I
On the Banks of Ganges
BENEDICTION
What! the Digit of the Moon on his brow, Gangá in his hair, and Gaurí on his knee, and yet proof against all Love's arrows! O wonder of wonders! who but the greatest of all the gods would not have melted long ago, like butter between three fires?[2]
Now, long ago, it happened, that Párwatí was left alone on Kailàs for a little while, as she waited for the Lord of the Moony Tire. And having nothing else to do, she amused herself by building an elephant of snow, with large ears and a little tail, made of a yak's hair. And when it was finished, she was so delighted with her toy, that she began to clap her hands: and then, not being able to endure waiting, she went off with impatience to fetch the Moony-crested god, to show him what she had done, and revel in his applause. And the moment that her back was turned, Nandi[3] happened to come along: and just as he reached the elephant, which owing to his abstraction he never noticed, taking it for a mere hump, formed at random by the snowdrifts, he was suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to roll. And so, over he rolled, and went from side to side, throwing up his legs into the air. And as luck would have it, exactly at that very moment the Daughter of the Snow returned, pulling Maheshwara along eagerly by the hand. And she looked and saw Nandi, rolling about on the flat snow just where she had left her elephant, which was gone. And she uttered a loud cry, and stood, aghast with rage and disappointment. And she opened her mouth to curse the author of the mischief, and was on the very verge of saying: Sink into a lower birth, thou insolent destroyer! when Maheshwara stopped her in the very act, guessing her intention, by putting his hand upon her mouth.[4] And he exclaimed: Say nothing rash, O angry one, for Nandi did not do it on purpose, after all. And a good servant does not deserve cursing, for an accidental blunder.
And then, Párwatí burst into tears. And she exclaimed: Out of my sight, thou clumsy one! for I cannot bear to see thee. And she turned away, sobbing. And Maheshwara looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and he said to himself: Now, then, I must do something to console her for the elephant, and bring back her good humour. For ill humour in a woman spoils all. And presently he said: Come now, enough! for Nandi has gone off in disgrace, sufficiently punished by banishment for a time, and very sad to have been the unwitting cause of thy distress. And let us roam about awhile, in search of something new, that may help to obliterate recollection, and change thy gloom into a smile.
And he took the goddess in his arms, and set her as she sobbed upon his knee, and rose from the peak of Kailàs, and shot like a falling star down into the plain below. And coming to Haradwára, where Gangá issues from the hills, he began to follow the holy stream down its course, gliding along just above it like a cloud that was unable to refrain from watching its own beautiful reflection in the blue mirror of her wave. And so they went, until at last they reached an island that was nothing but a sandbank in the very middle of the river, covered with crocodiles lying basking in the sun. And then he said: See! we will go down, and rest awhile among the crocodiles on this sand, whose banks resemble nothing so much as the outline of thy own graceful limbs. And Umá said tearfully: Pish! what do I care for crocodiles, that sit for hours never even moving, like a yogí in a trance?