Bubbles of the Foam

by F. W. Bain

I

There is, in the western quarter, a land of lonely desolation, that resembles a very sea, but of sand instead of brine, and rightly named Marusthali, being a very home of death, sending back to the midday sun rays hotter than his own, and challenging the midnight sky, with silent ashy laughter, as though to say: What am I but the rival and reflection of thyself, with bones instead of stars, and tracks of wasted skeletons instead of a Milky Way. And there, upon a day, it came about that Maheshwara was roaming with Párwatí in his arms. And as they floated swiftly on, over the dusty waste, they watched their own huge shadows sweeping like the forms of clouds across the burning sand, exactly underneath, for it was noon: and the surface of the desert shook and quivered in the stillness, as if the wind, asleep, had, like a tired traveller, sought refuge from the fury of the sun above their heads. And all at once, the Daughter of the Snow exclaimed: See, there is the mirage! Let us descend, and sit for a little while upon the sand: for I love to watch this wonder, which resembles in its far faint blue the colour of a dream. And accordingly, to do her pleasure, Maheshwara sank softly to the earth, settling on it like a cloud gently resting on a hill.

So as they looked, after a while, that slender goddess said again: Surely it is a shame, and well may the poor antelopes be mistaken and deceived. For who could believe yonder water to be only an illusion? And when the eyes of even gods are bewildered by the cheat, how much more the eyes of thirsty and unreflecting little deer!

Then the Moony-crested deity said slowly: O Daughter of the Snow, thy own reflection on this beautiful illusion is the truth. And yet, well were it for the world, were its illusion limited only to its eyes, not extending, as it actually does, to its understanding also. For this deceptive picture on the sand is far inferior in power and importance to the bewildering delusion of this world below, fluttering about whose shifting dancing light, like moths about a wind-blown torch, men singe their silly souls, and burning off their wings, drop helpless, maimed and mutilated, into the black gulf of birth and death, and lose emancipation; till, after countless ages, their wings begin to sprout and grow again, under the influence of works. Yet they who after all emerge, and soar away, unburdened even by an atom of the guilt that weighs them down, and brings them back into the vortex of rebirth, are very few. And yonder bones, now lying in the sand, could they but rise and speak, would be a proof of what I say.

And the goddess looked, and saw, close by, a little heap of bones, that lay half-buried in the sand. And she said with curiosity: Whose are the bones, and how are they a proof of thy consideration?

And Maheshwara replied: These are bones, not of a man, but of a camel, that perished in the desert long ago. For into this body of a camel fell the soul of which I spoke, in punishment of crimes committed in the birth before, in the body of a man; who, blinded by passion, slew three of his fellow mortals; as, if thou wilt, I will tell thee while we sit, watching the illusion of the senses, that so closely represents the illusion of the souls of the lovers in the tale.