Unmaking Love

Margaret Trawick in her remarkable book Notes on Love in a Tamil Family says, "for them love was by nature and by right hidden" (1990, 91). She observes that in Tamil Nad there is a public ethos of denial, and this is just as true in Rajasthan: a mother must not gaze at her child nor a wife speak her husband's name. Yet beneath the facade of denial are tangled webs of intimate relations that Trawick's study of a family reveals in exquisite complexity and subtlety.

Folk epics are not generally known for their psychological com-

plexity and subtlety. Yet what the tales of Gopi Chand and Bharthari have to say about the ties that bind—an English phrase that is remarkably apt in Hindu settings (Peterson 1988)—is far from simple and blunt. Nowhere in Madhu Nath's tales do the several Hindi and Rajasthani words for love (prem, sneha, pyar , and others) appear. Yet submerged, hidden, and indirect though its manifestations may be, the power of love infiltrates and often motivates the plots. One code for love is the guru's phrase "illusion's net" (maya jal ) or the "noose of illusion's net."^[3]

Manavati Mother warns Gopi Chand when he comes back to his palace as a yogi, before he meets Patam De and the other queens:

Illusion's net will fiercely spread,
so you must fiercely brace yourself.

When first Jalindar set Gopi Chand the task of calling his wife "Mother," the disciple protested: "But she is my wife. I have scattered all her leaves and smelled all her flowers"—a poetic depiction of conjugal intimacy, based, I was told, on a gardener's relation with his plants. The guru responds carefully: "Patam De Rani was your woman, but that was in your ruling time. Now you have become a yogi." At this precarious moment in his disciple's career he stresses not the perishability of all mortal relationships but the king's removal from them after initiation. In yogis' lore, to call one's former wife "Mother" and take alms from her hands is a well-known trial for the new initiate, but it appears to contain a built-in contradiction. If all persons are truly the same to a yogi, who has died to his past, why should it take an encounter with his wife to fulfill his yoga?

The answer, I think—at least for these Nath tales of parting—is that, unspoken though it may be, the power of love is given its due. It is given its due in two ways: as a moral imperative and as a mortal impediment. That is, in the householders' world so recently abandoned and not yet forgotten by the new initiate, marital love is worth

[3] In everyday Nepali maya means "love," and maya jal is used to refer to the "snares of love." Alan Roland in his culturally sensitive psychological exploration of Indian selves writes that "maya can be viewed ... not simply as illusion ... but rather as the strong emotional attachments of the familial self that profoundly distract the person from his or her real nature, or the spiritual self.... What is termed detachment can be viewed psychologically as increasing involvement in the spiritual self and a loosening of the powerful emotional bonds in familial-social relationships" (1988, 307).

something. Women lay claims on men, and the validity of their claims is dodged with difficulty; that is why successful denial represents such a crowning achievement for the new yogi. That is also why these tales need, as relief, low-born and lusty bad women upon whom new yogis may practice the arts of disdain and rebuffal.

And yet, at least in that treacherous land of Bengal, the entire category "woman" easily merges with that of "lady magicians." The magicians are straightforwardly the "gurus" of all Bengali women. Several times in the course of Gopi Chand 3, the rebellious women of Bengal emerge from their domestic confines to challenge yogis in the garden. After their defeat by the great guru Jalindar Nath's power, they are transformed into braying she-asses and driven into the jungle. The men of Bengal, missing their dinners and beset by crying babies, then collectively confront the "loincloth-wearers" and demand their women back. Jalindar answers them:

O brothers, what do I want with your women? It was because of women trouble that I first became a yogi. I became a yogi to get away from women. What need have I of women? There aren't any women around here, and we don't even know your women. And what would women have come to get from sadhus like us?

Jalindar, of course, protests too much. His disclaimer, the audience knows, is an outright lie; the yogis are indeed responsible for the Bengali women's disappearance. But, he is also speaking the official truth: yogis, and Jalindar as a leader of yogis, have nothing to do with women. Jalindar's ingenuous double-talk opens a window on the subtle ambiguities and shifting evaluations that characterize attitudes toward the female species in Madhu Nath's tales.

If it is taken for granted that the world of yogis is a world beyond women, the existence of that world is in many ways defined in reference to women. Much more than divinity, women often seem to be the center about which these tales revolve. The nature of divinity is taken for granted; it is stable, it is available for whoever has the capacity for concentration, and it has the certainty of truth. But the nature of women is elusive, unstable, and always open to doubt. Although some women are sources of strength, food, and comfort, others are menacing enemies. But for an aspiring yogi, the passionate love of a good woman is far more dangerous than the bamboo sticks or magic spells of female adversaries.

