Queen of the Earth

by Devika Rangachari

  Even as I utter the words, I know them to be true. The people are bound to rally behind their bereaved queen, the mother of the Bhaumakara scions. What a terrible irony that a woman who spent her days at court lurking in the shadows and who never showed the slightest talent for leading should now rule! The ground heaves beneath my feet.

  Yet even as resentment tears at me, I know that I cannot deny my love for Dhruva, my little prince waiting in the wings to claim his destiny. Will he ever know the sacrifice I made for him? Will he and Kusuma ever think of me with kindness and warmth again? Can the ties of affection ever be easily discarded once they are forged?

  ‘I will answer your questions later,’ I tell Shashilekha. ‘Please do as I have told you without delay. I do not want to waste any more time.’

  I send for Bhairavagupta and he answers my summons with alacrity.

  ‘There is more bad news, Your Majesty,’ he blurts out before I can say anything. ‘My spies tell me that Lalitadeva has plans to move on the capital. The army of rebels that he has gathered is large enough to wage a battle.’

  I don’t have time for his fearful twitterings. I raise a hand to stop his torrent of words.

  ‘Get a carriage ready for me,’ I order, my voice cold. ‘We will leave Viraja before dawn. You will say that I seek to inspect the security arrangements at the border. Round up all the Somavamshi men that you can find. All of you must follow me on horseback as my guard. We will make for the west and Kosala once we cross the capital’s frontier.’

  He is flabbergasted. ‘Should we not ask him to surrender?’ he bleats. ‘Must we abandon everything in this way? This rebel …’

  ‘Is not the reason we are leaving, you fool! Do you think he is any match for us? You are my assistant and you don’t even know the royal army’s strength!’

  He shrinks before the withering contempt in my tone and I wave him away. Before he leaves, his eyes dart around the chamber as if he is seeking enemies in the shadows.

  It is nearly nightfall by the time Shashilekha returns. I am relieved to have a break from my lonely vigil in the chamber. Her face is drawn with worry, but she has managed to do everything that was needed.

  If all goes well, Shrinanna will release the princes at some point on the morrow.

  Another tough task faces me now, but I must harden my heart. I remove a treasured family heirloom from my coffer: a necklace with four strings of precious gems that glows in the lamplight like liquid fire. I have never worn it here but many is the time I have let the strings fall through my fingers, thinking of my mother who wore it and her mother before her, and of how it symbolizes a legacy of love and continuity in our family.

  ‘Go back to Mangalakalasha,’ I say, taking Shashilekha’s hand in mine and pressing the necklace into it. ‘Give this to him and throw yourself upon his mercy. Money speaks to him—this necklace is worth a fortune—and tell him there is more where it came from. He will take care of you. This is where your father will find you when he makes his way back. And perhaps nobody will ever know that you or he were involved in my secret.’

  It is an effort to say these words. My heart aches at the thought of losing her, this loyal and steady companion who has grown to mean so much to me.

  Shashilekha puts the necklace back into my hands and closes my fingers over it. ‘I will go with you. You gave me a new life and now my life is yours. I will never leave your side.’

  Hope flares in me. ‘But your father …?’

  ‘Might never come back alive. I feel it in my heart.’

  I take her in my arms. I have cost her her father’s life, in all probability, but I will not forsake her, now or ever.

  The hours pass quicker than I had anticipated. The sky has darkened, but the moon will not rise yet for a while. I must take advantage of this cover; now is the best time to leave the capital unobserved.

  I take one last look around my chamber that was a hated prison to start with but for so much longer a refuge. I came with next to nothing and I have acquired nothing new to burden me now except for memories. But there is so much that I want to say and do, so many things and places that I want to see again. I long for a final turn in my beloved garden with its rustling bushes and fragrant flowers. I long for a final walk along the bright blue waters of the Viraja with the boats bobbing gently on its swell. I yearn for the sights and sounds and smells of the capital that has been my home for all these years.

  Yet, at the same time, other precious memories surface and a great longing rises in me for Kosala, for all its familiar places and sights, and for my beloved family. This is when my mind empties of all lingering doubts and I know I am completely right.

  Mercifully, Bhairavagupta has proved equal to the challenge. A carriage waits in the courtyard with a few men clustered around it. There is a slight risk of interception, but who would dare to challenge the queen and her guards? I am not unduly worried, but Bhairavagupta and some of the Somavamshi guards lick their lips and look around furtively. I grind my teeth in annoyance. Their very behaviour might give rise to suspicion among any Bhaumakara loyalists if they should see us now.

  I seat myself, Shashilekha beside me, and the carriage lurches forward. The Somavamshis close in around us and we begin our progress through the sleeping city.

  I hope for the sake of the citizens that Lalitadeva’s takeover will be a peaceful one. It is the inhabitants of the capital who always suffer when a victorious army runs riot, but Lalitadeva is a prudent man—he will not run the risk of angering the very people he hopes to govern if he is to have his position as prime minister reinstated.

