryans believe in a life after death. A heaven for the good. A hell for the bad. We don’t. We believe in the passage of souls from one person to another or to a plant or to a rock or to a tree or to an animal. We think that the highest state is nirvana. That is, to be blown out, like a candle. To stop the long chain of being. To exist, finally, at the ceiling of the universe—perfect and still and complete. But to achieve this state one must, as the Jains would say, cross the river. Cease to want the things of this earth. Obey the eternal laws.”

For years now I have tried to discover if Pythagoras had ever had any contact with the Jains. I have found no evidence that he did. If he was never told about reincarnation, and if the idea of the transmigration of souls occurred to him all by itself, then there is a possibility that this pre-Aryan notion may be true.

Personally, I find the thought appalling. It is quite enough to be born once and to die once. After death, Zoroaster tells us, each of us will be judged. The good will exist in paradise; the wicked in hell. Eventually, when the Truth has eliminated the Lie, all will be transmuted into Truth. This seems to me to be not only a rational but a highly useful religion. That is why I cannot imagine anything more horrifying than hopping about from body to body, or from snake to wasp to tree. Of course, one is not supposed to remember—as Pythagoras could—earlier incarnations. But that is not really the point. Personally, I am all for nirvana—a word hard to translate. Nirvana is something like the blowing out of a flame, but there are other aspects to the word that are not only impossible to translate but difficult for a nonbeliever like myself to understand.

“How was the earth created?” I asked the usual first question.

“We do not know, and we do not care.” Caraka spoke for the holy man, who was still muttering prayers. “Of course, the Aryans say that once upon a time, at the beginning, there were twins—a man and a woman.”

“Yama and Yima?” I was startled: these twins were also acknowledged by Zoroaster and they are still worshiped by the country people.

Caraka nodded. “They are the same. Yama wanted a child. But Yima feared incest. Finally she convinced the man that they must mate, and that is how the human race began. But then, who made the twins? The Aryans speak of an egg that hatched the god Brahma. Good. But who laid the egg? We don’t know and we don’t care. We are like the six blind men who tried to define an elephant. One touched an ear and said, this is not a beast but a leathery leaf. Another felt the trunk and said, this is a snake. And so on. What matters is what is and how what is ultimately transcends itself when one no longer wants those things that make life not only miserable but unholy.”

Needless to say, Caraka did not make a speech at all like the one that I have just given. I am trying to distill in a short space a quantity of information that I was to acquire over a number of years.