The cows drink, after grazing, the waters of this southern river, which Sri Rama himself had crossed with Sita, and Sayana, the brother of the founder of Vijayanagara, so it is said, later, of course much later, had composed his famous commentaries on the Vedas hereabouts. And once a year, for a month, as everybody around knows, the Ganga visits the river, so that, we poor men and kine, can bathe therein, washing away our transgressions. And as the cows walk back home, delighting in the thoughts of returning to their calves, move, the dust settles on itself, with the night suddenly falling. The cows have many sacred names—Ganga, Gowrie and Tungabhadra. They walk forth one step, two steps and three steps, amidst these ruins, and into the darkness just before dawn. ‘In general the Primordial word (pada) is that of the cow.’ The cow carries thrice seven names.

Vakena vakam dvipada, chatushpada aksharena mimate sapta vanihi.

(Rig Veda 7.87.4)

With the power of the Vak, Vak was measured out, with the two-footed and the four-footed, and with Akshara5 they measured out the seven metres.

The two-footed is the common speech, and the four-footed is the chatushpada Atma: the ‘I’. The seven feet are of course the seven metres Gayatri, Ushnik, Anushtup, Brihati, Viraj, Trishtup and Jagathi. According to Sayana, Akshara is at once the word and the cow. It is the cow, in fact, who carries all names. Her hidden feet hide the names. Her secret name is the great secret knowledge which ‘the poet searches in revelation’. It is because of this variable that the pada, ‘footstep, traces of the footstep’, has taken on the commonplace word, pada. ‘In general,’ continues Renou, in his great introduction,6 ‘in general the word, pada, primordially, is that of the cow.’

When the first dawn shone, the great (thing) the word akshara took birth, on the spot of the cow’s feet.

He who knows the padas should teach them like an initiate, knower of the word, and of footsteps. ‘Soma and Agni are padavih kavinam—it’s they who have instituted the poetics, kavya.’ The poem itself is a milking cow, which without the cowherd goes her own way—carantim . . . agopam. When the spoken word was given to man, she allowed herself to be milked in four parts. It is the divaspayah, milk of the heavens (Rig Veda 10.114).

Like the four padas, the four feet of the cow, are the four states of Vac, the word. These four states are: Vaikhari, the spoken word, the non-supreme energy, the apara, the pronounced—then the madhyama, between the speech and the mental formulation, and behind it again, is the pashyanti, the seen but not formulated, the upsurge, and finally the Para Vak, the Ultimate word, the silence beyond silence, the origin and the end of the phoneme. Therefore is poetics (or grammatology) a way to salvation (moksha). The poet (or the grammarian) the sage.