The Light Giver

The boy’s name was Tathagata. When he was very young he grew afraid of his shadow. So disturbed was he by the dark creature always at his side, that he swore to one day sever himself from it. 

Close to the boy’s village lived a wise man whose name was Moksha. Having resolved to free himself from his shadow, the boy visited the wise man in his simple home in the hills above the boy’s village. The wise man was not in when young Tathagata arrived so the boy sat quietly on the porch and waited.

At sunset just as the boy was about to make his way back down to the village, the wise man appeared carrying two fish. He smiled at the boy and, opening his door, beckoned him inside. The wise man said nothing and waited for the boy to speak.

Tathagata revealed his desire to the wise man. At last, Moksha spoke and explained to the boy that to carry out such a wish he must go to the land of the Shadow Cutters. Only there could the separation of self from shadow be performed. Tathagata thanked the wise man and, taking one of the fish offered to him, returned home.

That night Tathagata dreamed as he had dreamed on many nights that his shadow was curling snake-like around him, slowly suffocating him. These dreams, which he had experienced many times before, were growing more and more lucid and disturbing. Waking in a cold sweat, Tathagata determined to accomplish his goal and swiftly set forth for the land of the Shadow Cutters.

With his staff in one hand and carrying his little pack of provisions, Tathagata marched along the river, following the way the wise man, Moksha, had instructed. Every now and then he turned to catch his despised shadow creeping at his heels like a malingering dog. When he ran it ran, when he walked it walked, and when he stopped it stopped. 

The days rolled by and time seemed to expand and contract from moment to moment. All the while he took strength in the knowledge that he would defeat his dark shadow and would one day laugh at its futile attempts to control him. 

It was a full year before Tathagata reached the source of the river, high in the mountains, and arrived in the land of the Shadow Cutters. The journey had made him strong and the shades of a beard now lined his maturing face. Tathagata noted with envy the attendants sweeping to and fro whose bodies cast no shadow. He beseeched the Shadow Cutters, all of whom wore ornate masks inlaid with precious stones, to release him from his shadow at once. He was brought before the high priest who proceeded to ask the boy why he wanted to sever the ties that bound him to his shadow. Tathagata replied that he had never known a time in which he had not been oppressed by the darkness that pursued him, that every effort to find peace and contentment had been thwarted by its presence and that he was here among the Shadow Cutters in desperate need of their help.

Satisfied at his response, the high priest gave a nod and preparations for the ritual began. Receiving a gold cup filled with a pungent liquid, Tathagata was instructed to sip as beside him two female attendants chanted rhythmically in unison. Tathagata was sure the sound was coming from somewhere beyond them, as if their mouths were merely the openings from which the sounds of another world were escaping. 

Swallowing the entire contents of the cup, Tathagata closed his eyes and a great weariness drew into him as the waves of sound washed over him. 

When Tathagata awoke he could still hear the chanting but as he began to stir, it drifted off and all became silent. Then he heard their receding footsteps. He was conscious only of a deep and impenetrable blackness.

Frightened, the young Tathagata called out until, at last, he heard approaching footsteps and a man’s voice. The voice explained that the ceremony was over, his shadow had been cut. But Tathagata, enveloped in darkness, felt no release, no sense of freedom. Feeling a weight dangling from his neck, the boy lifted a hand to his heart to discover a leather pouch suspended from a thin cord. He slowly untied the pouch and reached inside. His fingers met two slippery orbs - cold to the touch - that were his eyes.

The Shadow Cutters, though supreme in the art of cutting, knew no means of reversing this art. The boy begged them but there was nothing they could do. A wish comes true far easier than it comes undone, they told him. If he truly desired such things he must go to the land of the Light Givers.

Being unable to see, the high priest permitted one of the Shadow Cutters to accompany the boy to act as guide. This Shadow Cutter’s name was Lila. Together they passed over mountains thick with snow, across rivers, through forests and all manner of villages. Lila cooked his food and cared for Tathagata in every way. But when the boy slept, Lila would take his eyes from their pouch and pore lovingly over them in the moonlight, turning them this way and that in her delicate hands. Despite being disembodied, they retained an enchanting lustre.

