A Mountainous Myth

Vinita Ramani

And then one day, as it had done so regularly over hundreds of thousands of years, Mount Merapi exploded.

Every mountain is Mount Meru.

Which is a magnificent mountain, a mythical mountain, the cosmological centre; a sacred dome of pyroclastic flows. The peak, the crown, the final finial in every temple is a miniature, a mimic, a version and an invocation of Mount Meru. It sits just beyond your gaze; it is where the sun meets the eye and where the glare obscures.

Every mountain is Mount Meru.

Which is also Sumeru, Sineru, Mahameru, Xumi Shan and Shumi-sen, Neru and Myinmo.

Merapi is a fiery mountain, the only peak. A thing both sacred and terrifying. Both solid mountain and molten fire. Meru and api. Api is also Agni the fire god in the flames. Even if it is made with sticks, matches, stones, paper, straw, dry leaves, gas, coal, it rises and is a thing of its own imagining. Fire in the air is free.

Every mountain longs to be Mount Meru.

Mount Meru is 84,000 yojanas high, or over 100,000 times taller than Mount Everest. A force thrusting itself vertically towards the sky.

Even there, atop Mount Meru, Brahma can’t reach Shukran (Venus) were he to remain in his physical form. Shukran is 40 million kilometres away. Brighter, rounder, fuller and certainly more iridescent. But beyond his grasp.

Even Brahma has to imagine a planet into existence. But he imagines Shukran’s surface not the way we do, comparing it to here, to Earth. We imagine untenable heat; a wind-swept world without organic biomass, a world shrouded in colourless and pale yellow clouds with an atmosphere that is 96% carbon dioxide. We imagine the crushing sensation induced by its atmospheric pressure, ninety-two times greater than Earth’s.

And Brahma, what does he imagine?

— —

And then one day, as it had done so regularly over many centuries, Mount Merapi exploded.

The news reports stated that several thousand monkeys fled the slopes of Mount Merapi. They sought shelter at the base of Mount Merbabu, where food reserves were still plentiful.

But before it did -

It was not actually there. It was brought there. The whole of Mount Meru was moved there.

No, not the whole of Mount Meru. That would be absurd.

(Every mountain is Mount Meru)

A part of it was moved there…not the summit, but the throat of the mountain near its top, with traces of magma from the reservoir, from the chamber deep below, still clinging to the throat. Or perhaps the parasitic cone with its side vent. The side of Mount Meru was brought there.

(Veiled by ash cloud)

They took a part of Mount Meru and then they made the whole island of Java shake. The monkeys fled –

Stop.

The island was shaking and moving long before they brought the mountain there.

There are seven islands and seven oceans. Jambudvipa is the first one, the centre in a series of concentric circles, circles of islands expanding outwards. It is surrounded by saltwater and that was the name they gave that island.

It had other names.

It was Jawa-wut (foxtail millet) and Yawavdipa (land of barley).

(Sugriva sent his Vanara army to Yawadvipa)

It had other names (it will have other names).

What did the names sound like? They said there were layers, two kinds of sounds. There was something like thunder – arrhythmic, random and sudden. And with that, a sound like the beating wings of bees the size of pterodactyls. They said it sounded like hundreds of drums being pounded on in the sky. It came deliberately and it moved nearer. It moved towards them. The sound appeared.

They saw the sound (not the source of it).

They saw the sound.

The sound was round and then it broke and that is how the island came to be. The island was broken sound, sound distributed along its entire length like note fragments; the island was percussive.

But it always had jambu trees and vast soft beds of foxtail millet. Enormous trees as tall as mountains towering over the island with fruits as large as mammoths that fell and made rivers of juice.

Where can all that juice flow?

Through conduits, branch pipes, dikes and side vents to the flanks and base of the mountain and from there, to the people in villages waiting to drink.

