Bride of the Buddha Read online

  Our procession stopped even farther from the charnel ground than the road my family had taken before. As the priests and the cart with Deepa headed up the dirt road without us, I felt only desolation coupled with my ongoing guilt. I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I would soon see her again; for now I knew the way to get here.

  The moon, three days past full, rose late, but well before midnight. I slept in the same room as my three older sisters, and now I had to wait for their steady breathing and little snores before I could start my journey. At least we weren’t locked in from the outside, I thought, as I crept down the wooden stairs to the side entrance. The air was sour and weighed down with stale incense from the previous day, and when I opened the door, the fresh night atmosphere braced my spirit and pushed away my fear, at least for a while. The lopsided moon was big and yellow. Although its light was still weak, I didn’t dare steal a lamp. The only thing I took with me was one of my own saris to wrap Deepa in so she wouldn’t have to return home naked. I wore my dark blue day-shift, which would be easier to run in, if necessary.

  The windless night, cool in contrast to the dead air inside our house, seemed to heat up as I made my way to the packed dirt road that went around our village, a cluster of twelve wooden dwellings and thirty straw-and-wattle huts. Only a half-dozen scattered lamps glimmered faltering yellow light; the entire village looked to be asleep. Not that I walked in silence; frogs and crickets clamored and dogs barked, echoing through fields of freshly sown millet, mist-gray in the light of the rising moon. I was glad for the creatures’ noise; it would mask any sounds I might make.

  As I walked along the empty road, my fear, which I tried to ignore, began to swell up, tightening my chest and making it hard to place one foot ahead of the other. I reminded myself I’d never seen a ghost (unlike almost everyone I knew), so I wasn’t afraid of them. After all, these roving spirits never did anything. Still, anxiety sped up my mind, spinning off new problems. I had to face the possibility that Deepa really was dead, or that she’d died when they brought her to this terrible place. If so, I would have to beg her spirit to return to her body. I’d try to reason with it. What good was a spirit without a body? And if her soul was hurrying off to another life, did it really think it could find one better than Deepa’s? We had a wealthy father, a loving mother, beautiful sisters, a houseful of servants, and—as much as I clashed with Jagdish—a brave older brother dedicated to protecting us. Deepa’s spirit could end up inside a dog—especially since we’d played that foolish dog-duty game. What if our heedless play created bad karma, which forced Deepa into the animal realm?

  By the time I approached my destination, the moon was shining in my face, making it impossible at first to make out the bodies and bones, except for dark patches and faint white shapes. The voices of the little night creatures echoed ominously in the stillness, but at least the vultures were gone. I increased my pace, as if I could leave my trepidation behind; then I hit a wall of stench that knocked me to my knees. The other times I’d seen the charnel ground it was from a distance, and it had been downwind. Tonight there was no wind at all.

  I held my nose, but the smell leaked in, a combination of feces and decaying flesh, yet worse—it had an ultimacy about it as if it were the source of every foul odor in the world, warning me to run from it as far and as fast as possible. I staggered to my feet and forced myself forward. I had yet to arrive at the charnel grounds proper.

  “Deepa!” I cried out, hoping she would come to me and we could both flee this wretched stench. But all I did was momentarily silence the crickets.

  I kept walking, gagging with every step, so preoccupied with the odor that I didn’t realize I’d reached the grounds until I almost walked into a bloated corpse, its huge, pale face inflated almost to bursting, the mouth a writhing ball of worms, black excrement for eyes. At this point, my body heaved, and the smell of my own vomit knifed up through my viscera. It actually provided relief from the smell of death, but not from the horror pounding through my veins as I stumbled up the slope, the sickening crunch of rotting bones under my feet. Now on the charnel hill, I could see well enough, and it was horrible! I had to get Deepa out of here, but where was she? I dodged an armless skeleton and another naked corpse, this one face down, arms and legs flung out at impossible angles as if the body had been tossed carelessly from above.

