Books from Before: Part I
On this wet & cold second day of Spring, it's easy to feel like a solitary wanderer, permanently. You would wander just for the fun of it anyway, but there's that other nagging reason---you're looking for something and you're not sure what it is. But when you run across it, you will know instantly. This sort of intuitive triangulation takes a long time, with many intervening dreams and reveries. Last week, you saw yourself standing on a stone quay, wearing a Lorenzo di Medici hat, holding a small world globe in your left hand, and gazing out across an expansive estuary. Maybe you could come up with an interpretation, but you already have a headache.
Many things now crucial to me & my psyche took ten, or twenty, or even more years to find, and while that journey can build some metaphysical stamina, I wouldn't've minded a couple of short cuts being pointed out along the way. Out of the mist, a stranger grabs your sleeve and silently indicates a quicker route toward the home of that bejeweled toad. What if say, tomorrow, you could find such a talisman --- one not only a treasure in its own right, but also a key to locating a multitude of equally invaluable touchstones? The logical place to start is with a book, but a visit to any library can be quite dispiriting, as you're overwhelmed by the sheer volume of volumes, most of which are ill-informed, misdirected, or merely badly written. The fiction section especially tends to induce nausea, containing, as it does, large chunks of books-by-the-pound written by the obsessive, alarmingly repetitive troop of best-selling authors.
All this is by way of saying that in the interest of your valuable time, and to boost the range as well as the mileage of your wandering, I'm going to clue you in to a few books that seem to me to offer inexhaustible possibilities to those who can enter them on their own terms. Excessive preconceptions are fatal to such investigations. You could easily go through your entire lifetime as a well-read human being and miss two or three of these books, and that would be a shame. I feel I got lucky and I want to share that good fortune with you over the next few months.
In 1955, in Carson City, Nevada, a young man named William Buck ran across a copy of the Baghavad Gita in his local library. He obviously found his grail, for within 15 years he had mastered Sanskrit and translated the Bhagavad Gita, the massive Mahabharata, and the Ramayana into versions that manage to preserve the soul and true intent of the originals while being totally accessible, even exhilarating to contemporary speakers of English.
In the Ramayana, you will meet the first poet, Valmiki, a man who had turned his back on the world, yet was persuaded to return and tell the story of Rama, the paragon of gods and men. You'll discover a wealth of magical detail, like how Valmiki was able to tell this story by literally holding inspiration in the palm of his hand. As you wander through this world, you encounter a panoply of elemental, uncompromising beings --- from Ravana, the unutterably evil yet vastly entertaining demon king, to Hanuman, the white monkey who can leap across any chasm, change his size and shape alarmingly (he can become gargantuan, or morph into a silver tabby cat in the wink of an eye), and expose the illusions of separation in this corner of the universe. A contemporary pop culture archetype with many similar characteristics, including a saucy irreverence -- Bugs Bunny.
I won't attempt to encapsulate the narrative, to sketch the plot in any way. Suffice it to say that it encompasses all realms and all phases of human and even supra-human experience. It can be pointed out, however, that almost every page contains descriptive passages of a richness very rarely found in any poetic or literary tradition. And of that we can easily give an example. When a huge royal entourage shows up at his simple hermitage, the holy man, Bharadwaja offers hospitality not just to the king, but to all, and standing near his small hut, he enlists the aid of the celestial architect, Viswakarman:
"...Bharadwaja went into his house and sat by his fire. There nodding his head he sipped water from his hand three times, and rubbed it on his lips and said -- I will entertain my guests."
"Down from heaven came the architect Viswakarman. He stood in the center of Bharadwaja's clearing and unfurled his great wings and swept them through the air. He turned; he moved his hands, and the trees moved back, the clearing grew. He built a dream, he made a garden where new wonders grew. Viswakarman knows all worlds. His arms shaped the air; he spoke names."
"The south winds blew scented with sandalwood. The rivers of the world came there and ran with water and wines and milk and sugar syrup, ran through blue grass, among the coral trees brought from the wishing-forests of the Treasure-Lord. Heavenly Gandharvas played music and Apsarasas danced. Flowers fell from the air. Tree spirits were tumblers and dwarves, and the vines of the forest were beautiful women all dressed in flowers. Food appeared and buildings arose."
"Viswakarman folded his arms and closed his wings and was gone, and the Kosalas entered what had been Bharadwaja's poor hermitage.......A Naga girl waited for each soldier, took his bow, untied his armor and fed him. The spirits of the air materialized and poured out drinks; the Gandharvas played dances; the Ayodhya warriors laughed and talked."
"That was Bharadwaja's welcome. The Kosalas said --- 'Peace...Great happiness to the recluse Bharadwaja. We are within a vision of heaven. Why retreat, why advance, why move?' "
If you wish to be entertained like a goddess or a god, but thought that beyond your reach, just pick up this Ramayana, as retold by William Buck, and begin your journey.
"Ramayana (King Rama's Way)...Valmiki's Ramayana told in English prose by William Buck." @1976 University of California Press
-------Lp
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