CHAPTER VIII
Thatdog," Ghond took up the story, "must have lost his French master early in the war. Probably the Germans had shot the man, and after that, when he saw his master's home looted and the barn set on fire, he went wild with terror and ran away into the woods, where he lived hidden from the sight of men under the thick thorn-bush, spacious as a hut and dark as the interior of a tomb. Probably he ventured out only at night in quest of food, and being a hunting dog by heredity, all his savage qualities returned as he spent day after day and night after night in the woods like an outlaw.
"When he came across me, he was surprised because I was not afraid. I gave out no odour of fear. I must have been the first man in months whose fear did not frighten him to attack.
"Of course he thought, like himself, I too was hungry and was looking for food. So he led me to the German food depôt, and through an underground passage he crawled into a vast provision chamber—a very gold mine of food—and fetched some meat for me. I drew the conclusion that there were a series of underground chambers in which the Germans kept not only food, but also oil and explosives, and I acted accordingly. Thank the Gods it turned out to be correct. Let us change the subject.
"To tell you the truth I hate to talk about the war. Look, the sunset is lighting the peaks of the Himalayas. The Everest burns like a crucible of gold. Let us pray.
"'Lead me from the unreal to the Real,From darkness into Light,From sound into Silence.'"
"'Lead me from the unreal to the Real,From darkness into Light,From sound into Silence.'"
"'Lead me from the unreal to the Real,From darkness into Light,From sound into Silence.'"
"'Lead me from the unreal to the Real,
From darkness into Light,
From sound into Silence.'"
After meditation was over, Ghond silently walked out of our house to begin a journey from Calcutta to the Lamasery near Singalele. But before I recount his adventure there I must tell the reader how Ghond happened to be transferred from the battlefields of France to our home.
The last part of February 1915 it became quite clear to the Bengal Regiment that Gay-Neck would fly no more. Ghond, who had brought him, was no soldier. With the exception of a tiger or a leopard he had never killed anything in his life, and now that he too was sick, they were both invalided back to India together. They reached Calcutta in March. I could not believe my eyes when I saw them. Ghond looked as frightened as Gay-Neck and both of them appeared very sick.
Ghond, after he had delivered my pigeon to me, explained a few matters, before he departed to the Himalayas. "I need to be healed of fear and hate. I saw too much killing of man by man. I was invalided home for I am sick with a fell disease—sickness of fear, and I must go alone to nature to be cured of my ill."
So he went up to Singalele to the Lamasery, there to be healed by prayer and meditation. In the meantime I tried my utmost to cure Gay-Neck. His wife and full-grown children failed to help him. His children saw in him but a stranger, for he showed no care for them, but his wife interested him intensely, though even she could not make him fly. He refused steadily to do anything but hop a little, and nothing would induce him to go up in the air. I had his wings and legs examined by good pigeon doctors, who said that there was nothing wrong with him. His bones and both of his wings were sound, yet he would not fly. He refused even to open his right wing; and whenever he was not running or hopping he developed the habit of standing on one foot.
I would not have minded that, if he and his wife had not set about nesting just then. Towards the middle of April when vacation for the hot weather began, I received Ghond's letter. "Your Gay-Neck," he informed me, "should not nest yet. If there are eggs, destroy them. Do not let them hatch under any circumstances. A sick father like Gay-Neck—diseased with fright—cannot but give the world poor and sick baby pigeons. Bring him here. Before I close, I must say that I am better. Bring Gay-Neck soon; the holy Lama wishes to see you and him. Besides, all the five swifts have arrived this week from the south; they will surely divert your pet bird."
I took Ghond's advice. I put Gay-Neck in one cage and his wife in another, and set out for the north.
