RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  He shook his head. “It’s everything,” he said. “This.” Again the all-encompassing gesture. Except that this time he meant Ayodhya in its current state. Not the idyllic Ayodhya of his childhood but the fortress-city-state of today, perpetually in a state of war-preparedness, every decision governed by military interests and strategy. And military interests were not always human interests; in fact, they rarely were.

  Sumitra sighed and looked down at her open hands resting upon her lap. Her silks rustled, her jewellery tinkled lightly, counterpointing the chirrupping of a pair of songbirds on the tree immediately above the marbled nook on which the three of them were esconced. Like her sister queen Kausalya, she had always chosen to adorn herself as simply and elegantly as possible, ignoring the customary Arya excesses designed to draw envy and admiration from the masses. He admired that in her and in Kausalya-maa. They were women with their own minds, the kind of women who had built Aryavarta into the great civilization it was today. Women such as they had founded the Bharata nation and nursed it through a thousand generations, until it had spread and flourished throughout the known world. The days of the matriarchs had long passed and for one reason or another, men were now as likely to rule and dominate the grama as women – perhaps more likely – but in women such as Kausalya and Sumitra, that ancient strength of character and will could still be seen. Women such as they were the pillars upon which all Arya civilization stood today. And to see Kausalya-maa, First Queen and Queen Mother, and his own maatr, so close in friendship and companionship with his womb-mother Sumitra, was heart-warming to him. Sumitra truly lived upto her name which literally meant ‘good friend’ in highspeech. Aryavarta in general and Ayodhya in particular had far greater need of women such as these two than of warrior-queens like Kaikeyi, he thought not without a trace of bitterness. Even though as a kshatriya, it was his dharma to accept the need for violent action and the consequences of that action, as he grew older there were times he questioned whether violence was the only means a kshatriya should use to achieve his goals and fulfill his dharma. In his experience, violent action often worsened the situation rather than resolved it. And even when it did resolve certain situations, the solution was ephemeral, while the deep wounds and emotional scars of that violence malingered for much, much longer.

  “Yes,” she said simply. “Ayodhya is not what it once was. Nor is Rama.” As she spoke the latter statement, she sought out Kausalya. “Excuse me, Kausalya.”

  The First Queen nodded, her proud aquiline profile hardened by time, the once glossy long hair peppered with streaks of silver, the grooves bracketing her mouth deepened by decades of sharing that beautiful smile.

  “You are as much his mother as I, Sumitra,” she said, her voice throatier than Shatrugan remembered it. He recalled her mentioning a persistent cough. Possibly that had hoarsened her speech. “And what you speak is true. Whether Rama has changed Ayodhya or Ayodhya has changed Rama, even I cannot say. What is indisputable is that they have both changed and,” she sighed softly, lowering her eyes, “all change is not for the better.”

  Shatrugan hesitated before speaking. He was unaccustomed to this kind of candid conversation with Kausalya maa. For one thing, the past years had altered his own perception of himself considerably. From a younger prince – the youngest, if only by mere moments – he was now a king in his own right. That demanded an alteration of both self-perception and outward bearing. Yet he felt that if there were two persons he could trust to weigh his words fairly and advise him wisely, he could find no better than his two maatrey.

  “Is the rumour true then?” he asked them, careful to keep his voice low, too low for even the kraunchyas fighting over fish in the pool to hear, not because he thought they might be spied upon – no spasas could find ingress into this innermost sanctum of the Kosala nation’s capital – but because he felt saddened that he had to pose such a query to his mothers rather than to his bhraatr in order to be certain of an honest and direct response. “Is Ayodhya preparing to go to war with its neighbours?”

  Both queens were silent for a moment. A strange lull fell over the garden as if even the fauna paused in their singing and squabbling and daily business of living for a moment in order to hear their answer.

  Finally, Sumitra raised her eyes to Kausalya, communicating some wordless request.

  Kausalya drew in a deep breath, let it out, and said matter of factly:

  “Not just its neighbours. Ayodhya is preparing to go to war with the entire world.”

