to b
to bu
to bhu
to bhud
to bhug
to bluff
to bhuff
to bhurn
to bhury (to slow bhurn)
to bhuoy
to bhuild
to bhully
to bhuddy
to bhungee
to bhuddha

The Ballad of Holy Ash was composed between the 6th and 7th century CE by Sambandar, a Tamil bhakti poet. To this day, Hindus smear the holy ash, traditionally called vibhuti, on their bodies to honor Shiva, one of the supreme gods in the Hindu pantheon, and whose virtues this poem extols. And while the ash of Capitalism is made of burnt cow dung and dried wood, vibhuti of the lore has connections with the body and its rite of passage. For one, the dead are cremated in the Indian customs.

Legend has it that once when Lord Shiva was deep in meditation, the celestial deities (the shining ones) fearing a demon, sent Kama deva (God of Desire, Love) to bring Shiva out of asceticism and seed love in His heart. The deities desperately wanted Shiva to mate with His divine consort Shakthi and beget a child that, the deities were prophesied, will vanquish the demon. But when Kama deva interrupted the meditation, Shiva became angry and incinerated Kama deva to ashes. Shiva then smeared the ashes as vibhuti all over His body and danced in a graveyard (where He is purported to live).

Vibhuti has an interesting etymology. It comes from bhut which means ghost or phantom in Sanskrit; bhut, in turn, originates from the root bhu which signifies be, become, being. The Tamil word for earth, bhumi, also shares the same root. The Sanskrit word for body is vigraha, while that of dwelling (as in house) is graha. The prefix vi works like the infinitive form of the verb to be. Viagraha transliterates as to be in a dwelling. In the same way, vibhuti means to be in the dwelling of the ghost; or simply, to swell in non-becoming. One can find a similar echoes in the verses of another Tamil bhakti poet Manikkavasagar, who lived between the 8th and 9th century CE.

Shiva is considered to be ardhanari, meaning having an androgynous form as he shares his very being with his consort. Shakthi also means energy, while Shiva represents denser matter. In that, Shiva-Shakthi shares a similarity with that of the body and the ash. Both obliterate the boolean of form and substance. This does not mean that ancient Indian culture preferred incineration over other means of disposal. It was quite common among Tamils of the Chalcolithic period to inter the deceased in big terracotta urns called eema thazhi. In Tamil, eema means funeral while thazhi refers to a vessel. According to this custom, the dead are placed in a fetal-like sitting position in giant terracotta urns and buried. The urns are also filled with grains and other personal belongings of the dead. Urns inscribed with eema thazhi in Tamil-Brahmi script have been excavated in Perur among other sites. Burial and burning are not very different. Burial is a slow burn. To expose the dead body to elements is to enter the negative Da of Stimmung. The only other way is to achieve a Monkey Ball death if one is even possible: one false move and your monkey dissolves into the pixelated soup of the virtual world. The graves of our world, on the other hand, are smooth in their geometric perfection. I often wonder about geometric perfection.

I often wonder about the smoothness of graves
and the hands that have leveled these surfaces
to give them a finish of geometric perfection
unlike those of the bodies underneath.

The hands that have leveled these surfaces
into a social shape that simplifies the dead
and the eventualities underneath into
labels easier for remembrance.

But the social shape that simplifies the dead
and the awkward anatomy for remembrance,
also labels them for easier removal
by the grand processor of earth.

But the awkward consumption of the anatomy
is unlike the way a folder deleted from a desktop
gets processed by an operating system;
imagine an ocean subsuming a boat with a hole.

A desktop never does that to a folder.
It makes me wonder about the smoothness of graves
of the boats resting under any imaginable ocean
whose surface boasts a finish of geometric perfection.

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An alumnus of Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Shriram Sivaramakrishnan is completing his MFA at Boise State University. His recent poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Threadcount, among others. His debut pamphlet, Let the Light In, was published by Ghost City Press in June 2018.

Shriram tweets at @shriiram.

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