  Where were the spirits? By now I was in the center of the field, the moonlight turning the corpses a glistening gray and the bones chalk-white. “Deepa!” I called out, again and again. I screamed when I almost stepped on what once had been a baby, its head little more than a mashed piece of fruit, its mouth an empty hole in the center of its face. Reflexively, I looked up; surely the spirit of such a little one would still be hovering above its body, unsure where to go.

  Then I realized: there were no ghosts. No souls, only people who had turned into Things. These Things were far more awful than mere objects, more soulless than something that hadn’t had a soul to begin with. They seemed to deny the very possibility of souls, not to mention life itself and the warmth and vibrancy of love. Far better to be haunted by armies of roving spirits, even demon spirits, than to have the image of these corpses settle in my heart. But now they had, forever.

  A shapeless new fear lurched up inside me, one I couldn’t articulate at the time and didn’t want to in any case. Cold sweat sliming my body, I kept on. These Things were not Deepa. Deepa was alive and trapped here, and only I could save her. I broke into a run, passing a heap of skulls, trying to make out her shape on the slanting moonlight ground. “Deepa!”

  Then, praise be to the devas, I saw her familiar form, silver-pale in the moonlight, up the slope just two or three body-lengths away. The vultures hadn’t touched her—why would they? She was alive, lying much as she had on the plank behind our altar. I started toward her, but a sudden sound made me stop.

  My engrossment with the smell and the sight of the corpses, plus the bleat of the crickets, had prevented me from hearing the other noises all around me.

  The sounds of feeding.

  Wild dogs, a good thirty of them, had spread out over the field singly and in groups, growling and gulping as they fought over the gore. I could see them clearly now, gaunt and ragged-eared, snarling and snapping with jagged rows of teeth polished white by moonlight and their greedy saliva. One of them was headed toward Deepa.

  I broke into a run and reached her first, throwing my sari over her and snatching her up. She was heavy as stone, and oddly stiff—from fear, I told myself, but I had no time to think about this. Staggering under her weight, I backed away from the dog, which was almost as tall as I was, only to have another one join it. They crouched down, one black, one a scruffy gray in the moonlight, as if about to leap, their growls growing louder. I was terrified to turn away from them, which would in all likelihood prompt them to launch themselves on top of us. “Go away!” I shouted in the most fearsome voice I could manage.

  Now two other dogs approached.

  I slung Deepa around, holding her collapsing form up in front of me, pain clenching my arms. “Wake up!” I screamed. “We have to run, now!” Her weight was getting unbearable, and she didn’t move. I turned her stiff body to face me. “Wake up!”

  Then I saw her face, without expression, mouth half-open. Her eyes were also partway open, cold dull slits in the moonlight, as uncaring as gashes in stone. She was a Thing.

  She couldn’t be my sister.

  The first dog jumped, landing on the corpse’s back. If I didn’t let the dog have it, he and all the others would tear me to shreds.

  I dropped it and ran.

  I didn’t stop running until I was halfway home. Then I fell and lay face down in the middle of the road, sobbing into the dirt. All I could think of was the hollow shell of Deepa’s absence, now filled only by the horrible image of her as a Thing. Then another image came to me, and the shapeless fear I’d first st
ruggled against in the charnel field finally took form.

  I, too, would someday be a Thing.

  So would everyone I loved and everyone else, from the strongest warrior to the youngest baby.

  No! I shouted into the night, and the village dogs erupted in barking. Reflexively, I filled with hatred, then I stopped. They, too, were going to turn into Things.

  Why hadn’t I seen anyone’s spirit? Had they left the corpses to go live elsewhere? But what could spirits possibly be without bodies to give them form? I struggled to my feet and started walking, not caring if the dog clamor I’d caused woke up villagers who would drag me home to be punished. No matter if my mother locked me up in some room. With this newfound knowledge of death, it didn’t matter where I ended up.

  The dog racket died down, followed by the tiniest puppy yelp. I jolted to a stop, remembering that Deepa’s spirit might be in a dog.

