The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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L. Adams Beck >> The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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On a certain day the Rana and the Rani stood for the last time in
her bower, and looked down into the city; and in the streets were
gathered in a very wonderful procession the women of Chitor; and
not one was veiled. Flowers that had bloomed in the inner
chambers, great ladies jewelled for a festival, young brides,
aged mothers, and girl children clinging to the robes of their
mothers who held their babes, crowded the ways. Even the
low-caste women walked with measured steps and proudly, decked in
what they had of best, their eyes lengthened with soorma, and
flowers in the darkness of their hair.
The Queen was clothed in a gold robe of rejoicing, her bodice
latticed with diamonds and great gems, and upon her bosom the
necklace of table emeralds, alight with green fire, which is the
jewel of the Queens of Chitor. So she stood radiant as a vision
of Shri, and it appeared that rays encircled her person.
And the Rana, unarmed save for his sword, had the saffron dress
of a bridegroom and the jeweled cap of the Rajput Kings, and
below in the hall were the Princes and Chiefs, clad even as he.
Then, raising her lotus eyes to her lord, the Princess said,-
"Beloved, the time is come, and we have chosen rightly, for this
is the way of honour, and it is but another link forged in the
chain of existence; for until existence itself is ended and
rebirth destroyed, still shall we meet in lives to come and still
be husband and wife. What room then for despair?"
And he answered,-
"This is true. Go first, wife, and I follow. Let not the door
swing to behind thee. But oh, to see thy beauty once more that is
the very speech of Gods with men! Wilt thou surely come again to
me and again be fair?"
And for all answer she smiled upon him, and at his feet performed
the obeisance of the Rajput wife when she departs upon a journey;
and they went out together, the Queen unveiled.
As she passed through the Princes, they lowered their eyes so
that none saw her; but when she stood on the steps of the palace,
the women all turned eagerly toward her like stars about the
moon, and lifting their arms, they began to sing the dirge of the
Rajput women.
So they marched, and in great companies they marched, company
behind company, young and old, past the Queen, saluting her and
drawing courage from the loveliness and kindness of her unveiled
face.
In the rocks beneath the palaces of Chitor are very great caves -
league long and terrible, with ways of darkness no eyes have
seen; and it is believed that in times past spirits have haunted
them with strange wailings. In these was prepared great store of
wood and oils and fragrant matters for burning. So to these caves
they marched and, company by company, disappeared into the
darkness; and the voice of their singing grew faint and hollow,
and died away, as the men stood watching their women go.
Now, when this was done and the last had gone, the Rani descended
the steps, and the Rana, taking a torch dipped in fragrant oils,
followed her, and the Princes walked after, clad like bridegrooms
but with no faces of bridal joy. At the entrance of the caves,
having lit the torch, he gave it into her hand, and she,
receiving it and smiling, turned once upon the threshold, and for
the first time those Princes beheld the face of the Queen, but
they hid their eyes with their hands when they had seen. So she
departed within, and the Rana shut to the door and barred and
bolted it, and the men with him flung down great rocks before it
so that none should know the way, nor indeed is it known to this
day; and with their hands on their swords they waited there, not
speaking, until a great smoke rose between the crevices of the
rocks, but no sound at all.
(Ashes of roses - ashes of roses! . . Ahi! for beauty that is but
touched and remitted!)
The sun was high when those men with their horses and on foot
marched down the winding causeway beneath the seven gates, and so
forth into the plains, and charging unarmed upon the Moslems,
they perished every man. After, it was asked of one who had seen
the great slaughter,-
"Say how my King bore himself."
And he who had seen told this:-
"Reaper of the harvest of battle, on the bed of honour he has
spread a carpet of the slain! He sleeps ringed about by his
enemies. How can the world tell of his deeds? The tongue is
silent."
When that Accursed, Allah-u-Din, came up the winding height of
the hills, he found only a dead city, and his heart was sick
within him.
Now this is the Sack of Chitor, and by the Oath of the Sack of
Chitor do the Rajputs swear when they bind their honour.
But it is only the ascetic Visravas who by the power of his yoga
has heard every word, and with his eyes beheld that Flame of
Beauty, who, for a brief space illuminating the world as a Queen,
returns to birth in many a shape of sorrowful loveliness until
the Blue-throated God shall in his favour destroy her rebirths.
Salutation to Ganesa the Elephant-Headed One, and to Shri the
Lady of Beauty!
THE BUILDING OF THE TAJ MAHAL
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful- the Smiting!
A day when the soul shall know what it has sent on or kept back.
