First we crossed the marg, shining with buttercups, and climbed a little way up a hill under the snows, and then dropped down to the river-bed under caves of snow for the path above was blocked. It was strange to wade along through the swift, icy waters, with the snow-caves arching above us in the glowing sunlight. The light in these caves is a wonderful lambent green, for the reflected water is malachite green itself; but I was glad when the passage was over, for it looked as if some impending mass must fall and crush us.
We climbed painfully out of the water, and in front was a track winding straight up the mountain. It was clear that we could not ride up; but we could not delay, so we started as steadily as the ponies. I hardly know how they did it—the men dragged and encouraged them somehow. And still less do I know how we did it. The strain was great. At one point I felt as if my muscles would crack and my heart burst. We did the worst in tiny stages, resting every few minutes, and always before us was the sadhu winning steadily up the height. It was a weary, long climb, new elevations revealing themselves at every turn of the track. Finally, I fell on the top and lay for a bit to get my wind, speechless but triumphant.
We rode then along the face of the hill—an awful depth below, and beside us flowers even exceeding those we had seen. Purple asters, great pearl-white Christmas roses weighting their stems, orange-red ranunculus. It was a broken rainbow scattered on the grass. And above this heaven of colour was the Amarnath mountain at last—the goal.
Then came a descent when I hardly dared to look below me. That too could not be ridden. In parts the track had slipped away, and it was only about six inches wide. In others we had to climb over the gaps where it had slipped. At the foot we reached a mighty mountain ravine—a great cleft hewn in the mountain, filled like a bowl to a fourth of its huge depth with snow, and with streams and river rushing beneath. We could hear them roaring hollowly, and see them now and then in bare places. And at the end of the ravine, perhaps two miles off, a great cliff blocked the way, and in it was a black hole—and this was the Shrine.
The snow was so hard that we could ride much of the way, but with infinite difficulty, climbing and slipping where the water beneath had rotted the snow. In fact, this glen is one vast snow-bridge, so undermined is it by torrents. The narrowness of it and the towering mountains on each side make it a tremendous approach to the Shrine.
A snow-bridge broke suddenly under my pony and I thought I was gone; but a man caught me by the arm, and the pony made a wild effort and struggled to the rocks. And so we went on.
The Cave is high up the cliff, and I could see the sadhu’s figure striding swiftly on as if nothing could hold him back.
We dismounted before the Cave, and began the last climb to the mouth. I got there first, almost done, and lo! a great arch like that of the choir of a cathedral; and inside, a cave eaten by water into the rock, lighted by the vast arch, and shallow in comparison with its height of 150 feet. At the back, frozen springs issuing from the mountain. One of the springs, the culminating point of adoration, is the Lingam as it is seen in the temples of India—a very singular natural frost sculpture. Degraded in the associations of modern ignorance the mystic and educated behold in this small phallic pillar of purest ice the symbol of the Pillar of Cosmic Ascent, rooted in rapture of creation, rising to the rapture of the Immeasurable. It represents That within the circumference of which the universe swings to its eternal rhythm—That which, in the words of Dante, moves the sun and other stars. It is the stranger here because before it the clear ice has frozen into a flat, shallow altar.
The sadhu knelt before it, tranced in prayer. He had laid some flowers on the altar, and, head thrown back and eyes closed, was far away—in what strange heaven, who shall say? Unconscious of place or person, of himself, of everything but the Deity, he knelt, the perfect symbol of the perfect place. I could see his lips move— Was it the song of Kabir to the Eternal Dancer?—
He is pure and eternal,