35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

74
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
arranged to stay at the ashram of Ramana Maharshi, was absolutely
certain about this – we finally set off.
There is a scientific institute exclusively devoted to researching
the improvement of the bullock cart in India. So far the boffins have
come up with one noticeable improvement: fitting pneumatic truck
tyres to the cart. This particular vehicle, however, had undergone no
such radical overhaul; its hand-hewn teak wheels wavered around a
bowed axle, causing a boat-like motion to its passenger, complete
with mild nausea. The tonga was painted in brilliant swirling
psychedelic patterns, and the bullock itself was so extravagantly
decorated with sparkling tassels and jingling bells that I felt like part
of a travelling circus. Bullocks may be strong but they are not fleet of
foot. We moved at an agonising pace, overtaken by cycles, cows,
pedestrians, and anything else on the road.
A mother-of-pearl moon, all but full, had slid secretively up the
velvet sky, plating rooftops with milky silver, scattering diamonds
over shadowed fields. The pyramid silhouette of Arunachala, the
holy mountain, loomed dark and massive at the edge of town, its
wedge revealing just how full of lights and countless mottled shades
of blue and purple the enormous night sky surrounding it really
was. And beneath the mountain, glazed by a moonlight almost
dripping from their stones, the soaring gopura of Tiruvannamalai’s
vast and ancient Siva-Parvati temple reached two hundred feet
upward, like fists punching the envelope of heaven.
Arunachaleswara was its potent, resounding name.
‘Templetemple,’ the driver pointed out helpfully. ‘Too big, this
one.’ ‘Too’ frequently means ‘very’ in India; in this case, though, it
seemed appropriate. The temple – all twenty-five acres of it – did
appear too big for the small town crouching beyond its walls. Many
call it the largest temple in all of India. Here in the South, where the
cult of devotion and idols first emerged as a popular alternative to
the Brahmin-dominated Sanskrit path of knowledge, endure most
of the largest temple complexes ever built on earth. Only Egypt
exceeds in grandeur the breathtaking work of early Indian
stonemasons; unlike those of Karnak and Luxor, these Indian
temples still dominate the lives of those dwelling in their shadow as
they did several centuries ago, and, deep within the holy of holies,