A day when no soul shall control aught for another. And the
bidding belongs to God.
THE KORAN.
I
Now the Shah-in-Shah, Shah Jahan, Emperor in India, loved his
wife with a great love. And of all the wives of the Mogul
Emperors surely this Lady Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal - the Chosen
of the Palace - was the most worthy of love. In the tresses of
her silk-soft hair his heart was bound, and for none other had he
so much as a passing thought since his soul had been submerged in
her sweetness. Of her he said, using the words of the poet Faisi,
-
"How shall I understand the magic of Love the Juggler? For he
made thy beauty enter at that small gate the pupil of my eye, And
now - and now my heart cannot contain it!"
But who should marvel? For those who have seen this Arjemand
crowned with the crown the Padishah set upon her sweet low brows,
with the lamps of great jewels lighting the dimples of her cheeks
as they swung beside them, have most surely seen perfection. lie
who sat upon the Peacock Throne, where the outspread tail of
massed gems is centred by that great ruby, "The Eye of the
Peacock, the Tribute of the World," valued it not so much as one
Jock of the dark and perfumed tresses that rolled to her feet.
Less to him the twelve throne columns set close with pearls than
the little pearls she showed in her sweet laughter. For if this
lady was all beauty, so too she was all goodness; and from the
Shah-in-Shah to the poorest, all hearts of the world knelt in
adoration, before the Chosen of the Palace. She was, indeed, an
extraor- dinary beauty, in that she had the soul of a child, and
she alone remained unconscious of her power; and so she walked,
crowned and clothed with humility.
Cold, haughty, and silent was the Shah-in-Shah before she blessed
his arms - flattered, envied, but loved by none. But the gift
this Lady brought with her was love; and this, shining like the
sun upon ice, melted his coldness, and he became indeed the
kingly centre of a kingly court May the Peace be upon her!
Now it was the dawn of a sorrowful day when the pains of the Lady
Arjemand came strong and terrible, and she travailed in agony.
The hakims (physicians) stroked their beards and reasoned one
with another; the wise women surrounded her, and remedies many
and great were tried; and still her anguish grew, and in the
hall without sat the Shah-in-Shah upon his divan, in anguish of
spirit yet greater. The sweat ran on his brows, the knotted veins
were thick on his temples, and his eyes, sunk in their caves,
showed as those of a maddened man. He crouched on his cushions
and stared at the purdah that divided him from the Lady; and all
day the people came and went about him, and there was silence
from the voice he longed to hear; for she would not moan, lest
the sound should slay the Emperor. Her women besought her,
fearing that her strong silence would break her heart; but still
she lay, her hands clenched in one another, enduring; and the
Emperor endured without. The Day of the Smiting!
So, as the time of the evening prayer drew nigh, a child was
born, and the Empress, having done with pain, began to sink
slowly into that profound sleep that is the shadow cast by the
Last. May Allah the Upholder have mercy on our weakness! And the
women, white with fear and watching, looked upon her, and
whispered one to another, "It is the end."
And the aged mother of Abdul Mirza, standing at her head, said,
"She heeds not the cry of the child. She cannot stay." And the
newly wed wife of Saif Khan, standing at her feet, said, "The
voice of the beloved husband is as the Call of the Angel. Let the
Padishah be summoned."
So, the evening prayer being over (but the Emperor had not
prayed), the wisest of the hakims, Kazim Sharif, went before him
and spoke:-
"Inhallah! May the will of the Issuer of Decrees in all things be
done! Ascribe unto the Creator glory, bowing before his Throne."
And he remained silent; but the Padishah, haggard in his jewels,
with his face hidden, answered thickly, "The truth! For Allah has
forgotten his slave."
And Kazim Sharif, bowing at his feet and veiling his face with
his hands, replied:
"The voice of the child cannot reach her, and the Lady of Delight
departs. He who would speak with her must speak quickly."
Then the Emperor rose to his feet unsteadily, like a man drunk
with the forbidden juice; and when Kazim Sharif would have
supported him, be flung aside his hands, and he stumbled, a man
wounded to death, as it were, to the marble chamber where she
lay.
In that white chamber it was dusk, and they had lit the little
cressets so that a very faint light fell upon her face. A slender
fountain a little cooled the hot, still air with its thin music
and its sprinkled diamonds, and outside, the summer lightnings
were playing wide and blue on the river; but so still was it that
the dragging footsteps of the Emperor raised the hair on the
flesh of those who heard, So the women who should, veiled
themselves, and the others remained like pillars of stone.