  Was it possible?

  That’s what the wanderers were trying to find out.

  At that moment, the only worthwhile pursuit seemed to be this search for spirit. Certainly, such a quest was the only thing that could make my grief bearable. Under the white misshapen moon, I knelt down and promised my sister that if at all possible I would find her soul so she could be with her family again and not have to travel though realms of samsara, lonely forever. I would look for the solution for all souls, for some way to save every being from the awfulness of death. As soon as I was old enough, I would go forth into homelessness and become a wanderer myself, uncovering the truth. I’d never marry, that went without saying.

  2

  It was one thing for me to imagine going forth as a seeker and quite another to face my grieving family. Although Deepa was dead, I was the ghost in the weeks that followed, as I attempted to remain invisible while one of the worst monsoon seasons in years engulfed us, drenching the forests and pummeling the rooftops. Between downpours, pestilence-ridden white fogs crawled over the green-black hills, filling everyone with thoughts of death made worse by the dim haze of mosquitoes over the fields and a trickle of rot-smells from the nearby jungles. I was sure I haunted my mother, my presence reminding her of not only Deepa, but also my responsibility for how she had died. The last thing I wanted to do was inform Ama of my plans for a future that went against all she believed.

  Ama continued to wear white—her hair tangled and her eyes bruised with sorrow—for a month. Then one day she appeared as her usual self, every gleaming hair in place, every fold in her sari the appointed width, every step and gesture precisely what it needed to be, no less and no more. She had decided that Deepa died because our family had been lax about offerings and sacrifices. Suddenly, double the usual number of chickens, goats, and tubloads of ghee went into our outdoor altar fire, and the priest appeared twice daily and stayed on and on, muttering prayers at our circle of black river stones flanked by a chunky carved granite statue of Bhaga, god of wealth and patron of marriage, and a polished curvaceous one of Adi Parashakti, the Divine Mother. To me, though, all gods now seemed no more than rocks and plants, like dolls who spoke only when I pretended they did. Yet I had no choice but to occupy myself by making florets out of palm leaves and other little sacrifices for the indoor altar fires, my fingers numb, my heart deep in the bottomless well of my loneliness.

  The only hope for me was to ask the spiritual wanderers for advice and direction, but they were extremely rare, for the rains had turned the clay roads into mud rivers that sucked at my calves and slowed even the mightiest war horses to a stumbling crawl. Still, whenever the weather allowed, I’d crouch at the kitchen door, waiting. Midway through the season a holy man finally appeared, tall enough to pick his way through the mud quagmires. He was gaunt and naked, his withered body gray with pounded ash. His matted, dust-colored hair reached down to his knees.

  I approached him with a banana leaf plate of rice mixed with dahl, which I hoped he would notice wasn’t moldy or stale like most of what he probably received. He looked to be a table-scraps kind of holy man, not one my father would entertain. I gestured toward the heavy clumps of mangos, which I normally couldn’t bear to look at, much less eat, since the accident, although they were now ripe as golden sunsets. “Take as many as you like.”

  He bowed his musty head in thanksgiving, his scant beard brushing his upper chest like tree moss. A smile broke through the many crevices on his face. “You have gained much merit, little princess,” he said. Even though his legs were splattered with dried mud up to his emaciated thighs, and his manly parts were even more diminished and neglected-looking than the dog-duty ascetic’s, he seemed gregarious, his smile settling happily into the ruin of his face. “Perhaps you would like some description of how the young ladies are dressing in the towns these days?”

  “I would like to know how to find people’s souls.”

  The man’s smile vanished as completely as if I’d lifted up my shift and exposed myself. He looked down at his meal, which he had yet to devour. “Little princess, such topics are not for such as yourself to discuss.”

  “Why not? Souls belong to everyone.”

  “Of course. And if you fulfill your household duties on earth, you can hope to become a man in your next incarnation, where you can talk about the soul all you like.” He tipped his banana leaf into his mouth, finishing off about half his food.