But for all this to happen, the island needed a mountain. It also needed a mountain to stop it from moving. The island had a tendency to move through space and through time. It flew upwards, vaulted to the sky. There was a large patch in the sky, more sage than turquoise. The trees hung there suspended, its leaves like raindrops falling into the open arms of a waiting, solitary sea.

It was beautiful, but people can’t build houses, and farm on an island that, on occasion, hangs upside down from the sky. An unhinged island is hard.

Before people could come, the island needed to be pinned down. That is when they took a piece of Mount Meru (the side, its parasitic cone) and brought it to Jambudvipa. If they put it in the middle of the island shaped like a sliver (a snake), they feared it might fold in two and collapse within itself. So they put it on one side. They pinned its right shoulder (its eastern part) down.

And they called it Mount Sumeru.

(Every mountain is Mount Meru)

This sliver of an island had a spine and along the spine there were nodes and along these nodes there were stratovolcanoes. The island was decorated with little studs and the studs were made of airfall, tephra, lahar, and debris.

There were 45 volcanoes along the nodes, the island’s spine always pulsating, sending electrical impulses to its periphery.

(Everything was andesitic)

Everything was pale and fine-grained (rhyolitic) or dark and fine-grained (basaltic). And when the volcanoes erupted the island was shrouded in a basaltic cloud, its crystalline particles glowing in daylight.

— —

And then one day, as it had done so regularly over many centuries, Mount Merapi exploded.

There was a particularly significant eruption at the dawn of the 11th century. It was a disastrously divine blessing. The ancient city was buried under volcanic ash.

(Smear the ash on your forehead, your body)

They called it pralaya Mataram because the Hindu kingdom of Mataram ceased to be after that eruption.

And its temples were veiled, buried, covered and ceased to be seen.

(Sambisari, Morangan, Kimpulan, Kedulan, Kadisoka)

But the mountain preceded the kingdom. The mountain preceded the Kraton - the palace of the sultans.

It was always erupting, already erupting.

The kingdom stood halfway between Mount Merapi to the north and the ocean to the south. There, the kingdom and its temples were built.

They put it there, in the path of lava flows, at the feet of death…which is also the source of new beginnings.

— —

1786

And then one day, in the late 18th century, Mount Merapi erupted. It was only basaltic in the beginning but then it became andesitic.

To see this, imagine a sparkling blackish-grey, yet dull brownstone.

(Every temple is made of andesitic stone)

These rhyming words are violent and viscous. They flow and they reify. Liquid makes lava domes and when the dome collapses it creates pyroclastic flows. Every column explodes. Everything collapses.

(Every erupting volcano is a small instance of pralaya)

There are people living at the base of volcanic mountains. There is no poetry in it for them, no rhyming words (flow, dome, pyroclastic, andesitic). There is flight and tephra fall, there is molten rock racing its way towards you, a titian river bringing the gift of pralaya.

(We’re still sweeping and laughing. The ash is everywhere. It is on my piano, it is on my floor. It is in my hair and on my clothes. We’re still sweeping the ash.)

— —

And then one day, as it had done so regularly over many centuries, Mount Merapi exploded.

There are miniature mounds and hills of andesitic sand along the roads. The mounds glimmer in the afternoon sun. People on nearby islands look at the andesitic sand with longing. They have none but they need it to grow, to make their islands bigger. So from here, Merapi’s andesitic sand travels in shipping containers to small islands and with great big dredges and tools, small islands are made bigger. Like islands of old, they are small one day, larger the next. They are here one day and then, they inch closer, particle by particle, closing the gap, the straits, the sea that separates them from other islands, floating nearby.

(All islands have Mount Meru in them)

— —

And then one day, as it had done so regularly over many centuries, Mount Merapi exploded.

Twice in the 19th century.

But without these basaltic mountains, there would be no temples.