  I once crossed this border as a stranger to an unwelcome land. I now cross it in the other direction but with a curious mixture of reluctance and conviction.

  Something of it must show in my face, for Shashilekha draws nearer and lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘Are you sure?’

  I lay my hand over hers and nod firmly.

  This land of the Bhaumakaras has grown dear to me in many ways. It has taught me much, helped me discover my strengths as well as my flaws and made me the woman that I am. I ascended the most powerful throne in Kalinga and ruled this kingdom well. I have earned the respect of the people, replenished the coffers of the state, made this land infinitely more prosperous than when I entered it and left my mark on it many times over. For this, I will be remembered if not in the records of the court, then in the hearts of its citizens, at the very least. I have shown my father what I am truly capable of. Word of me has already spread to every corner of this ancient land of Kalinga. I have made my way into its annals.

  Yet now, it is time for me to tread another path. I have chosen to abdicate the Bhaumakara throne at the height of my success, but this is complete proof of my strength. There is no shame in it; it is my choice and mine alone. I am not fleeing like a thief in the night but with my head held high, with honour and dignity. I do not know what my future holds but I am certain that I will not return to the shadows, to obscurity. I am a true queen of the earth—solid, tough, enduring—and like the earth, I will prevail.

  A glimmer of light shows in the east. The dawn will soon be upon us. I smile. And then I turn my face resolutely to the west—and home.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Prithvimahadevi ascended the Bhaumakara throne of early medieval Odisha in around ce 890. Her Baud copperplate charters, issued in ce 894, are the main sources of information about her reign. The first Baud plate records the grant of the village of Kottapura, together with another locality in Uttara Toshali, to Shashilekha, the wife of Maha-mandaladhipati Mangalakalasha of the Vragadi family, in favour of the temple constructed by her and named Nanneshvara after her father, Shrinanna. The gift village was meant for offerings to the deity, Uma-Maheshvara, and for repairs, as also for other expenses. The second Baud plate of the same year records a grant of land, again in Uttara Toshali, for the same purpose.

  Some facts of Prithvimahadevi’s life can be put together from Bhaumakara, Somavamshi and Kalachuri
sources, although these are very few in number. She was the daughter of Janamejaya I, the king of Kosala and the virtual founder of the Somavamshi dynasty (who was at the pinnacle of his power from c. 882 to 922 ce). Janamejaya, following an aggressive expansionist policy, extended his territories to the east and conquered Khinjali-mandala, a feudatory state of the Bhaumakaras. However, a looming Kalachuri threat on his western border made him sue for peace by marrying off his daughter, Prithvimahadevi, to the Bhaumakara ruler, Shubhakaradeva IV. The latter died childless sometime before ce 885 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Shivakaradeva III. The Brahmeshvara temple inscription of a later period reveals that Janamejaya killed the Bhaumakara king in battle with a short, pointed weapon. Thereafter, he put Prithvimahadevi on the throne.

  Not much is otherwise known about Prithvimahadevi or her rule. Her Baud plates state that Shivakaradeva III died childless but this was, in fact, an attempt to suppress the truth, for the latter had two sons, Shantikaradeva III and Shubhakaradeva V. Prithvimahadevi’s act of setting aside their claims to the throne must have caused a lot of resentment and hostility within the Bhaumakara family and is probably the reason behind the omission of her name from the genealogical lists provided in later Bhaumakara records. This also indicates that her succession, which was secured with the help of an external power, was never recognized by the ruling family.

  Prithvimahadevi has been a victim of the gender bias that exists in the writing of history. Her reign is seen as the beginning of the Bhaumakara downfall and is routinely ignored. However, all the evidence points to her strength in holding her own in a clearly hostile environment. Her political sagacity is also seen in her clever adoption of the title Tribhuvanamahadevi II, as well as her dismissal of other contending male claims to the throne. She seems to have been a formidable woman figure, therefore, with a real desire to rule.

  It is not clear how and when Prithvimahadevi left Viraja/Guheshvarapataka (modern Jajpur on the Vaitarani River), the Bhaumakara capital. It is presumed that she spent the rest of her life in Kosala. She was followed on the Bhaumakara throne by Shantikaradeva III (Dhruva, in this book), who was succeeded, in turn, by his brother, Shubhakaradeva V (Kusuma).

  The Bhaumakaras and the Somavamshis were the two most important early medieval dynasties of Odisha. The former came to power over a large part of north and central Odisha, and the coastal area, in the mid-eighth or ninth century. The kingdom was divided into two administrative units—Uttara (northern) and Dakshina (southern) Toshali with the Mahanadi as the dividing line. The Somavamshis began their rule towards the end of the seventh century in the western part of south Kosala. They later expanded their power to the east and reached their peak around the tenth century ce, supplanting the Bhaumakaras and taking over almost all of modern Odisha. The Somavamshis were eventually displaced by the Imperial Gangas in the early twelfth century.