  “I don’t have time to wait for another life. My sister’s soul is lost, and I need to find it. I need to find her.”

  “So, you saw her ghost and wish to contact it. Simply pray to the devas, you needn’t complicate your little mind with doctrine.”

  “I’ve never seen a ghost, nor any devas either. I’m beginning to think they’re made up.” I could recite all the fables by heart, but for absolutely no purpose as far as I could see.

  The man gobbled up the remainder of his meal not looking at me, perhaps hoping I’d leave. Finally, he spoke. “I had no idea females could be inflicted with this strange blindness.”

  “I’m not blind! I see perfectly clearly.”

  “I’m not talking about ordinary blindness. But why do you think the gods are leaving? It’s because men can’t see or hear them. I’ve heard of some western lands whose prophets wander the deserts, imploring their gods to return, but these devoted worshipers perceive nothing.”

  My heart sped up. What was wrong with me? Or the whole world? “Tell me about this blindness.”

  The man regarded me with a kind of squinty fear. He tossed his slick-clean banana leaf into the underbrush. “Little princess, I have to leave. It’s not appropriate for me to discuss such things with a female, let alone a child. It violates the ancient order and allows the devil Mara to sneak in, corrupting both our minds. Such a thing could cost us many incarnations.”

  Of course I knew about Mara, the god of death and the realm of the flesh, tempter and creator of ignorance—yet another unseen deva I was supposed to believe in. I wanted to shout that I cared nothing for devils or incarnations, just my sister, but I knew such an outburst would only work against me. “But I’m not an ordinary child, as you pointed out,” I said. “And maybe if you teach me about the soul, you could cure my blindness. Surely, this would win you merit with the gods.”

  I willed my eyes to look as non-ordinary as possible, and stared into his, a wilderness of broken veins crawling around two shiny black disks. Something passed between us then, like a god or a spirit, whether I believed in it or not. I held my breath.

  He brushed grains of rice out of his scraggly beard and straightened his spine, needing, I guessed, to assume the role of wise man, perhaps to protect himself against the blindness I embodied. “I’ll tell you a few basic things, eternal truths the world has forgotten, for even the followers of the old ways live in an age of decline. They, too, have mostly forgotten that there is one eternal Soul and we are already united with it. But we must work hard to remember this, because the Soul is vast bey
ond pictures or words—a great mystery that periodically destroys Being itself, while remaining immortal over the great cycles of the universe.” He lifted his face, as if to bask in his own speculation. “True remembering requires many physical and mental exercises, leading to abandonment of the body even while it remains alive.”

  “What exercises? Can you teach me?”

  He shook his head. “Women, who are in love with their bodies, find such practices disagreeable, if they can do them at all.” He smiled in a satisfied way, as if the enjoyment of his own wisdom had banished his discomfort with me. “And you, little princess, will soon be a very beautiful woman.”

  I recognized this denigrating flattery—I’d seen my father and other male relatives pour it over all sorts of women, from my mother to Cook. “I’m not a woman yet,” I said, letting my anger show. “And I’m not in love with my body and I never will be. My family is overstuffed with beautiful women, and I hate the idea of becoming one more of them.”

  “You’ll change. And you will enjoy the change. Trust in the devas, even if you can’t see them.” He turned, as though to leave.

  But I wouldn’t let this arrogant so-called holy man brush me off that easily. “Maybe you really don’t know the exercises,” I said. “Maybe all you know are silly performances, like the animal-duty ascetics.”

  The man turned back toward me, his face a battlefield. Then he exhaled sharply as if acknowledging to something inside him that his pride had won and required to be appeased, even with a child. “Of course I know the exercises, which take many years to perfect. You must learn to still all thoughts by concentrating on a single object, like a lamp’s flame or the breath. You must fast for days and remain awake for weeks. But you need to find teachers who will help you learn to do these things correctly, or the devas will punish you, whether you believe in them or not.”