Their rough exteriors, the block-on-block of stones, the empty ritual spaces that suggest a multiplicity of rituals or none at all. Built for no reason, built to show power built to watch bodies labour built to know oneself, to map the landscape, to declare and declaim. Structures reflecting, replicating, duplicating a belief, a moment in time. The padmas are upside-down flowers. Tipped over, opening stamen-insides to listen to the sanctum core, a prayer or a ritual for immortality. Listening of course, only to themselves, no sermon here, no ablution, absolution, no thirta-amirtam for yoni-lingam, no semen, no reproduction. Only signs of repetition.

The hacked faces with perfect torsos on temple reliefs. The bejewelled chest that, when touched, seems to inhale, chest rising, pushing against the tentative palm. Your hand moved not intending to move at all. The rock body, body as taut as that, solid, immutable, silent, falsifying perfection, but inviting deference.

I defer, one hand to heart the other to stone breast. It is a channel. You have spoken and I have heard.

Renewed by ruin, this is the world, a thing to dig, disassemble. We’re not putting anything back together.

We put it together wrong, he says, we don’t know how they intended it, they left us no maps, no plans.

Disassemble then, play it backwards, rewind the gestures, send the stones back to whence they came. The mountain will eat itself and send you fresh rock, hot and black. Build and begin again, make a map then lose it. Sitting on ruins, you are wordless. Not in a state of awe but struck by searing heat, the volcanic undertow, slow and sure. Mounds pregnant with hard stones, clattering rocks distended bellies. Digging never ceases.

Dig your way to the lava at the core. But there is no core, nothing except a burning, fiery viscous heart.

All hearts are domes threatening to extrude from vent-like veins.

— —

And then one day, in 1930, Mount Merapi exploded.

1,300 people died following the eruption.

Pralaya isn’t destruction and it is not dissolution. It is when non-activity persists and when Mahapralaya occurs, all realms cease to be and all activity ceases.

(Sleep isn’t death because dreams persist)

When everything is in a state of balance, activity ceases. Everything is reabsorbed.

— —

And then one day, whilst we invited the new century and wondered about machines resetting to zero, Mount Merapi exploded.

There is always a fire, a fire from the mountain or one that is man-made and there are always monkeys. At the lush forested foothills of Mount Merapi, Mount Semeru, Mount Merbabu.

(At the foothills of all mountains, there are simians)

There were Old World monkeys like the Javan langurs (Trachypithecus auratus) and crab-eating macaques.

Auratus, which means ‘golden’.

Aurulent monkeys, golden creatures, diurnal arboreal simians that live inside and on the periphery of rainforests.

(He is an edge species)

They began burning the forests during the dry season to clear the land.

(The monkeys preceded the villagers and the mountain preceded them all)

We will go where we need to go in order to eat and we will adapt to circumstances if what we eat is no longer available. We will eat what we find.

Crops, palm sugar and fruits.

And now the people are hungry because their crops have been raided, eaten and destroyed.

(We burned their trees; they’re raiding our crops)

They’ve become more violent, hunger driving them mad. They’re in the rivers and by the wells. They come to drink, to wash, to bathe, to play.

Bananas, corn, cassava.

Simians gathering in tight troops, circling at cemeteries, near crop fields and by settlements, wait for people. They wait for food and they only let the people pass if they have been given something to eat.

Infestation.

— —

For two months, there wasn’t anything like a full-scale eruption. However, there was the possibility of it.

Billowing clouds of smoke arose from Mount Merapi - the first signs of something fatal and catastrophic.

(A new lava dome is growing)

Merapi is expanding. Every day, the lava dome’s volume increases by at least 150,000 cubic meters. Every day, it grows seven metres taller. Rapid, unmistakable. If lava domes collapse when they are still molten, that is when the pyroclastic flows begin. Hot gas and rock moving at up to 700 kilometres an hour, at a temperature of 1,000 degrees celsius.

Gatekeeper of Merapi, Mbah Marijan sits in his village on the foothills of Merapi smoking clove and menthol cigarettes and he waits for the mountain to tell him if the people should move.

