‘Ha, ha, you are confused, just so, but the Old Fathers made Moksha solely to free human beings from their confusion,’ Old Father said. ‘Learn and learn, and you will see what you see.’
Where the Fravashi system, as a whole, was created to free people from all systems, Moksha was put together as a kind of mind shield against the great whining babble of all human languages. It is a synthetic language, rich with invented words for strange and alien concepts, and with thousands of borrowed words from Sanskrit, Anglish, Old Japanese and, of course, from the various languages of Tlon. The Fravashi Fathers regard this language family as the most sublime of all Old Earth’s languages; from the Tlonish grammar, they have borrowed elements of syntax that accommodate and support the pellucid Fravashi worldview. Some say that Moksha is as complex and difficult to learn as the Fravashi language itself, but a clever woman or man is usually able to master it once a few familiar notions are discarded. For instance, Moksha contains no verb for the concept ‘to be’, in the sense that one thing can be something else. As the Fravashi say: ‘Everything is, but nothing is anything’. In Moksha, the sentence ‘I am a pilot’ would be an impossible construction. As Danlo learned, one might try to say: ‘I act like a pilot’, or, ‘I have learned a pilot’s skills’ or even, ‘I exult in the perquisites and glory of a pilot’, but one could never proclaim, ‘I am this’ or, ‘I am that’, any more than one would say, ‘I am a bowl of noodles’.
At first this aspect of Moksha confused Danlo, for he thought that the path toward sanity lay in seeing the connectedness of all things. He was familiar with the Sanskrit equation: Tat tvam asi, that thou art. In some sense, he really was a bowl of noodles, or rather, his true essence and that of noodles (or falling snow or stone or a bird with white feathers) was one and the same. Because he thought these Sanskrit words were pure wisdom, he went to Old Father to ask why Moksha forbade such expressions.
‘Ah, ah,’ Old Father said, ‘but the problem is not with Moksha, but with the natural human languages. Oh, even with the Sanskrit. Does Sanskrit have a word for “you”? Yes. A word for “I”? Indeed it does, and sadly so. And so. And so, having such words, such poisonous concepts, they are forced into paradox to detoxify and break down these concepts. Tat tvam asi – a deep statement, no? That thou art. Lovely, succinct, and profound – but an unnecessary way of expressing a universal truth. Is there a better way? Oh, ho, I teach you Moksha. If you will learn this glorious tongue, then you will learn truth not just in one immortal statement, but in every sentence you speak.’
And so Danlo applied himself to learning Moksha, and he soon discovered another reason why it was impossible to simply say, ‘I am a pilot’. Moksha, it seemed, had completely freed itself of the bondage of pronouns, particularly from the most poisonous pronoun of all.
‘Why do you think Moksha has banished this word “I”?’ Old Father asked one day. ‘What is this “I” that human beings are so attached to? It’s pure romance, the greatest of fictions and confabulations. Can you hold it or taste it? Can you define it or even see it? “What am I?” asks a man. Oh, ho, a better question might be, “What am I not?” How often have you heard someone say, “I’m not myself today?” Or, “I didn’t mean to say that?” No? Ha, ha, here I am dancing, dancing – am I the movement and genius of my whole organism or merely the sense of selfness that occupies the body, like a beggar in a grand hotel room? Am I only the part of myself that is noble, kind, mindful and strong? Which disapproves and disavows the “me” that is lustful, selfish, and wild? Who am I? Ah, ah, “I am” says the man. I am despairing, I am wild, I do not accept that I am desperate and wild. Who does not accept these things? I am a boy, I am a man, I am father, hunter, hero, lover, coward, pilot, asarya and fool. Which “I” are you – Danlo the Wild? Where is your “I” that changes from mood to mood, from childhood to old age? Is there more to this “I” than continuity of memory and love of eating what you call nose ice? Does it vanish when you fall asleep? Does it multiply by two during sexual bliss? Does it die when you die – or multiply infinitely? How will you ever know? So, it’s so, you will try to watch out for yourself lest you lose your selfness. “But how do I watch?” you ask. Aha – if I am watching myself, what is the “I” that watches the watcher? Can the eye see itself? Then how can the “I” see itself? Peel away the skin of an onion and you will find only more skins. Go look for your “I”. Who will look? You will look. Oh, ho, Danlo, but who will look for you?’
As Danlo came to appreciate, not only had Moksha done away with pronouns, but with the class of nouns in general. The Fravashi loathe nouns as human beings do disease. Nouns, according to Old Father, are like linguistic iceboxes that freeze a flowing, liquid reality. In using nouns to designate and delimit all the aspects of the world, it is all too easy to confuse a symbol for the reality that it represents. This is the second great philosophical mistake, which the Fravashi refer to as the ‘little maya’. When speaking Moksha, it is difficult to make this mistake, for the function of nouns has largely been replaced by process verbs, as well as by the temporary and flexible juxtaposition of adjectives. For instance, the expression for star might be ‘bright-white-continuing’, while one might think of a supernova as ‘radiant-splendid-dying’. There is no rule specifying the choice or number of these adjectives; indeed, one can form incredibly long and precise (and beautiful) concepts by skilful agglutination, sticking adjectives one after another like beads on a string. Aficionados of Moksha, in their descriptions of the world, are limited only by their powers of perception and poetic virtue. It is said that one of the first Old Fathers in Neverness, as an exercise, once invented ten thousand words for the common snow apple. But one does not need the Fravashi flair with words to speak Moksha well. By the beginning of winter, when the first of that season’s light snows dusted the streets, Danlo had learned enough of this language to make such simple statements as: Chena bokageladesanga faras, which would mean something like: Now this ambitious-bright-wild-becoming pilots. Given enough time in Old Father’s house – and given Danlo’s phenomenal memory – he might have become a master of Moksha rather than a pilot. But even as he composed poems to the animals and amused Old Father with his attempts to describe the Alaloi dreamtime, his brilliant fate was approaching, swiftly, inevitably, like the light of an exploding star.
On the ninety-third day of winter, after Danlo had begun to think in Moksha – and after he had put on pounds of new muscle and burned his face brown in the bright sun – Old Father called him into his chamber. He informed him that his petition had been accepted after all. ‘I have good news for you,’ Old Father said. ‘Bardo the Just does not like Fravashi, but other masters and lords do. Oh ho, Nikolos Petrosian, the Lord Akashic, is in love with the Fravashi. He’s my friend. And he has persuaded Master Bardo to accept my petition. A favour to me, a favour to you.’
Danlo understood nothing of politics or trading favours, and he said, ‘I would like to meet Lord Nikolos – he must be a kind man.’
‘Ah, but someday – if you survive the competition – you may be required to do more than merely acknowledge his kindness. For the time, though, it’s enough that you compete with the other petitioners. And if you are to compete with any hope of winning, I’m afraid that you must learn the Language.’
‘But I am learning it, sir.’
‘Yes,’ Old Father said, ‘you spend ten hours each day making up songs in Moksha, while you give Fayeth half an hour in the evening toward your study of the Language.’
‘But the Language is so ugly,’ Danlo said. ‘So … clumsy.’
‘Aha, but few in the Order speak Moksha any more. It’s almost a dead art. In the Academy’s halls and towers, there is only the Language.’
Danlo touched the feather in his hair and said, ‘Fayeth believes that in another year I shall be fluent.’
‘But you don’t have another year. The competition begins on the 20th of false winter.’
‘Well,’ Danlo said, ‘that’s more than a half year away.’