Now, when those steps were heard, a faint colour rose in the
cheek of the Lady Arjemand; but she did not raise the heavy
lashes, or move her hand. And he came up beside her, and the
Shadow of God, who should kneel to none, knelt, and his head fell
forward upon her breast; and in the hush the women glided out
like ghosts, leaving the husband with the wife excepting only
that her foster-nurse stood far off, with eyes averted.
So the minutes drifted by, falling audibly one by one into
eternity, and at the long last she slowly opened her eyes and, as
from the depths of a dream, beheld the Emperor; and in a voice
faint as the fall of a rose-leaf she said the one word,
"Beloved!"
And he from between his clenched teeth, answered, "Speak, wife."
So she, who in all things had loved and served him, - she, Light
of all hearts, dispeller of all gloom, - gathered her dying
breath for consolation, and raised one hand slowly; and it fell
across his, and so remained.
Now, her beauty had been broken in the anguish like a rose in
storm; but it returned to her, doubtless that the Padishah might
take comfort in its memory; and she looked like a houri of
Paradise who, kneeling beside the Zemzem Well, beholds the Waters
of Peace. Not Fatmeh herself, the daughter of the Prophet of God,
shone more sweetly. She repeated the word, "Beloved"; and after a
pause she whispered on with lips that scarcely stirred, "King of
the Age, this is the end."
But still he was like a dead man, nor lifted his face.
"Surely all things pass. And though I go, in your heart I abide,
and nothing can sever us. Take comfort."
But there was no answer.
"Nothing but Love's own hand can slay Love. Therefore, remember
me, and I shall live."
And he answered from the darkness of her bosom, "The whole world
shall remember. But when shall I be united to thee? 0 Allah, how
long wilt thou leave me to waste in this separation?"
And she: "Beloved, what is time? We sleep and the night is gone.
Now put your arms about me, for I sink into rest. What words are
needed between us? Love is enough."
So, making not the Profession of Faith, - and what need, since
all her life was worship, - the Lady Arjemand turned into his
arms like a child. And the night deepened.
Morning, with its arrows of golden light that struck the river to
splendour! Morning, with its pure breath, its sunshine of joy,
and the koels fluting in the Palace gardens! Morning, divine and
new from the hand of the Maker! And in the innermost chamber of
marble a white silence; and the Lady, the Mirror of Goodness,
lying in the Compassion of Allah, and a broken man stretched on
the ground beside her. For all flesh, from the camel-driver to
the Shah-in- Shah, is as one in the Day of the Smiting.
II
For weeks the Emperor lay before the door of death; and had it
opened to him, he had been blessed. So the months went by, and
very slowly the strength returned to him; but his eyes were
withered and the bones stood out in his cheeks. But he resumed
his throne, and sat upon it kingly, black-bearded, eagle-eyed,
terribly apart in his grief and his royalty; and so seated among
his Usbegs, he declared his will.
"For this Lady (upon whom be peace), departed to the mercy of the
Giver and Taker, shall a tomb-palace be made, the Like of which
is not found in the four corners of the world. Send forth
therefore for craftsmen like the builders of the Temple of
Solomon the Wise; for I will build."
So, taking counsel, they sent in haste into Agra for Ustad Isa,
the Master-Builder, a man of Shiraz; and he, being presented
before the Padishah, received his instructions in these words:-
"I will that all the world shall remember the Flower of the
World, that all hearts shall give thanks for her beauty, which
was indeed the perfect Mirror of the Creator. And since it is
abhorrent of Islam that any image be made in the likeness of
anything that has life, make for me a palace-tomb, gracious as
she was gracious, lovely as she was lovely. Not such as the tombs
of the Kings and the Conquerors, but of a divine sweetness. Make
me a garden on the banks of Jumna, and build it there, where,
sitting in my Pavilion of Marble, I may see it rise."
And Ustad Isa, having heard, said, "Upon my head and eyes!" and
went out from the Presence.
So, musing upon the words of the Padishah, he went to his house
in Agra, and there pondered the matter long and deeply; and for a
whole day and night he refused all food and secluded himself from
the society of all men; for he said:-
"This is a weighty thing, for this Lady (upon whom be peace) must
visibly dwell in her tomb- palace on the shore of the river; and
how shall I, who have never seen her, imagine the grace that was
in her, and restore it to the world? Oh, had I but the memory of
her face! Could I but see it as the Shah-in-Shah sees it,
remembering the past! Prophet of God, intercede for me, that I
may look through his eyes, if but for a moment!"
