THE
PURASU
BALAKRISHNAN
Kalidasa,
in Megha-duta, describes the peaks of Kailasa as “the accumulated
laughter of Siva”, laugh being, in Sanskrit literature, traditionally “white”.
In Kumara Sambhava he describes the
Manikka-vachahar,
in Kirti-tiruvahaval section of Tiruvachaham, sings “On the
golden stage of Chidambaram, luminous like the gold-capped peaks of the
F.
W. Bain, in his preface to An Incarnation of the Snow says “...I looked
and saw, pendent in the purple air like a great yellow Indian topaz lost in an
amethystine void, the digit of the moon, poised as if on tiptoe, on the very
brim of the brow of the hill, whose sable edge it seemed to touch, with a
fringe of soft and almost imperceptible iridescence, with magical
contradiction, making the dark thing fair. “There the Great God stood, before
me, with his Jewel on his brow.”
Indeed
all the physical aspects of Siva may be viewed symbolically in terms of the
Himalayas, and conversely, the
King
of snow
that laughs the white laugh,
frozen, blinding,
of Siva,
God
of the north
that wears the white moon
crested over your rocks
as caught in Siva's locks,
Home
of silver peaks
lovely and austere
like Uma* lost
in white adoration
Mighty
that hold, the
as entwined
in Siva’s hair,
Of
you sang Kalidasa
in Sanskrit speech
resplendent
like your snow.
To
you I offer
these words and echoes
sans the thunder
of Sanskrit.
* Uma: the daughter of
God Himavan (the