Tathagata was overcome by visions of Lila. As he walked behind her, he would see her face swimming before him - a beautiful soft face matching the gentle cadence of her voice. Tathagata soon realised that he was in love. Nothing else could account for the restlessness and longing he felt. Soon, the intensity of these sensations kept him awake at night but he never stirred or let on, instead he lay perfectly still riding the turbulent seas of his desire. 

This was how Tathagata came to know that Lila loved him in return: each time they stopped to rest, Lila, thinking he was asleep, would draw near to hm - so near he could feel the warmth of her breath on his skin. He could feel her delicate fingers undoing the pouch and could sense the subtle shift in her energy as she lovingly cradled his eyes. He never once moved or tried to stop her; that was her way of loving him. 

One evening, after a hard day’s walking, they sat down together to rest on the edge of a wood. Laying down to sleep after they had eaten, Tathagata waited, as usual, in a thrill of anticipation. As she drew up to him, close enough for her lips to touch his, he imagined what it would be like to kiss them. Tenderly, she untied the pouch, taking care not to pull at the cord. He let the wonderful radiance of her wash over him, trying desperately to suppress a smile from creeping into his face. Then Lila began to whisper a chant like that which had hypnotised him during the shadow cutting ceremony. Powerless to fight it, he soon fell deeply asleep.  

When Tathagata awoke Lila was gone and the pouch was empty. He was paralysed by fear and thought only that something terrible must have happened to Lila. Then slowly it dawned on him that she had used her powers to cast a spell on him and that she had done so not out of love for him but because she had wanted to steal his eyes. 

“I am lost,” proclaimed Tathagata. And from somewhere deep inside, all the yearning and thoughts of tomorrow and hope died like a cut flower. 

He took to begging in the streets when he hit upon a town and foraged what he could, relying on his sense of smell to guide him. He was barefoot and ragged and many a time stones were thrown at him as he passed from place to place. 

At the outset of Spring, Tathagata came to a river. He waded in up to his chest in an attempt to cross but he did not get far before the strong current swept him off his feet and he was forced back to the riverbank. He lay down in the soft grass and gave himself up to the receiving earth. Alone in the world and stranded in darkness, he longed for death. Then it was that the thought occurred to him to wade back into the river and let it take him. 

He was roused from these dark thoughts by a voice speaking to him. It was a man’s voice and it explained to him that there was a house not very far from here and that if Tathagata so wished he would find food and shelter there. Tathagata explained that he had tired of his body and of life and would prefer not to sustain it with food. However the voice was persistent and Tathagata, now a young man, got up to follow him.

The man’s home smelled of fish and wood smoke. Tathagata was guided to a chair and instructed to sit. From the slow shuffling of his footsteps, Tathagata knew the man to be very old. Once he’d seated his guest, the old man drew up his own chair but then instead of sitting on it he walked behind Tathagata so that he was standing directly over him. And then, without saying a word, he laid the flats of his warm hands over the empty-eyed face of Tathagata.

He sees a knife. Blood-stained hands. Fabric framing tiny squares of the world outside. A revolving starlit sky. The moon. The sprawling, knotted lines of a palm. Lght. Darkness. A masked face. Trees. Hands shake. A rolling blurr. Coins rattle and shine. A man’s wrinkled face. The crimson lining of a box. Darkness. Light. A frayed rug. The bearded face of a man. He sits in a chair as if asleep. Scarred, cracked skin. Two dark holes like dried river beds. 

Tathagata thinks this must be a dream. But he knows the feel of dreams and this is different. Then, like a drowned man hauled from the water, he is wrenched back into his own being. 

The old man is standing over him, murmuring in tongues. Intense light floods in. Tathagata brings his hands to his face and the riverbeds are full again. He closes them, opens them. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light. 

The old man is in front of him. He has blue eyes, deep wrinkles, his face is a story of kindness. The sunlight makes a golden rectangle on the floor. Dust hangs spellbound inside the rectangle of light. 

Tears roll from those eyes as he goes to the window and sees the cherry blossom coming into bloom beside the river. He goes outside and kneels beside the running waters carrying the pink petals downstream. He stares into the water and sees his shadow and the tears stream anew. Then another shadow grows up alongside it until there is only one larger shadow shimmering on the surface. Tathagata looks into the face of the old man beside him and remembers. 

“Now you are a Light Giver,” he says.