The Brahman's Son and the Borrowed Power

A young man performs a great rite of magic flawlessly, word for word and step for step, and still the power is lost, and his teacher's power with it. Why does a perfect rite fail?

Candrasvamin seeks a magic science from a Pashupata ascetic. The rite is performed underwater amid twenty-four years of illusion, and he recites every word correctly. But at the final moment his mind wavers with doubt and attachment, the fire meant to complete the rite goes cold, and the power is lost to both pupil and teacher. Why did a flawless rite fail? You judge first, then the king does.

The Burning Ground

Again the corpse hung waiting in the branches. The king took it down, shouldered it, and walked. Behind his ear the Vetala stirred and told a tale of a rite done perfectly, that failed all the same.

The Rite That Failed

In the city of Ujjayini there lived a brahman's son named Candrasvamin, who had gambled away everything he had and been left half dead. At a temple of Shiva he met a wandering Pashupata ascetic, ash-smeared and matted-haired, who possessed a magic science, a vidya, that could grant any wish at all. Candrasvamin begged to be taught it, and at last, reluctantly, the ascetic agreed. But he gave a warning: this power is won under the water, and while you recite the charm submerged, the science itself will conjure illusions to bewilder you. You must endure them, and know them for what they are, and at the end I will call you back with a counter-charm.

So Candrasvamin went beneath the water and began to recite. And the illusion took him utterly. He seemed to live a whole new life: he was born again, grew up, studied, married, had children, and built an ordinary, happy life across twenty-four long years, forgetting entirely that any of it was a spell. Then his teacher's counter-charm reached him, and he remembered: none of this is real. The last step was to walk into a funeral fire, which the teacher had promised would not harm him, and would complete the rite.

But at that final moment, his mind wavered. He looked at the aged parents, the weeping wife, the crying children of his illusory life, and thought: they will all die of grief if I enter the fire. And worse, he thought: I do not even know whether my teacher's promise is true. Doubt and attachment seized him together. He walked into the fire anyway, but the wavering had already done its work. The fire was cold to him, cool as snow, which is the sign that the rite has failed.