That night he slept, wearied and weakened with fasting; and
whether it were that the body guarded no longer the gates of the
soul, I cannot say; for, when the body ails, the soul soars free
above its weakness. But a strange marvel happened.
For, as it seemed to him, he awoke at the mid-noon of the night,
and he was sitting, not in his own house, but upon the roof of
the royal palace, looking down on the gliding Jumna, where the
low moon slept in silver, and the light was alone upon the water;
and there were no boats, but sleep and dream, hovering
hand-in-hand, moved upon the air, and his heart was dilated in
the great silence.
Yet he knew well that he waked in some supernatural sphere: for
his eyes could see across the river as if the opposite shore lay
at his feet; and he could distinguish every leaf on every tree,
and the flowers moon-blanched and ghost-like. And there, in the
blackest shade of the pippala boughs, he beheld a faint light
like a pearl; and looking with unspeakable anxiety, he saw within
the light, slowly growing, the figure of a lady exceedingly
glorious in majesty and crowned with a rayed crown of mighty
jewels of white and golden splendour. Her gold robe fell to her
feet, and - very strange to tell - her feet touched not the
ground, but hung a span's length above it, so that she floated in
the air.
But the marvel of marvels was her face - not, indeed, for its
beauty, though that transcended all, but for its singular and
compassionate sweetness, wherewith she looked toward the Palace
beyond the river as if it held the heart of her heart, while
death and its river lay between.
And Ustad Isa said:- "0 dream, if this sweetness be but a dream,
let me never wake! Let me see forever this exquisite work of
Allah the Maker, before whom all the craftsmen are as children!
For my knowledge is as nothing, and I am ashamed in its
presence."
And as he spoke, she turned those brimming eyes on him, and he
saw her slowly absorbed into the glory of the moonlight; but as
she faded into dream, he beheld, slowly rising, where her feet
had hung in the blessed air, a palace of whiteness, warm as
ivory, cold as chastity, domes and cupolas, slender minars,
arches of marble fretted into sea-foam, screen within screen of
purest marble, to hide the sleeping beauty of a great Queen -
silence in the heart of it, and in every line a harmony beyond
all music. Grace was about it - the grace of a Queen who prays
and does not command; who, seated in her royalty yet inclines all
hearts to love. Arid he saw that its grace was her grace, and its
soul her soul, and that she gave it for the consolation of the
Emperor.
And he fell on his face and worshipped the Master-Builder of the
Universe, saying,- "Praise cannot express thy Perfection. Thine
Essence confounds thought. Surely I am but the tool in the hand
of the Builder."
And when he awoke, he was lying in his own secret chamber, but
beside him was a drawing such as the craftsmen make of the work
they have imagined in their hearts. And it was the Palace of the
Tomb.
Henceforward, how should he waver? He was as a slave who obeys
his master, and with haste he summoned to Agra his Army of
Beauty.
Then were assembled all the master craftsmen of India and of the
outer world. From Delhi, from Shiraz, even from Baghdad and
Syria, they came. Muhammad Hanif, the wise mason, came from
Kandahar, Muhammad Sayyid from Mooltan. Amanat Khan, and other
great writers of the holy Koran, who should make the scripts of
the Book upon fine marble. Inlayers from Kanauj, with fingers
like those of the Spirits that bowed before Solomon the King, who
should make beautiful the pure stone with inlay of jewels, as did
their forefathers for the Rajah of Mewar; mighty dealers with
agate, cornelian, and lapis lazuli. Came also, from Bokhara, Ata
Muhammad and Shakri Muhammad, that they might carve the lilies of
the field, very glorious, about that Flower of the World. Men of
India, men of Persia, men of the outer lands, they came at the
bidding of Ustad Isa, that the spirit of his vision might be made
manifest.
And a great council was held among these servants of beauty. so
they made a model in little of the glory that was to be, and laid
it at the feet of the Shah-in-Shah; and he allowed it, though not
as yet fully discerning their intent. And when it was approved,
Ustad Isa called to him a man of Kashmir; and the very hand of
the Creator was upon this man, for he could make gardens second
only to the Gardens of Paradise, having been born by that Dal
Lake where are those roses of the earth, the Shalimar and the
Nishat Bagh; and to him said Ustad Isa,-
"Behold, Rain Lal Kashmiri, consider this design! Thus and thus
shall a white palace, exquisite in perfection, arise on the
banks of Jumna. Here, in little, in this model of sandalwood, see
what shall be. Consider these domes, rounded as the Bosom of
Beauty, recalling the mystic fruit of the lotus flower. Consider
these four minars that stand about them like Spirits about the
Throne. And remembering that all this shall stand upon a great
dais of purest marble, and that the river shall be its mirror,
repeating to everlasting its loveliness, make me a garden that
shall be the throne room to this Queen."