  ELEVEN

  Bharat slid off his horse, tossing the reins to one of several stable boys who had come running up eagerly. They fought briefly over the right to groom the steed of Ayodhya’s eldest Prince and the winner triumphantly led the tired mount away, snorting and steaming faintly in the cool autumn air. Bharat stood for a moment, enjoying the sensation of being on solid ground and instinctively slapped down his garments to rid himself of some of the dust of the road that had accumulated over the long ride. As he was turning, he spied a trough nearby that looked as if it had just been mucked out and refilled and went over to it. The water felt deliciously cool and refreshing and the faint scent of horse it carried did not bother him in the least. He had drunk from pools that smelt worse than this trough, and he had no patience to go to a private chamber and wait for serving girls to bring him the scented jars of heated Sarayu water to bathe in. Bathing and washing were necessities and not the luxuries some men made them out to be, and Bharat was happy to get them out of the way so he could get on with the real business at hand. And the business at hand today was grave business indeed.

  He had just finished washing the grime from behind his neck when he saw a reflection appear in the water of the trough. Distorted and distended as it was by the lapping water and angle, he could tell at once that it was a man who carried himself in the familiar wide-stepping manner of a kshatriya. He kept his head down and eyes averted, pretending to finish up his toilet as he watched the figure approach, ready for any eventuality. After all, this was Ayodhya and he was a natural target. But rather than make any sudden attempts to attack, the man stopped short, put his hands on his hips, and chuckled softly.

  “Well, well, bhraatr, are the scented baths of the palace too good for you? Or have you decided to give up princehood and take up sarathi work now?”

  Bharat smiled grimly as he turned to face the oncomer. “It’s kingship, in case you hadn’t heard, bhraatr mine. Ever since I managed to put down that pesky rebellion among the Gandharas, I’ve had my own kingdom. You may even have heard tell of it. The capital city is named Takshashila.”

  Shatrugan pretended to make a face of mock disbelief. “What? That little arid patch in the Ghandara ranges? I thought it was named for your son, little Taksha!”

  Bharat chuckled at Shatrugan’s disparagement. “It is, actually. Just as Puskalavati is named for my daughter little Pushkala. They’re just two cities in my kingdom, which comprises the entire Gandhara nation now that I’ve subdued the rebels.”

  Shatrugan twisted his brows into a mock expression of amazement. “Impressive. Those Gandharas can be really tough to chase down and kill, especially with all those hilly ranges and caves to hide in. Why, they’re even said to be related to the Nagas, the snake-like Asuras, because of how quickly they vanish into the ground and take refuge in the tiniest crevices.”

  Bharat nodded, clapping a hand on Shatrugan’s shoulder, and squeezing his brother’s deltoid muscle hard enough to draw an involuntary twitch of the lips. “That’s why I didn’t make the mistake of wasting years and men trying to hunt them down as greater generals before me have done in the past. I simply built the most beautiful city ever known to the region, filled it with the finest artists, musicians, dancers, performers, and personally made sure it flourished and grew more prosperous than any Gandhara nation ever before.”

  Shatrugan put his own hand on Bharat’s shoulder, squeezing his deltoid muscle and drawing a similar involuntary grimace from his elder
brother. “And as everyone knows, though the Gandharas are the fiercest hill-range warriors in the world, they are also great lovers of fine music, art, dancing, and cannot resist the lure of such things. So sooner or later they could not help but come to Takshashila to see if a firangee had indeed outdone them at their own artistic pursuits. And when they saw how magnificently you had built the city and how prosperous and artistically accomplished its denizens were, why, they all but threw down their weapons at your feet and asked to be allowed to serve you till the end of time!”

  Bharat threw his head back and laughed, giving Shatrugan a brief but clear view of his pink uvula, quivering with his mirth. “Not quite so simply, bhraatr! Not quite so simply. There was much fighting, and several dozen battles to boot, some quite nasty and ugly.” He shook his head, sighing. “Those hilly bastards can be tougher and sneakier than snakes, as you rightly said. And with their long beards and deftness with blades, and vajra-like fleetness with unsaddled horse cavalry, they harried my troops to an inch of extinction. But your information is right in one respect. It was through my patronage of their own arts and culture that I eventually won them over. The fact that your own nephew and neice – and your sister in law and cousin Mandavi – undertook to learn their arts from the finest gurus of the Gandhara school of music and dance and grew to become expert practitioners of the same, impressed them no small whit. Yes, I must admit that in the end, they turned out to be as passionate as friends and allies as they can be enemies and rivals.”

  Both brothers looked at one another with enduring fondness. It had been a long time since they had met casually thus with no pressing political or military issue to deal with, and it was with brotherly curiosity and interest that each examined the other from head to toe, noting all changes that age and hard living and warring had wrought in the intervening time. And once the initial gruff banter and masculine

  Shatrugan cleared his throat at last. “So thanks to your self-aggrandizing exaggerations and fanciful account, I deduce that my bhraatrjaya Mandavi – who also happens to be my cousin on account of her being my wife’s sister – my niece Pushkala and nephew Taksha are all doing well. And how are you, bhraatr dear? Apart from having put on a little weight and let yourself go to seed, I mean?”