Women are to be abandoned or, as Jalindar's tone and words imply and much of the action portrays, escaped. When Bharthari realizes his kingdom is dust and decides to seek his guru, he says to himself: "I shall go behind the queen's back. Otherwise, if I try to leave in front of the queen and all the others, there isn't a chance that they'll let me go." When face to face with the wives they must leave, neither Gopi Chand nor Bharthari refers to a quest for spiritual perfection; both evade personal responsibility by referring instead to conveniently ineluctable fate or to the guru's powerful command.

Elsewhere I have discussed gender in the Gopi Chand tale alone, highlighting the associations of females with powers at once creative and beguiling. I have explored the king's relationships with his wives, sisters, and female enemies (Gold 1991). Here I shall focus on the husband-wife bond—a bond epitomized in Bharthari's story by the central act of sati .

To understand the place of sati in Madhu Nath's tales, we have to appreciate the premises prevailing in the performance context: a Rajasthan village where the decision to be sati transforms a woman into a deity. This is popularly perceived as an awesome and extremely rare manifestation of female power. A Rajasthani proverb, which occurs several times in the Bharthari epic, comments: "She deliberately kills her husband to become sati " (manas marar sati hona ). The implication is clearly that a ruthless power-hungry woman might seek out sati . Whatever the social realities, most of Madhu Nath's audience views sati , then, as access to power for a determined woman, not as oppression of a helpless one.^[4]

What is interesting about the portrayals of sati in Bharthari's tale is that, while the story accepts the extraordinary power of the act itself, the tale could well be taken as anti-sati propaganda, although it was composed by yogis, not feminists. The ideal of sati is founded in the wife's existing only as her husband's half-body and her acceptance of her husband as a god. Yet the husbands here are evidently not worth dying for. In all three satis , as portrayed by Madhu Nath, the males have acted as selfish sinners and the females know it. This has something to do with yogis' devaluation of the marriage bond as one big strand of illusion's net.

[4] See Harlan 1992 for insights into sati in Rajasthan. For other illuminating discussions that highlight the complexity of sati and raise important historical questions that I have ignored here see Courtright in press; Mani 1989; Nandy 1980, 1–31; 1988.

The first of three satis that take place in Bharthari 2 is that of the does, whose mate King Bharthari shoots, ironically enough, because he had taken a vow never to harm females. Moreover, the stag, who is himself a disciple of Gorakh Nath, refuses to run away from death. The does voice righteous anger with their spouse for ignoring their pleas that he flee and thus save them the terrible fate of widowhood. They address him with insults even as they prepare to become sati upon his horns: "While he was dying, those does said, 'O Husband-god, father of a daughter! Turn your neck up and keep it that way! We told you to run away, but you refused to run.'"

The second sati , the huntress, is scornful when she realizes that her husband, who has had an excessively successful hunt, is dead. She makes a karmic connection between his killing and being killed. "Oh, you killed these deer, sinner, you killed all these deer and rabbits, and you haven't even eaten them. You died and now ants are going in and out."

As he has previously watched the does in disbelief, Bharthari gawks as the low-caste huntress becomes a goddess before his eyes. His boorishness on this occasion knows no bounds. The king observes the huntress dismember herself slowly and painfully, and he makes occasional exclamations and comments. He then decides to take advantage of the presence of divinity and crassly asks for "predictions for the coming year"—a divination typically available during goddess possession and directed toward crop success and grain prices. Her answer to him is, "King Bharthari, the coming year will pass in great bliss, a very fine year lies ahead." From one viewpoint, the falsehood of this prediction drips with sarcasm: Bharthari will leave his home, become a beggar, and suffer greatly. But from a yogic perspective, this statement confirms the sati 's divine omniscience. What could bring more bliss than renunciation?

Thus the huntress's speech, as frequently happens in these tales, offers both sides of the coin at once: on the worldly level an appropriately nasty retort to Bharthari's callous opportunism; on the transcendent level a vision of yogic truth. The encounter concludes with her masterful put-down:

"Say, King Bharthari, do you think I'm giving a show?"
"Yes I am sitting here, so I am seeing this show."
"O King Bharthari, you may be watching this show, but your Queen Pingala burned up over there in the Chapala Garden. She has become a pinch of ash. And ... all the people including women and young men are

filling the Chapala Garden. Your Queen Pingala burned up, and the world is watching, and sister-fucker you are watching my show!"

If we look, as directed by the transfigured huntress, at Pingala's sati , we find that rather than "truth" (from which sati is of course derived) it has at its base a series of lies and improprieties. Bharthari tests Pingala by sending a blood-soaked handkerchief with a false message. The Royal Servant who knowingly brings evil tidings challenges the queen: "You said, 'I won't eat bread without you, without seeing your face,' but you told lies. You women are a heartless race. If you're a sati , then burn, burn, because King Bharthari died."

