🧚 An Evil Eye.

The Descent of the Sun.1

INVOCATION.2

_O glorious and infinite Spirit of Peace, Lord of Ascetics, who whirling round in thy wild dance dost lend as it were its colour to the sky, in whose mirror are seen reflected the blueness of thy throat and the silver digit of the moon in the matted tufts of thy tawny hair: thee we adore.3 And we worship the ever victorious trunk of the Elephant of Elephants, whose fierce glare consumes the innumerable hosts of opposing obstacles, as a forest fire shrivels the blades of dry grass_[1].4

Long ago, on the slopes of Himálaya, there lived a young King of the Spirits of the Air, named Kamalamitra[2]; for he was a portion of the Sun. And he worshipped the husband of Umá[3].5 And he turned his back on the pleasures of the senses, and went afar off, and dwelt alone, among the icy peaks and snowy plateaux that lie around Kailás.6 And there he remained, living at first upon leaves, and then upon smoke, and finally upon air, performing penances of appalling severity, till after a hundred years[4] that Lord of Creatures was moved to compassion.7 And he appeared to him, in the twilight of evening, in the guise of an ascetic, but in stature like a tall tree, with the new moon in his hair, and said: I am pleased with thy devotion, so now I grant thee a boon: ask.8 Then the young King bowed before him, and said: Blessed One, let me continue in this contemplation of thee: that is enough.9 Then said Maheshwara: This is well said: nevertheless, ask of me some boon.10 Then said Kamalamitra: Since it is so, and I must absolutely choose, then give me a wife, whose eyes, like these hills and this sky, shall be full of the dusky lustre[5] of thy throat and thy moon, as if, insatiate of gazing at thee, they had become, not transitory mirrors, but pictures permanently stained with thy glory.11 For so shall she be a medium of devotion between me and thee.12

Then the moon-crested God was pleased.13 But he looked into the future, by his magic power of divination, and saw what was coming.14 And he said slowly: Eyes such as these will be dangerous, not only to others, but also to their owner.15 Nevertheless, I have given thee a boon: thou shalt have thy desire.16

Then he disappeared, and Kamalamitra returned home rejoicing.17 And by the favour of the deity all the emaciation and fatigue of his penances left him, and he became strong as Bhima and beautiful as Arjuna[6].18 And he arrived at his palace on the evening of the next day, and went into the garden to repose, as the sun was going down.19 And as he went, he looked before him, and suddenly he saw a woman, floating on a pool of white lotuses, in a boat of sandal, with silver oars.20 And her glances fell on those snowy flowers, and turned their tint to blue, for her eyes were lowered: and she was resting her chin on one hand as she lay, and with the other dropping one by one into the water the petals of a lotus red as blood.21 And the round curve of her hip stood up like a sand bank, and was mirrored again in the silent water below.22 And her lips moved, for she was counting the petals as they fell.23

And Kamalamitra stood still, holding his breath, and gazing at her, fearing to move, for he thought it was a dream.24 Then all at once she looked up and saw him, and smiled, bathing him with the colour of her eyes.25 And it seemed to Kamalamitra that he stood in a pool of colour formed by the essence of all the blue lotuses in the world.26 And then suddenly he remembered the boon of the God who is clothed with heaven[7], and he exclaimed: Surely thou art my own wife, sent me by the God who keeps his promises, and none other.27 For yesterday I gazed at his glory, and now I am gazing at thy two eyes, and it is the same.28 And if it be so, by what name shall I call thee?29 Then she said: My name is Anushayiní[8], and for what purpose did the Creator form these eyes, but to reflect the image of their lord?30

