Evening falls over Ellora. André Malraux enters Kailas with ease and familiarity, even, I would say, with intimacy. One can believe that, by some magical means, he knows all the gods and their attributes, their vehicles of rat or lion or swan, all the seven sages, the Ganges (with the Jumna and the Saraswati), and Parvathi in the arms of Shiva, all that is there on the walls of Kailas. ‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘what is the Indian name of the seven mothers?’ I could not answer him though I knew part of the dictionary of divine biography . . . the Amarakosha, in Sanskrit, by heart: Amba, bhavani, rudrani . . . I chant to myself when suddenly I see the light move over the gods. Then by corridors and slippery floors, through staircases that lead to the reception hall of the sanctuary of Shiva with walls frescoed with archangels, we rush along as if the lantern in front of us follows us. It is Malraux who is our guide. Multiplicity enchants him just as evening illuminates him. He feels at home, as if he walked into himself, and the rest of us were his own thoughts. Suddenly he stops. ‘There! That’s the elephant,’ he cries in astonishment. ‘That’s the elephant which the archeologists have so glorified simply because he took the liberty of showing himself. But he’s so mediocre. Just look at him! Just like the Ganges there and the Jumna. Any piece here is better than these. One believes a thing beautiful because one understands it. But Indian aesthetics, which Indians themselves do not always seem to understand (forgive me!) is not, like Greek art, a question of perspective, but one of identity. For the Hindu, the Ganges, Ganga as they call her, is not the nourisher but she who purifies. Therefore one places her at the door of Kailas, guardian of Paradise, but not the light of the heavens. The art of Brahminic India is not Renaissance; it is cathedral. Saint Bernhard said: ‘I will dance until people will laugh at me . . . One resembles then the jugglers or acrobats who, with heads below and feet in the air, walk on their hands despising common usage, and so attract attention to themselves . . . it’s a happy game, honest, grave, and beautiful . . . Let us play the game.’