Bab Bab 12 · Chapter XII

. Chapter XII

The Ganges, though flowing from the foot of Vishnu and through

Siva’s hair, is not an ancient stream. Geology, looking further

than religion, knows of a time when neither the river nor the

Himalayas that nourished it existed, and an ocean flowed over the

holy places of Hindustan. The mountains rose, their debris silted

up the ocean, the gods took their seats on them and contrived the

river, and the India we call immemorial came into being. But India

is really far older. In the days of the prehistoric ocean the

southern part of the peninsula already existed, and the high places

of Dravidia have been land since land began, and have seen on the

one side the sinking of a continent that joined them to Africa,

and on the other the upheaval of the Himalayas from a sea. They

are older than anything in the world. No water has ever covered

them, and the sun who has watched them for countless æons may still

discern in their outlines forms that were his before our globe was

torn from his bosom. If flesh of the sun’s flesh is to be touched

anywhere, it is here, among the incredible antiquity of these

hills.

Yet even they are altering. As Himalayan India rose, this India,

the primal, has been depressed, and is slowly re-entering the curve

of the earth. It may be that in æons to come an ocean will flow

here too, and cover the sun-born rocks with slime. Meanwhile the

plain of the Ganges encroaches on them with something of the sea’s

action. They are sinking beneath the newer lands. Their main mass

is untouched, but at the edge their outposts have been cut off and

stand knee-deep, throat-deep, in the advancing soil. There is

something unspeakable in these outposts. They are like nothing else

in the world, and a glimpse of them makes the breath catch. They

rise abruptly, insanely, without the proportion that is kept by

the wildest hills elsewhere, they bear no relation to anything

dreamt or seen. To call them “uncanny” suggests ghosts, and they

are older than all spirit. Hinduism has scratched and plastered a

few rocks, but the shrines are unfrequented, as if pilgrims, who

generally seek the extraordinary, had here found too much of it.

Some saddhus did once settle in a cave, but they were smoked out,

and even Buddha, who must have passed this way down to the Bo Tree

of Gya, shunned a renunciation more complete than his own, and has

left no legend of struggle or victory in the Marabar.

The caves are readily described. A tunnel eight feet long, five

feet high, three feet wide, leads to a circular chamber about

twenty feet in diameter. This arrangement occurs again and again

throughout the group of hills, and this is all, this is a Marabar

Cave. Having seen one such cave, having seen two, having seen

three, four, fourteen, twenty-four, the visitor returns to

Chandrapore uncertain whether he has had an interesting experience

or a dull one or any experience at all. He finds it difficult to

discuss the caves, or to keep them apart in his mind, for the

pattern never varies, and no carving, not even a bees’-nest or a

bat distinguishes one from another. Nothing, nothing attaches to

them, and their reputation—for they have one—does not depend upon

human speech. It is as if the surrounding plain or the passing

birds have taken upon themselves to exclaim “extraordinary,” and

the word has taken root in the air, and been inhaled by mankind.

They are dark caves. Even when they open towards the sun, very

little light penetrates down the entrance tunnel into the circular

chamber. There is little to see, and no eye to see it, until the

visitor arrives for his five minutes, and strikes a match.

Immediately another flame rises in the depths of the rock and moves

towards the surface like an imprisoned spirit: the walls of the

circular chamber have been most marvellously polished. The two

flames approach and strive to unite, but cannot, because one of

them breathes air, the other stone. A mirror inlaid with lovely

colours divides the lovers, delicate stars of pink and grey

interpose, exquisite nebulæ, shadings fainter than the tail of a

comet or the midday moon, all the evanescent life of the granite,

only here visible. Fists and fingers thrust above the advancing

soil—here at last is their skin, finer than any covering acquired

by the animals, smoother than windless water, more voluptuous than

love. The radiance increases, the flames touch one another, kiss,

expire. The cave is dark again, like all the caves.

Only the wall of the circular chamber has been polished thus. The

sides of the tunnel are left rough, they impinge as an afterthought

upon the internal perfection. An entrance was necessary, so mankind

made one. But elsewhere, deeper in the granite, are there certain

chambers that have no entrances? Chambers never unsealed since the

arrival of the gods. Local report declares that these exceed in

number those that can be visited, as the dead exceed the living—four

hundred of them, four thousand or million. Nothing is inside them,

they were sealed up before the creation of pestilence or treasure;

if mankind grew curious and excavated, nothing, nothing would be

added to the sum of good or evil. One of them is rumoured within

the boulder that swings on the summit of the highest of the hills;

a bubble-shaped cave that has neither ceiling nor floor, and

mirrors its own darkness in every direction infinitely. If the

boulder falls and smashes, the cave will smash too—empty as an

Easter egg. The boulder because of its hollowness sways in the

wind, and even moves when a crow perches upon it: hence its name

and the name of its stupendous pedestal: the Kawa Dol.