Ardor by Roberto Calasso Read Free Book Online Page A

everything happened instantaneously. If Y ā jñavalkya’s answers were correct, the very lives of those who were questioning him could be considered saved, freed: s ā mukti ḥ , s ā timukti ḥ . Ati , “the other side from,” “beyond.” Released “beyond” everything.
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    Ida ṃ sarvam , “this all”: that is what they called the world and all that exists. And “this all” was prey to death—or rather to Death, a figure, male. This was A ś vala’s first thought—and his first question for Y ā jñavalkya. Did the “sacrificer,” yajam ā na— therefore mankind in general, for whom the officiants operated each day (and A ś vala was one of them)—have some means of escaping death? Did the rites have the power of acting on death, against death? It was not a question of overcoming or eliminating death. That would have been a foolish demand. It was a matter of indicating a way by which someone “is totally released ( atimucyate )” from the grip of death. It wasn’t enough to be released, you had to be released “beyond.” To be released from “this all,” from the whole world.
    No question was more elementary and primordial. And Y ā jñavalkya also gave the most elementary answer: all A ś vala had to do was what he did every day. All he had to do was act as a hot ṛ , as an officiant at the sacrifice who utters the right formulas, it was enough for him to use speech and fire. The unity of the hot ṛ ’s gestures, of his voice and the fire on which the oblation was burned, were enough, according to Y ā jñavalkya, for death to come no more, for Death to strike no more.
    Question and answer were formulated in just a few words. Before theorems, the axioms had to be set out. And Y ā jñavalkya had immediately stated the axiom on which life around him was based. From there, if they wished, they could go further into brahman , as King Janaka had asked.
    The questions that followed A ś vala’s incisive first question were not superfluous, even though it might seem they were asked out of a desire for completeness (to establish that the other officiants—the udg ā t ṛ , the adhvaryu, and the brahmin—could free themselves, just like the hot ṛ ). A ś vala asked Y ā jñavalkya how it was possible not to be subject to day and night, to the first fifteen days and the second fifteen days (the waxing and waning of the moon). He meant: how can we not be subject to the fading away of all things, how can we not be subject to time? Death was just the sting of time. One had to begin from that torment. But behind death was the actual fact of disappearing. So sacrifice, first and foremost, brought death, with the killing of the victims, but also brought about actual disappearance, with the pouring or burning of oblations in the fire. Release from bondage (to death, to time) came about through a series of acts (the sacrifice) that emphasized that bondage. It was a conundrum that A ś vala wished to leave to other questioners. For now, through Y ā jñavalkya, he had learned that if you wanted “total release” you had to continue doing exactly what you had always done.
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    A ś vala’s question on the udg ā t ṛ and the adhvaryu followed the same lines as the first, substituting death with time. But, in moving on to the role of the brahmin officiant, A ś vala changed register. This reflected the peculiarity of the brahmin’s role. If officiants were like a string quartet, the brahmin would be like an instrumentalist who never plays and intervenes only when the others go wrong. The passive supervision of the brahmin is unlike the role of the other officiants, who are restricted to gesture, action, speech. So A ś vala’s question took a different form. He said: “The atmosphere offers no point of support. What path will the sacrificer take to get to the celestial world?” Y ā jñavalkya’s answer was: “By way of the brahmin officiant, by way of the mind,