Chapter 13
When Artabhaga left Videha, winter had set in. Birds scurried to be in the warmth of their nests. Some had begun to migrate. Many of the familiar habitats of birds wore a deserted look. Artabhaga spent the night in a hermitage outside the town. Before sunrise he would be on his way to another destination.
Artabhaga used to feel happy at the sight of so many cottages huddled together in peaceful shadows of hills and groves: cottages which came to life with the sunrise and went to sleep at night. He felt he was in all of them, getting up, eating, drinking, striving for a living, rejoicing over birth and saddened by death.
The thought of someone's death always nailed him deeper into life and its mysteries. No hermitage, however remote from the hub of society, could reject the reality of life and death. And now fate had appointed him to deliver the news of a death. His appointed task led him to an old man who had severed all ties with the world long back. It was Artabhaga's fate to sever the last one for him.
It was a strange experience: walking across villages, towns, forests, with the knowledge of an event that now belonged to a past. The further he walked away from it in time and space, the more doubtful was he of its relevance to his life. He had to keep the knowledge of that event for the sake of another, whose world it was going to change.
Artabhaga had absorbed the reality of Shakalya's death and the knowledge of it was now a part of his own self. But Shakalya must die another death before he could be finally resurrected. Artabhaga was preparing himself for that rite.
Shakalya had already been relegated to the past by those who knew him. He had lived and died according to his own volition. With each act of rejection of what the world called faith, religion or values, he had asserted his right to be free of the world. Now he owed nothing to the world and the world owed nothing to him.
Artabhaga stopped thinking at this point and marveled at the turn his thoughts had taken. All his attempts at explaining to himself and others the enigma of Shakalya's death seemed absurd. With a sudden turn, he realized that Shakalya's death had given him an insight, not into Shakalya, but into himself.
When Artabhaga left Videha, winter had set in. Birds scurried to be in the warmth of their nests. Some had begun to migrate. Many of the familiar habitats of birds wore a deserted look. Artabhaga spent the night in a hermitage outside the town. Before sunrise he would be on his way to another destination.
Artabhaga used to feel happy at the sight of so many cottages huddled together in peaceful shadows of hills and groves: cottages which came to life with the sunrise and went to sleep at night. He felt he was in all of them, getting up, eating, drinking, striving for a living, rejoicing over birth and saddened by death.
The thought of someone's death always nailed him deeper into life and its mysteries. No hermitage, however remote from the hub of society, could reject the reality of life and death. And now fate had appointed him to deliver the news of a death. His appointed task led him to an old man who had severed all ties with the world long back. It was Artabhaga's fate to sever the last one for him.
It was a strange experience: walking across villages, towns, forests, with the knowledge of an event that now belonged to a past. The further he walked away from it in time and space, the more doubtful was he of its relevance to his life. He had to keep the knowledge of that event for the sake of another, whose world it was going to change.
Artabhaga had absorbed the reality of Shakalya's death and the knowledge of it was now a part of his own self. But Shakalya must die another death before he could be finally resurrected. Artabhaga was preparing himself for that rite.
Shakalya had already been relegated to the past by those who knew him. He had lived and died according to his own volition. With each act of rejection of what the world called faith, religion or values, he had asserted his right to be free of the world. Now he owed nothing to the world and the world owed nothing to him.
Artabhaga stopped thinking at this point and marveled at the turn his thoughts had taken. All his attempts at explaining to himself and others the enigma of Shakalya's death seemed absurd. With a sudden turn, he realized that Shakalya's death had given him an insight, not into Shakalya, but into himself.
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