How different the hills were in the spring from the previous autumn. Owing to the exigencies that had arisen, my parents had opened their house in Dentam months earlier than usual. After settling down there towards the last week of April, I took Gay-Neck along with me and set out in the company of a Thibetan caravan of ponies for Singalele, leaving his wife behind, so that if he were able to fly again he would return to her—just the thing needed to cure him. She was to be the drawing card. He might do it, Ghond had hoped, in order to return and help her hatch the newly laid eggs, though the day after our departure my parents destroyed the eggs; for we did not want sick and degenerate children who would grow up to shame the name of Gay-Neck.
I carried my bird on my shoulder, where he perched all day. During the night we kept him safely locked up in his cage, which proved beneficial to him. Twelve hours of mountain air and light improved his body, yet not once did he make the effort to fly off my shoulder and return to his mate to help her hatch the eggs.
The Himalayas in the spring are unique. The ground glittered with white violets, interspersed with raspberries already ripening here and there in the hot moist gorges where the ferns were spreading their large arms as if to embrace the white hills lying like precious stones on the indigo-blue throat of the sky. Sometimes we passed through thick forests where stunted oaks, prodigious elms, deodars (cedars) and chestnuts grew in such numbers that their branches shut out all sunlight. Tree against tree, bough against bough, and roots struggling with roots fought for light and life. Below them in arboreal darkness many deer grazed on abundant tall grass and saplings, only to be devoured in their turn by tigers, leopards and panthers. Everywhere life grew in abundance, all the more intensifying the struggle for existence among birds, beasts and plants. Such is the self-contradictory nature of existence. Even insects were not free of it.
When we emerged from the forest darkness and beheld the open spaces, the hot tropical sunlight suddenly shot its diamond points of fire into our helpless eyes. The golden tremble of dragonflies filled the air; butterflies, sparrows, robins, grouse, parrots, papias (Indian thrush), jays, and peacocks clamoured and courted from tree to tree and peak to higher peak.
Now in the open space between tea gardens on one side of the road and pine forests on our right, we strove and staggered up inclines almost straight as knives. There the air was so rarefied that we could hardly breathe. Sounds and echoes travelled very far: even a whisper could not escape being overheard from a distance of yards, and men and beasts alike became silent. Save for the clatter of their hoofs the ponies as well as the men moved with a sense of reverence for the solitude and stillness that shut down upon us. Here the indigo-blue hollow of the sky remained untainted by clouds, and untroubled by any movement save the sighing flight of cranes going northwards, or the deep-toned plunge of an eagle into declivities nearby. Everything was cold, keen, and quickening. Orchids burst out almost overnight and opened their purple eyes upon us; marigolds brimmed with morning dew, and in the lakes below, blue and white lotuses opened their petals to the bees.
Now we were near Singalele. The Lamasery raised its head and beckoned us from the hillside. Its wing-shaped roof and ancient walls floated like a banner against the horizon. I was encouraged to quicken my pace and another hour's time found me climbing the steep pathway of the monastery.
What a relief it was to be there among men who lived above the battle of our everyday life! It being noon, I went down with Ghond through a forest of balsam to the spring in which we bathed ourselves and gave Gay-Neck a thorough wash. After he had had his dinner in his cage, Ghond and I went to the dining room where the Lamas were waiting for us. The room looked like a colonnade of ebony whose capitals were decorated with dragons of gold. The teak wood beams, grown quite dark through many centuries, were carved into broad clear lotus designs, delicate as jasmine but strong as metal. On the floor of red sandstone, orange-robed monks were seated in silent prayer, which was their grace before each meal. Ghond and I waited at the entrance of the dining room until the prayer was concluded with the chanting in unison, like the Gregorian chant:
Budham mē sáránāmDhārmám mē sáránāmŌm Manī pádmē Ōm.
Budham mē sáránāmDhārmám mē sáránāmŌm Manī pádmē Ōm.
Budham mē sáránāmDhārmám mē sáránāmŌm Manī pádmē Ōm.
Budham mē sáránām
Dhārmám mē sáránām
Ōm Manī pádmē Ōm.
"In wisdom that is the Buddha is our refugeIn religion is our refugeIn the jewel of Truth (shining in the lotus of life) is our refuge."
