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Ch 12 - A Passage to India · A Passage to India

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  Chapter twelve. The Ganges, though flowing from the foot of Vishnu and through
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  Sheva's hair, is not an ancient stream. Geology, looking further than religion,
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  knows of a time when neither the river nor the Himalayas that nourished it
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  existed, and an ocean flowed over the holy places of Hindustan. The mountains
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  rose, their debris silted up the ocean. The gods took their seats on
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  them and contrived the river, and the India we call immemorial came into being.
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  But India is really far older. In the days of the prehistoric ocean,
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  the southern part of the peninsula already existed, and the high places of
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  Dravidia have been land since land began, and have seen, on the one
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  side the sinking of a continent that joined them to Africa, and on the
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  other the upheaval of the Himalias from a sea. They are older than anything
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  in the world. No water has ever covered them, and the Sun,
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  who has watched them for countless eons, may still discern in their outlines forms
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  that were his before our globe was torn from his bosom. If flesh of
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  the Sun's flesh is to be touched anywhere. It is here among the incredible
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  antiquity of these hills. Yet even they are altering. As Himalian India rose,
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  this India, the Primal has been depressed and is slowly re entering the
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  curve of the earth. It may be that in eons to come an ocean
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  will flow here too and cover the sun borne rocks with slime. Meanwhile,
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  the plane of the Ganges and crouches on them with something of the sea's action.
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  They are sinking beneath the newer lands. Their main mass is untouched,
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  but at the edge their outposts have been cut off and stand knee deep,
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  throat deep in the advancing soil. There is something unspeakable in these outposts.
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  They are like nothing else in the world, and a glimpse of them makes
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  the breath catch. They rise abruptly, insanely, without the proportion that is
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  kept by the wildest hills elsewhere. They bear no relation to anything dreamt or
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  seen. To call them uncanny suggests ghosts, and they are older than all
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  spirit. Hinduism has scratched and plastered a few rocks, but the shrines are
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  unfrequented, as if pilgrims, who generally seek the extraordinary, had here found
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  too much of it. Some sadus did once settle in a cave, but
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  they were smoked out. And even Buddha, who must have passed this way
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  down to the bow tree of Ghia, shunned a renunciation more complete than his
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  own, and has left no legend of struggle or victory. In the Marabar,
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  the caves are readily described. A tunnel eight feet long, five feet
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  high, three feet wide, leads to a circular chamber about twenty feet in
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  diameter. This arrangement occurs again and again throughout the group of hills, And
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  this is all. This is a Marabar cave. Having seen one such cave,
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  having seen two, having seen three, four fourteen twenty four, the
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  visitor returns to chandrap Or, uncertain whether he has had an interesting experience or
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  a dull one, or any experience at all. He finds it difficult to
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  discuss the caves or to keep them apart in his mind, for the pattern
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  never varies, and no carving, not even a bees nest or a bat,
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  distinguishes one from a another. Nothing nothing attaches to them, and their
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  reputation, for they have one, does not depend upon human speech. It
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  is as if the surrounding plane or the passing birds have taken upon themselves to
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  exclaim extraordinary, and the word has taken root in the air and been inhaled
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  by mankind. They are dark caves. Even when they open towards the sun.
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  Very little light penetrates down the entrance tunnel into the circular chamber. There
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  is little to see and no eye to see it until the visitor arrives for
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  his five minutes and strikes a match. Immediately, another flame rises in the
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  depths of the rock and move moves towards the surface, like an imprisoned spirit.
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  The walls of the circular chamber have been most marvelously polished. The two
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  flames approach and strive to unite, but cannot because one of them breathes air.
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  The other stone, a mirror inlaid with lovely colors, divides the lovers.
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  Delicate stars of pink and gray interpose exquisite nebulae, shadings fainter than the
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  tail of a comet or the midday moon. All the evanescent life of the
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  granite only here visible. Fists and fingers thrust above the advancing soil. Here,
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  at last, is their skin, finer than any covering acquired by the
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  animals, smoother than windless water, more voluptuous than love. The radiance increases,
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  the flames touch one another, kiss expire. The cave is dark again,
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  like all the caves, only the wall of the circular chamber has been
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  polish'd. Thus the sides of the tunnel are left rough. They impinge as
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  an afterthought upon the internal perfection. An entrance was necessary, so mankind made
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  one. But elsewhere, deeper in the granite are there certain chambers that have
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  no entrances, chambers never unseal'd since the arrival of the gods. Local report
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  declares that these exceed in number those that can be visited, as the dead
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  exceed the living, four hundred of them, four thousand or million. Nothing
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  is inside them. They were sealed up before the creation of pestilence or treasure.
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  If mankind grew curious and excavated nothing, nothing would be added to the
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  sum of good or evil. One of them is rumored with the boulder that
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  swings on the summit of the highest of the hills, a bubble shaped cave
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  that has neither ceiling nor floor, and mirrors its own darkness in every direction
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  infinitely. If the boulder falls and smashes, the cave will smash too,
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  empty as an Easter egg. The boulder, because of its hollowness, sways
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  in the wind, and even moves when a crow perches upon it, hence
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  its name and the name of its stupendous pedestal, the Cawa Dull end of
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  Chapter twelve.