And Ram Lal Kashmiri salaamed and said, "Obedience!" and went
forth and pondered night and day, journeying even over the snows
of the Pir Panjal to Kashmir, that he might bathe his eyes in
beauty where she walks, naked and divine, upon the earth. and he
it was who imagined the black marble and white that made the way
of approach.
So grew the palace that should murmur, like a seashell, in the
ear of the world the secret of love.
Veiled had that loveliness been in the shadow of the palace; but
now the sun should rise upon it and turn its ivory to gold,
should set upon it and flush its snow with rose. The moon should
lie upon it like the pearls upon her bosom, the visible grace of
her presence breathe about it, the music of her voice hover in
the birds and trees of the garden. Times there were when Ustad
Isa despaired lest even these mighty servants of beauty should
miss perfection. Yet it grew and grew, rising like the growth of
a flower.
So on a certain day it stood completed, and beneath the small
tomb in the sanctuary, veiled with screens of wrought marble so
fine that they might lift in the breeze, - the veils of a Queen,
- slept the Lady Arjemand; and above her a narrow coffer of white
marble, enriched in a great script with the Ninety-Nine Wondrous
Names of God. And the Shah-in-Shah, now grey and worn, entered
and, standing by her, cried in a loud voice, - "I ascribe to the
Unity, the only Creator, the perfection of his handiwork made
visible here by the hand of mortal man. For the beauty that was
secret in my Palace is here revealed; and the Crowned Lady shall
sit forever upon the banks of the Jumna River. It was love that
commanded this Tomb."
And the golden echo carried his voice up into the high dome, and
it died away in whispers of music.
But Ustad Isa standing far off in the throng (for what are
craftsmen in the presence of the mighty?), said softly in his
beard, "It was Love also that built, and therefore it shall
endure."
Now it is told that, on a certain night in summer, when the moon
is full, a man who lingers by the straight water, where the
cypresses stand over their own image, may see a strange marvel -
may see the Palace of the Taj dissolve like a pearl, and so rise
in a mist into the moonlight; and in its place, on her dais of
white marble, he shall see the Lady Arjemand, Mumtaz-i-Mahal, the
Chosen of the Palace, stand there in the white perfection of
beauty, smiling as one who hath attained unto the Peace. For she
is its soul.
And kneeling before the dais, he shall see Ustad Isa, who made
this body of her beauty; and his face is hidden in his hands.
"HOW GREAT IS THE GLORY OF KWANNON!"
A JAPANESE STORY
(0 Lovely One-O thou Flower! With Thy beautiful face, with Thy
beautiful eyes, pour light upon the world! Adoration to Kwannon.)
In Japan in the days of the remote Ancestors, near the little
village of Shiobara, the river ran through rocks of a very
strange blue colour, and the bed of the river was also composed
of these rocks, so that the clear water ran blue as turquoise
gems to the sea.
The great forests murmured beside it, and through their swaying
boughs was breathed the song of Eternity. Those who listen may
hear if their ears are open. To others it is but the idle sighing
of the wind.
Now because of all this beauty there stood in these forests a
roughly built palace of unbarked wood, and here the great Emperor
would come from City-Royal to seek rest for his doubtful thoughts
and the cares of state, turning aside often to see the moonlight
in Shiobara. He sought also the free air and the sound of falling
water, yet dearer to him than the plucked strings of sho and
biwa. For he said;
"Where and how shall We find peace even for a moment, and afford
Our heart refreshment even for a single second?"
And it seemed to him that he found such moments at Shiobara.
Only one of his great nobles would His Majesty bring with him -
the Dainagon, and him be chose because he was a worthy and
honorable person and very simple of heart.
There was yet another reason why the Son of Heaven inclined to
the little Shiobara. It had reached the Emperor that a Recluse of
the utmost sanctity dwelt in that forest. His name was Semimaru.
He had made himself a small hut in the deep woods, much as a
decrepit silkworm might spin his last Cocoon and there had the
Peace found him.
It had also reached His Majesty that, although blind, be was
exceedingly skilled in the art of playing the biwa, both in the
Flowing Fount manner and the Woodpecker manner, and that,
especially on nights when the moon was full, this aged man made
such music as transported the soul. This music His Majesty
desired very greatly to hear.
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