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.
