Vyāsa
Contents12 of 12
  1. Born on the Island
  2. The Veda Divided
  3. His Mother's Call
  4. A Hundred Sons from a Lump of Flesh
  5. The Grandfather in the Forest
  6. The Son from the Fire-Sticks
  7. Sight for Sañjaya
  8. The Night the Dead Came Back
  9. The Poem and Its Scribe
  10. Unsatisfied by the Sarasvatī
  11. The Bhāgavata
  12. The Echo on the Mountain

The Echo on the Mountain

Śuka was without any attachment, and in time he set out to leave the world entirely. His father, full of love, knew that he was setting out, and followed after him by the highest power of yoga. But Śuka had already risen above the wind into the sky, shown his power, and become one with all beings. Vyāsa, by his great yoga, reached in the blink of an eye the place where Śuka had risen. He saw that Śuka had split the peak of the mountain in two as he went, and the seers told him what his son had done.

Then Vyāsa cried out, Śuka! in a long cry that filled the three worlds. And Śuka, who had become everything and was everywhere, answered him with the one syllable a man gives in answer when he is called, Bho! and the whole world, moving and unmoving, called it back. From that day, when a word is spoken aloud in the hollows and on the slopes of the mountains, the echo answers for Śuka. And Śuka vanished, leaving behind sound and every quality, and reached the highest state.

Vyāsa sat down on the mountainside, thinking of his son. The apsaras playing in the Mandākinī without their clothes had not covered themselves when they saw Śuka pass, but when they saw Vyāsa, they hid in the water and among the bushes and snatched up their clothes. The sage saw how free his son was, and how bound he himself still was, and he was both glad and ashamed.

Then Śiva came to him, surrounded by gods and gandharvas, and comforted him in his grief for his son. You chose from me a son with the strength of fire and earth, water and wind and sky, he said, and such a son was born to you, pure, and made of the light of Brahman. He has reached the highest state, hard to reach for those who have not mastered their senses, even for the gods. Why do you grieve for him? As long as the mountains stand and the oceans last, your fame and your son's will not fade. And by my grace you will always see, at your side in this world, a shadow like your son. So Vyāsa, comforted by Śiva himself, went home, seeing his son's shadow, and was glad.