Well aware, by virtue of a magic plant, that her husband "hasn't even a splinter," Pingala is piqued by Bharthari's test. "Oh my, it's strange, he is testing my sati -power." Yet Pingala's reaction is not to call the king's bluff but to pray to Shiva to make her sati . Shiva knows her husband is alive, but grants her request nevertheless. God is later angry with all of them (Bharthari, Pingala, Shiva) for their irresponsible behavior. The yogi Gorakh Nath rebukes Bharthari, who has needlessly caused Pingala's death, in strong and scornful language: "King Bharthari, you sister-fucker, you killed her with your own hands."

It is no accident that a yogis' tale thus construes sati so ambiguously. The ideology of sati implies that the connection between united couples extends beyond embodiment. But Nath yogis teach in many ways that death is the end of all connections (Gold 1988, 99–123). Thus the institution of sati —an important part of Rajasthan's ruling warrior caste's identity—is appropriately mocked in Bharthari's story. But it is mocked by stressing not the misperception of women who take marriage seriously but the unworthiness of the males for whom they die.

From the renouncer's perspective, no relationship is worth living, or dying, for. But that is not the only viewpoint in these tales. Ordinary women's motivations are strongly rooted in a familial morality, of which sati is only the extreme gesture. Males may slip in and out of this world according to the influence of yogis. Moti Stag fails his mates because he accepts his death as the guru's will. Bharthari's despicable actions are judged thus: "You killed her with your own hands." His yogi's destiny is based on a different moral economy—one where he is not blamed for his several cruelties to females. Both perspectives are clearly voiced.

When Gopi Chand's wife, Patam De, finds that the yogi at her gates is truly her husband, her response is "Better to die than to live," and she goes into a dead faint and falls from her balcony—a sati -like act. Later Patam De's mother-in-law attempts to console her by saying that Gopi Chand is "under the spell of yogis" (jogyan ki phatkar ma agyo ). To the high-minded yogi, women's love itself is a deceptive spell or illusion's net, but to women in the world yogis cast spells of deception. This is a telling juxtaposition, especially given the exegesis I received from my research assistant on the phrase "under the spell of yogis."

Yogis are in fact suspect characters in the village. They are thought to use spells to enchant children and lead them away.^[5] Gopi Chand's mother believes in yoga as her son's only hope. But here she attempts to soothe his wife's misery by implying that Gopi Chand would stay, were he not robbed of his volition by yogis' enchantments. Many of the situations in these tales are open to such multiple interpretations.

Women loom large in Madhu Nath's stories as embodiments of illusion, or love, or intimacy, or bondage. But if women are in certain ways paradigmatic embodiments of illusion's net, they do not have exclusive dominion over attachment. In the final segment of Gopi Chand, Madhu Nath explores the father-son bond with equally fine-tuned ambivalence. This episode is part of the saga of Gorakh Nath's rescue of his guru, Machhindar, from the magician queens of Bengal. The queens present no real difficulties—perhaps because the bard has spent himself on the subject of women in telling Gopi Chand's story. The problem here is sons.

The production of sons is for Hindu householders a chief religious good. But for yogis it is problematic—a source of persistent temptation at least as powerful as sex. The guru-disciple relationship is often conceptualized as a father-son relationship, perhaps in part to promote detachment from the desire for physical progeny. Yet this substitution or displacement can play out in all kinds of surprising ways.^[6]

As Madhu Nath describes Gorakh's encounter with his guru-turned-husband-and-father, it is characterized from the beginning

[5] See Henry 1988, 186, on the reputation of jogis as kidnappers in Bhojpurispeaking North India.

[6] These include disciples adopted as legally inheriting sons and sons initiated as spiritual disciples. See Gold 1983, 1987 for an illuminating discussion of the succession disputes surrounding the eighteenth-century Sant poet Charandas.

by subterfuge, rivalry, and displacement. Gorakh Nath is unable to enter Machhindar's kingdom because Machhindar anticipates just such an event; he does not want to be rescued and has made a law that no yogis shall cross his boundaries. Gorakh must remove all signs of yogic identity and join a company of dramatic performers in order to approach his guru. When the troupe is invited to perform at Machhindar's palace, Machhindar as king sits down to watch the play with his two boys on his lap.

Gorakh soon makes his presence known with his magic talking drumbeat. When, shortly thereafter, he prostrates himself before his guru, Machhindar very deliberately removes his two sons, setting them on a nearby table, and then seats Gorakh Nath on his knees, "because he was his first disciple."