"In wisdom that is the Buddha is our refugeIn religion is our refugeIn the jewel of Truth (shining in the lotus of life) is our refuge."
"In wisdom that is the Buddha is our refugeIn religion is our refugeIn the jewel of Truth (shining in the lotus of life) is our refuge."
"In wisdom that is the Buddha is our refuge
In religion is our refuge
In the jewel of Truth (shining in the lotus of life) is our refuge."
Now I went forward and saluted the Abbot, whose grave face wreathed with smiles as he blessed me. After I had saluted the rest of the Lamas, Ghond and I took our seats at the table made up of a series of small wooden stools; which came up to our chests as we squatted on the floor. It was nice to sit on the cool floor after a very hot day's journey. Our meal was of lentil soup, fried potatoes and curried egg-plants. Since Ghond and I were vegetarians we did not eat the eggs that were served at the table. Our drink consisted of hot green tea.
After dinner, the Abbot invited Ghond and me to take our siesta in his company, and we climbed with him up to the topmost cliff, which was like an eagle's eyrie, over which grew a clump of firs, where we found a hard bare cell, without a stick of furniture anywhere, which I had never seen before. After we had seated ourselves there, the holy man said, "Here in the monastery we have prayed to Infinite Compassion twice every day for the healing of the nations of earth. Yet the war goes on, infecting even birds and beasts with fear and hate. Diseases of the emotions spread faster than the ills of the body. Mankind is going to be so loaded with fear, hate, suspicion and malice that it will take a whole generation before a new set of people can be reared completely free from them."
Infinite sadness furrowed the Lama's hitherto unwrinkled brow, and the corners of his mouth drooped from sheer fatigue. Though he lived above the battle in his eagle's eyrie, he felt the burden of men's sins more grievously than those who had plunged the world into war.
But he resumed smiling, "Let us discuss Gay-Neck and Ghond who are with us. If you wish your pigeon to wing the serenity of the sky again, you must meditate on infinite courage, as Ghond has been doing for himself these many days."
"How, my Lord?" I asked eagerly. The Abbot's yellow face suffused with colour; no doubt he was embarrassed by the directness of my question and I felt ashamed. Directness, like hurry, is very sordid.
As if he knew my feeling, the Lama in order to put me at my ease said: "Every dawn and sunset, seat Gay-Neck on your shoulder and say to yourself: 'Infinite courage is in all life. Each being that lives and breathes is a reservoir of infinite courage. May I be pure enough to pour infinite courage into those whom I touch!' If you do that for a while, one day your heart, mind and soul will become pure through and through. That instant the power of your soul, now without fear, without hate, without suspicion will enter the pigeon and make him free. He who purifies himself to the greatest extent can put into the world the greatest spiritual force. Do what I advise you twice a day. All of our Lamas will help you. Let us see what comes of it!"
The Lama, after a moment's silence, continued: "You have been told by Ghond, who knows animals better than any other man, that our fear frightens others so that they attack us. Your pigeon is so frightened that he thinks the whole sky is going to attack him. No leaf tumbles without frightening him. Not a shadow falls without driving panic into his soul. Yet what is causing him suffering is himself.
"At this very time the village below us—yes, you can see it over there to the North-west—is suffering from the same trouble as Gay-Neck. As it is the season for the animals to come north, all the frightened inhabitants are going about with old matchlocks in order to kill wild beasts, and behold, the beasts attack them now, though they never did so before! Bisons come and eat up their crops, and leopards steal their goats. Today news was brought here that a wild buffalo has killed a man last night. Though I tell them to purge their minds of fear through prayer and meditation, they will not do it."
"Why, O blessed Teacher," asked Ghond, "do you not permit me to go and rid them of these beasts?"
"Not yet," replied the Lama. "Though you are healed of fear in your waking moments, yet your dreams harbour the curse of fright. Let us pray and meditate a few days longer and your soul will be purged of all such dross. Then after you are healed, if the villagers below are still hurt by the beasts, you may go and help them."