Kim Rudyard Kipling (web ebook reader .TXT) 📖

be interpreted to me. I chose a surer way. Many times when I returned from my Search to this Temple, which has always been a nest to me, there came one seeking Enlightenment⁠—a man from Leh⁠—that had been, he said, a Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods.” The lama pointed to the Arhats.

“A fat man?” said Kim, a twinkle in his eye.

“Very fat; but I perceived in a little his mind was wholly given up to useless things⁠—such as devils and charms and the form and fashion of our tea-drinkings in the monasteries, and by what road we initiated the novices. A man abounding in questions; but he was a friend of thine, chela. He told me that thou wast on the road to much honour as a scribe. And I see thou art a physician.”

“Yes, that am I⁠—a scribe, when I am a Sahib, but it is set aside when I come as thy disciple. I have accomplished the years appointed for a Sahib.”

“As it were a novice?” said the lama, nodding his head. “Art thou freed from the schools? I would not have thee unripe.”

“I am all free. In due time I take service under the Government as a scribe⁠—”

“Not as a warrior. That is well.”

“But first I come to wander⁠—with thee. Therefore I am here. Who begs for thee, these days?” he went on quickly. The ice was thin.

“Very often I beg myself; but, as thou knowest, I am seldom here, except when I come to look again at my disciple. From one end to another of Hind have I travelled afoot and in the te-rain. A great and a wonderful land! But here, when I put in, is as though I were in my own Bhotiyal.”

He looked round the little clean cell complacently. A low cushion gave him a seat, on which he had disposed himself in the cross-legged attitude of the Bodhisat emerging from meditation; a black teakwood table, not twenty inches high, set with copper teacups, was before him. In one corner stood a tiny altar, also of heavily carved teak, bearing a copper-gilt image of the seated Buddha and fronted by a lamp, an incense-holder, and a pair of copper flowerpots.

“The Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House acquired merit by giving me these a year since,” he said, following Kim’s eye. “When one is far from one’s own land such things carry remembrance; and we must reverence the Lord for that He showed the Way. See!” He pointed to a curiously-built mound of coloured rice crowned with a fantastic metal ornament. “When I was Abbot in my own place⁠—before I came to better knowledge I made that offering daily. It is the Sacrifice of the Universe to the Lord. Thus do we of Bhotiyal offer all the world daily to the Excellent Law. And I do it even now, though I know that the Excellent One is beyond all pinchings and pattings.” He snuffed from his gourd.

“It is well done, Holy One,” Kim murmured, sinking at ease on the cushions, very happy and rather tired.

“And also,” the old man chuckled, “I write pictures of the Wheel of Life. Three days to a picture. I was busied on it⁠—or it may be I shut my eyes a little⁠—when they brought word of thee. It is good to have thee here: I will show thee my art⁠—not for pride’s sake, but because thou must learn. The Sahibs have not all this world’s wisdom.”

He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of Indian ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the Heavens and Hells, and all the chances of human life. Men say that the Bodhisat Himself first drew it with grains of rice upon dust, to teach His disciples the cause of things. Many ages have crystallized it into a most wonderful convention crowded with hundreds of little figures whose every line carries a meaning. Few can translate the picture-parable; there are not twenty in all the world who can draw it surely without a copy: of those who can both draw and expound are but three.

“I have a little learned to draw,” said Kim. “But this is a marvel beyond marvels.”

“I have written it for many years,” said the lama. “Time was when I could write it all between one lamp-lighting and the next. I will teach thee the art⁠—after due preparation; and I will show thee the meaning of the Wheel.”

“We take the Road, then?”

“The Road and our Search. I was but waiting for thee. It was made plain to me in a hundred dreams⁠—notably one that came upon the night of the day that the Gates of Learning first shut⁠—that without thee I should never find my River. Again and again, as thou knowest, I put this from me, fearing an illusion. Therefore I would not take thee with me that day at Lucknow, when we ate the cakes. I would not take thee till the time was ripe and auspicious. From the Hills to the Sea, from the Sea to the Hills have I gone, but it was vain. Then I remembered the Jâtaka.”

He told Kim the story of the elephant with the leg-iron, as he had told it so often to the Jam priests.

“Further testimony is not needed,” he ended serenely. “Thou wast sent for an aid. That aid removed, my Search came to naught. Therefore we will go out again together, and our Search sure.”

“Whither go we?”

“What matters, Friend of all the World? The Search, I say, is sure. If need be, the River will break from the ground before us. I acquired merit when I sent thee to the Gates of Learning, and gave thee the jewel that is Wisdom. Thou didst return,