(There is an ogre at the heart of the mountain and when he rumbles the mountain also coughs, expectorates and moves)

(There are two armourers at the heart of the mountain who forged a sacred keris and they are still there - guardians of mystical beings in the surrounding forests)

Mount Merapi expands with each explosion, its detritus enriching the soil, its essence in every grain of rice harvested at its base. This, Marijan knows.

The mountain is spewing smoke, lava and noxious gas.

Monkeys are fleeing again, driven out of the jungle by the haze and the gas. The burning has driven them out and they’re desperate for food.

(Where have all the tourists gone? Where are the hikers who fed the monkeys?)

Animal rescue workers have begun feeding the long-tailed macaques so that they won’t enter villages, homes and resorts near Merapi, looking for food.

Poor things, the people say, poor monkeys. They’ve been fed and now, they don’t know how to feed themselves.

They’re like children.

Poor things, the people say, poor monkeys

— —

And then one day, as it had done so regularly over many centuries, Mount Merapi exploded.

They began digging to build a library on the grounds of the university when they found it. It had been buried by volcanic ash about a thousand years ago.

Pustakam means ‘book.’ The temple became Pustakasala but also the university temple. It was probably built some time in the 9th–10th centuries during the Mataram period. They found Ganesha, Nandi and lingam-yoni statues.

How many more temples lie under volcanic ash?

It doesn’t matter if they are all variations on a theme, if they lack grandeur, if they are village temples with small deities.

Every dig prompts the question – what else lies beneath? What are we not seeing? What worlds exist simultaneously, to be found through a fissure in the ground? What else will we find by accident, when we are building something else?

Should we build at all?

‘In this version of string theory, the ordinary three-dimensional ‘world’ – everything in the universe that can be touched, felt, or seen – is separated from another inaccessible three-dimensional ‘world’ by a tiny gap along a fourth dimension that cannot be experienced. Atoms and light can move along the height, length, and depth of this world but are forbidden by the laws of string theory from moving into the extra dimension. The other world has its own kinds of matter and light, which cannot travel through the extra dimension either. Thus the two worlds are totally disconnected from each other except for one factor: they interact through the force of gravity.’[1]

‘Worlds at a fixed minuscule distance from one another…’[2]

— —

The fog doesn’t obscure. It embraces porches, steps and ornamental edifices. It de-creates and leaves us in a milky-white world. It invites not the framing of the thing from a distance, carefully plotted, but an intimate encounter.

Do you really know where you are in time and space?

Close? Closer? Close by? Closer still? How now? Are you close? Gone. Everything you thought was within reach then, that pinpoint moment in time when the dense rain cloud came to you, around you, then into you as you inhaled - it is gone.

It made you think you were, you are, you’d arrived, you’d consummated, this was consummate, complete, it made you think perhaps this would be a good time to die, dying a little every day, every day a little older, a little closer to where you need to get to, where you will inevitably go.

The future is absent and death is now, that much is certain, death as the absence of thought. The dark mass forms behind the temple roof, angles thrown into sharp relief; grey not on grey but on andesite speckled black and white. Skin cells rubbed and left behind. Your skin is andesite. Left behind.

Your hair might root its way, wind its way while you lie on stones. It might wind around a rock, find a crevice to grow into, or a curling tree with black leaves and brown bark. Your feet sucked in by the soil again. Landless, the land wants you. The mud got into your nails and you left it there.  

Up to the terrace of Candi Ijo and towards one of its temples dedicated to the trimurti, to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, I could wait at the porch. If I stay no one will know. No one will notice my absence. I could eat stone. It's in my food. Little broken pebbles they didn’t take out from the spinach. I could digest stone and etch words like fish, grass, rice and bird. I could watch the arc of the sun in uncloaked skies.

Watch where you step because this ruin is a microcosm. It is a new world, not very brave but moving vigorously still.

[1] Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok: Endless Universe. Doubleday: New York, 2006. Chapter 1, pages 9-10

[2] Ibid.