The guru recognizes who truly belongs in the paternal lap. Here is an immediate sign of Gorakh Nath's impending victory and an almost touching portrayal of guru-disciple kinship. But nothing is settled yet, and Gorakh Nath's behavior soon departs from the humanly admirable. Gorakh Nath would like to smash the kids and have done with it, but he is constrained because Machhindar, to whom Gorakh owes all deference as spiritual father, is also a natural father and is unashamed of his fatherly feelings. Just as with sati , it seems that yogic detachment and familial loyalty are almost simultaneously valorized. Here the simultaneity is effectively established by a pun—a play on words that is also a play on two realities: that of the householder who patiently and lovingly attends to his children's lowest needs and that of the yogi who slashes through affection.

Thus Gorakh misinterprets Machhindar's order "Make sure they shit nicely" as "Smash them thoroughly." And so he does, hanging the boys' empty skins on the back of a chair. Madhu describes Machhindar's anxiety over his sons, pointedly elaborating on the way his emotional response is akin to ordinary familial sensibilities not at all proper to a high guru. "Then he looked here and there. That's the way mothers and fathers worry. He didn't see the children. So how could he enjoy the play?"

Of course Gorakh Nath has the elixir of life handy and is able to restore the children as good as new. This first gambit has got him very little. He soon persuades Machhindar Nath to run away from the queens, but the guru insists on bringing his sons along. On the road, Gorakh devises a new and highly devious scheme to rid himself

of these living reminders of his guru's fall. He offers to teach the boys to beg, referring to them as "our disciples," as if he had accepted them by transforming them into spiritual successors. Driven by his desperate desire to free his guru from the snares of maya , Gorakh Nath has moved from puns to pure hypocrisy, and the bard spells out his duplicity.

"Come Guru Sovereign, I'll take them into this neighborhood. Let them fill their own bellies, guru. I'll take the disciples and let them get as much flour as they need to live."

But Gorakh Nathji was thinking , I'll destroy them on the way, so those sons of penis-eaters over there don't see them and say, "Look, your guru enjoyed sluts and had sons." Yes, I'll get rid of them so no one can say that.

But to Machhindar Nathji Sovereign he said, "Grain-giver sir, we should put wooden sandals on them and give them tongs to carry and sacks and smear them with ashes. And let them go into the settlement to beg...."

Gorakh Nath proceeds to engineer the remarkable scenario that will eventually succeed in ridding him of the boys. The first move of the plot is to "ruin" them—degrade them to untouchable, leather-worker status—by fabricating a situation where they naively agree to carry a cow's carcass in order to get choice food for their father. The proud little boys bear festive treats back to the guru's campfire, while Gorakh has brought stale scraps. Machhindar praises his sons:

"Yeah, sister-fucking Gorakh Nath, you bring sister-fucking cold stale scraps that an old man like me can't eat. But today my Nim Nath and Paras Nath went, and they brought five fried treats."

"Guru Sovereign, these cold stale scraps are Truth's. And these five fried treats are Untruth's."

You could hardly have a stronger statement of the difference between family connections and guru-disciple ones. After Machhindar agrees that his boys are "ruined," Gorakh drags them back to the home of the merchants who engaged them to do the dirty work and begins once again to smash them to death, brutally. But they are rescued by the pleas of the merchant and his wife who negotiate on their behalf with Gorakh Nath and ultimately agree to install them as icons in a handily empty nearby temple.

Gorakh Nath instructs the merchants to offer them water and

"drink the nectar from their dicks or else you'll be destroyed." The bard concludes:

And Gorakh Nathji Sovereign's sorrow was erased. "Now nobody can say, 'Look, brother, your guru enjoyed sluts and had sons.'"

That the destiny of the boys is to be merchants' icons from whose penises nectar will be drunk is in part of course just a jibe at the merchant caste, rarely favored in folklore. Merchants are Jain in this part of Rajasthan, and Jain icons are naked. Like Hindu temples, Jain temples distribute to worshipers as "nectar" the water used to bathe the icons—water that is poured over their heads and runs down their bodies to be collected from their feet. Villagers thus may joke that merchants drink nectar from penises, because this water has flowed over the naked statues. The first word Gorakh Nath uses for penis is not lingam —the common term for Lord Shiva's worshipable phallus—but indari , a term often employed in the village for the small wetting organs of little boys. Hence this image provides what could be a slightly disgusting association with the procreative continuities valued by householders—perhaps making them take a second look at those cherished values.

Yet familial bonds are given their due in this episode by the very complexity and roundabout nature of the process whereby they may be removed or displaced or safely relocated. That even Gorakh Nath cannot simply kill the children but must go to so much trouble to deify them suggests a preciousness that no yogic hatred can deny. Moreover, little boys' penises are perceived as precious, and treated lovingly in the village.