Atlas plate · Gupta-period India
The Cloud Messenger
An exile asks the monsoon to walk India in his place.
From one shore toward the other. A path of relation, not a lineage.
From
Rāmagiri (associated with Ramtek)
Between
Kubera’s sentence, a year that cannot be walked
Toward
Alakā on Mount Kailāsa
Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.
- From
- Rāmagiri, a hill of exile later associated with Ramtek
- Toward
- Alakā, a mythic city on Mount Kailāsa
- Between
- rivers, cities, cloud, the monsoon road
- Distance
- about 1,400 km of weather imagined as a messenger
- Obstacle
- Kubera’s sentence, a year that cannot be walked
- Beloved
- the yakṣa’s wife
- Approximate route
- the cloud’s itinerary, with Ujjayinī held as a waymark in the verse
- Time apart
- a year of exile
- Message delay
- a season. The poem is the delay.
- What stands between them
- a punishment, a mountain, and a message that does not have to arrive in order to be love
Also on the plate: Ujjayinī