Then Kamalamitra, having thus obtained her from the deity, took possession of his lovely little wife, and thereafter remained with her in the region about Kailás, utterly bewildered and intoxicated by constantly gazing at those mirrors of deity, her two great eyes.31 And he plunged into their sea, and was drowned in it, and the whole world seemed to him to be made of lotus blue[9].32 And like a vessel filled to the brim and running over, he was so overflowing with delight in her beauty, and the pride of having so unique a specimen of womankind all to himself, that he could not contain his emotion, but sought relief in going about everywhere talking about her, and trying to get everybody to acknowledge, what he thought himself, that all other women in the world were absolutely nothing in comparison with his own wife.33 Alas! a woman is one thing, and emancipation quite another.34

So it happened, that on a day, when he was disputing about her with one of his friends, and abusing him, for not readily admitting all his own eulogies of his wife, that friend of his suddenly burst out laughing, and exclaimed: For all things there is a cure, even for snake-bite there is a cure, but there is no cure, for one who has been bitten with a woman's beauty.35 Know, O thou infatuated lover, that the golden glamour of our Other Half, Man's ectype, Woman, is not like a simple musical theme, but one infinitely various, containing ten thousand notes, and stirring like a churning stick all the emotions in the ocean of the soul of man.36 And however beautiful may be thy wife's eyes, still eyes are only eyes, and a woman is not all eye, but something more.37 For one woman witches us, like a waterfall, with the music of her bubbling laughter, and another entrances us, like a forest-pool, with the peace of her shadowy silence.38 And one entangles us, like Yama[10], in the nectar-nooses of her hair, while another pierces us, like Manobhawa[11] with the archery of her poisoned eyes.39 And one enflames us, like the Sun, in the fever-fire of sick desire, while another soothes us, like the Moon, by the camphor of her dewy kisses.40 And like oxen, we are goaded, by the biting sting of one woman's evil, and like elephants, we are tamed, by the subtle spell of another's purity; and like birds, we are decoyed, by the lure of the bower of one girl's arms, and like bees, we hover and sip, around the honey of another's lips, and like snakes, we wind and coil[12] round the slender stem of one girl's waist, and like weary travellers, we long to sleep on the living pillow of another's bosom.41 Then Kamalamitra broke in impatiently: Away with the fascinations, of all the women in the three worlds, past, present, or to come!42 Could they unite to form the very body of the god of love, yet the eyes of Anushayiní, alone, would, like the eye of the enemy of Kaudarpa[13], reduce them to ashes.43 Aye! those eyes, with their blue irresistible invitation, would succeed in corrupting sages, where Menaká, Tilottamá[14] and the rest had failed.44

Then his friend laughed in derision, and said: Boasting is useless, and in words, all men can do everything, and every woman is another Rambhá[15].45 Babble no more of her beauty, but come, let your paragon of a wife put her power to the proof.46 For hard by here, in the wood on the hillside, is an aged Sage, named Pápanáshana[16], whose austerities terrify even the gods.47 He would be an admirable touchstone for the eyes of this wonderful wife of yours, whose beauty exists, like a bubble, only on the stream of your words.48

And then, stung by the taunt, Kamalamitra exclaimed in wrath: Fool! if she does not turn him from his asceticism as easily as amber draws after it stubble and grass, I will cut off my own head and cast it into the Ganges.49 Then his friend laughed again, and said: Do nothing rash, thou art not Daksha[17]: once gone, thy head can never be restored.50 But Kamalamitra hurried away to find Anushayiní.51 And he found her in the garden by the lotus pool, and told her of his brag, and said: Come instantly, and make the experiment, and vindicate the power of those wonderful eyes of thine, and my own faith in them, without delay.52 For I burn to convict that foolish sceptic of his folly, by ocular demonstration.53

Then Anushayiní said slowly: Dear husband, thou wert angry, and therefore indiscreet, and I fear, lest by doing evil we may bring on ourselves punishment.54 For expiation follows guilt, as surely as Orion treads on the heels of Rohini[18].55 There is sin and danger in this rash experiment.56 And now it will be better for us not to venture upon the verge of a precipice, over which we may both fall, into irreparable disaster.57