Page 67 of The Legend of Meneka
“Indra. Amaravati. The war …”
“Evanescent. The only permanence is the truth of yourself. Only that which is real. Child of illusions,” he adds softly, “understand the power of the greatest magic there is, which tries to convince you that you are alone.”
We sit in silence. I expect no other response from Shiva, but breath by breath I reach for understanding. A creature of maya, I do not have the power to slice illusion from reality, but I am familiar with the legends. I am a being of legends myself. Shiva himself is here.
I listen. I try.
After a time, I am calmer. Perhaps it is his presence. Perhaps I have reached for something within me. My tears dry. My trembling body quietens. The pain of everything I have endured still crashes inside me, but it is distant, like the roar of a faraway ocean. The sickness from being cut off from Amaravati reduces to a seed. I watch it, in grief and sorrow. I feel my burned tether, regretful still, but this time the pain does not immobilize me.
“Where did I go wrong?” I ask quietly.
“Didyou go wrong?” Shiva answers gently.
“Indra cut me away from Amaravati. Kaushika hates me. I have lost everything.”
Shiva’s face is tender, compassionate. “Pain is not always a consequence of doing the wrong thing. Hate is not always the opposite of love.”
I think of how unfair that is. How obvious it is. I think of the army Kaushika has collected and the alternate heaven that he is creating.
Shiva leans forward. “The universes are much larger than you can imagine, daughter.” His fingers hover between my brows, and my eyes grow large.
My breath seizes. Within my eyes, infinite galaxies form and die. The universe rushes, extending into every direction. Not one universe but a thousand, a million, infinite and continuous. I glimpse creation, the birth of everything; it occurs over and over again. I glimpse destruction, and they are the same thing, for what is birth without death? One leads into the other, a continuum, their divisibility itself an illusion.
The image shifts, and infinite Indras sparkle in my mind within infinite Amaravatis. Billions of Menekas and Kaushikas exist, both with and without each other. I see then that Kaushika’s attempt at an alternate heaven isn’t ambitious. It is useless, ridiculous, unnecessary. Infinite heavens already exist with so many possibilities. For an instant, the cosmic power, the absolute total eternity of Shiva’s knowledge seizes me. I gasp at the sheer scope of it, knowing he has shown me but a speck of what he himself sees when he meditates. Infinity both contains and does not contain parts.
I blink, and the image dissipates, and I am here again, seated by the Lord, the tapasvin fire burning in front of us.
It takes me a long time to recover.
My breath is deep, but it is fast and shallow too—in another world, in a different universe. I pull myself back to my own existence sharply.
This time when I search for the lingering pain inside me, I hold it desperately, as though it is a log in a tempestuous ocean. My painglimmers, and I lurch toward its heat and sharpness. The one thing I can call my own even now.
When I am steady, I speak, and my voice is low.
“This heaven he wishes to create. It cannot be.” I swallow. “It would be unnatural. It would break the cosmic order of birth and rebirth. Amaravati is where mortal souls are meant to rest. I still believe this.”
Shiva does not reply. He has no need to. This is not his affair to worry about. He transcends this, and I am still mystified at why he is here at all.
I wonder if I should ask him about the halahala and the conspiracy I suspect lurking there. About Kaushika’s vow and his battle with Indra. I wonder if I should ask about the Vajrayudh, and how Shiva himself extracted a vow from the storm lord, or about ancient Indra and his evolution, or the deepest pains in my own heart and if I will ever heal.
Shiva answers me before I can speak. He decides for himself what question he wishes to answer.
“Kaushika is destined for greatness. There is pride in him, but there is purity too.”
Kaushika’s intense gaze burns my forehead. The way his mouth moves when he chants a mantra. The power of his magic, and the sincerity of his beliefs. Despite the distance between us, I feel it—the mirror I saw in him, the darkness that reflected itself back to me.
And purity too, I think.
“Does that mean you will help him achieve his goal?” I whisper. The thought terrifies me, even now, when I am severed from my magic. The wrongness of Kaushika’s meadow and the consequences of war are too horrible to be real. My friends and kin may have abandoned me, but I have not abandoned them.
Shiva does not reply for a long time. I wonder if I have presumed too much. I begin to grow abashed, but then he speaks, finally, and there is weariness in his answer.
“I will take the halahala from his meadow. For it is part of my ancient promise.”
His throat glistens a sharp bright blue. Poison roils inside, fumes and darkness that he holds at bay for himself and the world. His entire body darkens for an instant before it settles, the poison once again under control. In my mind, Indra’s song resounds, one that he sang so long ago lamenting the power of halahala. The gandharvas say halahala is the embodiment of all vices, anger, pride, every dark hedonistic pursuit. What must it be for Shiva to hold it in and never swallow or release it?
Shiva’s gaze falls on me as if he has heard my question. “Do you know why I do not swallow it?”