  A word about the name Kalinga. In this book, it has been used to represent the entire land of early medieval Odisha. However, the region of modern Odisha has also been known as Utkala, Odra and Kosala, with the specific territory of Kalinga undergoing substantial changes during early historic and medieval times as did the other related regions. It should also be noted that the present state of Odisha has different contours from its early medieval counterpart.

  Dr Devika Rangachari is an award-winning writer whose book, Queen of Ice (Duckbill), was on the White Raven list, won the Neev Book Award for Young Adults and has been optioned to be made into a movie/television series. Her other books include 10 Indian Monarchs Whose Amazing Stories You May Not Know, Tales of Love and Adventure, Swami Vivekananda—A Man with a Vision, Harsha Vardhana, The Merry Mischief of Gopal Bhand, The Wit of Tenali Raman and Growing Up (on the 2002 IBBY Honour List). She is currently the recipient of a prestigious national fellowship awarded by the ministry of culture to research aspects of gender and historical fiction in Indian children’s literature.

  Devika recently completed her postdoctoral research on gender in Indian history. Her published thesis is entitled From Obscurity to Light: Women in Early Medieval Orissa (Seventh to Twelfth Centuries ad). Her doctoral research was published under the title Invisible Women, Visible Histories: Gender, Society and Polity in North India (Seventh to Twelfth Century ad). She has also published widely in academic journals, participated in national and international academic conferences, and been the recipient of several prestigious academic fellowships.

  Read the opening of Queen of Ice,

  Devika Rangachari’s award-winning novel

  about a tenth-century queen of Kashmir.

  I have heard the tale many times over—and yet, I feel a thrill course through my body at each narration. It is as if the words are breathing life into me, making me into a person of flesh and blood from a mere idea.

  ‘It was dark,’ my mother says, ‘sometime between deepest night and early dawn. I was in pain, such pain that I thought I would die.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ I murmur as I snuggle closer to her, covering my toes with the hem of her voluminous silk skirts. The snow continues to fall outside, each layer covering the previous one as if it were a package waiting to be trussed up and loaded on to the back of a pack mule.

  The fire roars in the chamber, meanwhile—a somewhat noisy intrusion into our time together.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ my mother agrees. ‘Just when I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, just when I wanted to give up the fight, there you came in a rush.’

  ‘And the midwife held me up and said, “Behold, Your Majesty, you have a girl!”’ I chant, the familiar words slipping off my tongue so easily that I could have recited them in my sleep. How often had I heard this story? Ever since I could understand words and frame them into pictures in my mind, I suppose. But I had reached the hard part of the tale and a frown creased my brow.

  My mother sighed and reached for my foot, tugging it out gently from under her skirts and caressing its deformed contours. I flinched as I always did when someone touched it. It didn’t hurt—at least, not physically—but my mind filled with the usual anger and sadness.

  ‘Why was I born like this?’ I ask, as if I hadn’t already asked this question a hundred times over.

  ‘It is god’s will,’ replies my mother, as always. Her eyes are filled with tenderness but as I turn my face away to hide my tears, she cups my chin in her hands and shakes her head. ‘No tears, my Didda,’ she says firmly. ‘You must try to accept your lameness, not fight it.’ She wipes the tears that are coursing down my cheeks and makes me meet her eye. ‘You are destined for greatness, my child. Haven’t I always told you that?’

  ‘How will I be great? And when?’

  She smiles at the childish question. ‘Some day. You have to be patient.’

  I know what she means—the story that had done the rounds of the court soon after I was born and ensured, perhaps, that I wasn’t stifled at birth for being a girl—and a deformed one at that. The astrologer, a fearsome, impossibly tall man, who held the court in thrall to his powers, had told my father that the signs proclaimed greatness for me.

  And so, I was allowed to live. Yet I often saw my father look at my cousin, Vigraharaja, his late brother’s son who lived with us, with longing in his eyes and I knew he wished that he had sired him, not me. I hated my cousin with the wholehearted animosity that always accompanies jealousy, particularly in a child’s mind. He was a year younger than me, robust and proud, and never slow to take advantage of my father’s fondness for him. When no one was looking, he would push me hard so that I would topple over to the ground and scream in frustrated rage. One of my maids would hasten to put me back on my feet but my day would have been ruined anyway. If I tried to get my own back on him by telling tales, my father would frown, his brow thunderous, and motion for me to be quiet. And Vigraha would look hurt and injured but throw me a threatening look from under his lashes. This was the way it always was.

  By the time I was ten, I knew what I had suspecte
d all along—that my father hated me and was ashamed to acknowledge me as his daughter. A ruler of his stature should have had a strong, healthy son to his name, after all, not a weakling girl who was lame. I also knew that there was some sort of tension between my parents, a simmering hostility. At first, I thought I was the sole cause but I soon came to realize that it was more complex than that. My mother was from the powerful Shahi family of Gandhara and had married into Lohara, as was the tacit tradition between the two royal houses.

  THE BEGINNING

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  First published in Duckbill Books by Penguin Random House India 2020

  Text Copyright © Devika Rangachari 2020

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  This digital edition published in 2020.