  Bharat ignored the patently absurd remarks at the end: while it was true he had filled out a little over the years, coming to resemble their late father Dasaratha in startling manner, he was by no means over-weight, nor could his muscled bulk be said to justify the description ‘gone to seed’. He replied amicably and with evident emotion: “First tell me, how is my bhraatrjaaya and cousin Shruta Kirti and your sons Subahu and Shrutasena?”

  Shatrugan inclined his head in a half-nod. “They are well. Mathura has been good to all of us. It is home now, I suppose. Although she never lets a moon-phase pass or a festival go by without berating me for keeping her apart from her precious sisters! As if we men deliberately create wars and political upheaval just to be able to avoid family gatherings!”

  Bharat laughed. “Well, I don’t know about you, bhraatr. But I’m not past drumming up a skirmish or two, or even a brief war, just to avoid having to sit through a week of festivities and rituals. The moment those blessed brahmins begin to chant their mantras—”

  “—I feel like running miles away, and continuing to run until I reach the ends of the Earth!” Shatrugan finished. It was an oft-repeated refrain among kshatriyas in general and they had repeated it often during their childhood years. It was a good-natured way of grumbling about the intense patience and serious aspect required by temperamentally restless action-oriented kshatriyas during the seemingly endless yagnas and brahmanical rituals.

  They laughed together. And with that laugh, the years apart were gone, snapped off by the wind, as if they had never been apart a day, or an hour, let alone three whole years.

  Later, over drink and refreshment, Shatrugan told Bharat of the long talk he had had with their mothers in the royal garden. Even though they were never sodara, children of the same womb, it was Bharat and Shatrugan who had formed the closest bond during the early years, just as Rama and Shatrugan’s twin Lakshman had formed an equally firm bond in the same period. Just as Rama’s and Lakshman’s bond had deepened during the fourteen long years of exile, and the past ten years since their return to Ayodhya, so also Bharat and Shatrugan’s fourteen years together in Ayodhya, battling the political and emotional consequences of Rama’s exile and Bharat’s mother Kaikeyi’s perceived betrayal, had brought them closer together than ever before. The fact that the past ten years had seen them spend more time apart than together, as well as the burdens of kingship and family responsibilities, made no difference. Their kinship was stronger than time could bend or other relationships alter. They were brothers in soul.

  TWELVE

  “A war against the entire world,” Bharat repeated softly, careful to keep his tone low and expressions guarded.

  They were seated in a temple in the sudra quarter of the city that they had been fond of frequenting ever since they were both young yuvajaras—princes in waiting—back in the day when hunting and training had seemed to occupy the bulk of their days. The temple was kept by a sudra artisan turned pundit who distilled his own soma and offered it to a select few on the condition that it be consumed only within the temple precinct and that no drinker should arrive or depart so intoxicated that he or she should lose control of basic faculties. To this end, each new arrival and person departing was required to hit a target set up by the temple entrance at least once out of three tries with a training arrow. Those who failed had to leave without consuming any of the famous concoction, and those who were unable to hit the target at least once on departure were never permitted entrance again. It was a strange method of ensuring temperance, but an effective one. After a few incidents when Bharat and Shatrugan had gotten too drunk and too much in trouble in their adolescent years, pradhan mantri Sumantra had guided them to this establishment. Bharat always suspected that it had been his father who had instructed Sumantra to do so, but he had never been able to find out for certain. Now, of course, both Dasaratha and Sumantra were gone and he would never know whose idea it had been. Either way, the method had succeeded. Both Bharat and Shatrugan had learned to control their drinking and long after they had stopped coming to the temple, they had maintained safe drinking habits. It was more than most Arya kings—or kshatriyas—could claim.

  “What does that mean?” Bharat wondered aloud. “Does he mean to invade our neighbours unprovoked? To resurrect the old asura bogey to justify expansion? What, exactly?”

  Shatrugan shrugged. “Maatr Kausalya and Sumitra didn’t know for sure. But they are quite sure that Rama and his war council have been massing a war treasury for some time now, and using it to hire and train a prodigious number of new akshohinis, not just in Ayodhyan military precincts but across the entire kingdom.”

  Bharat nodded sombrely. “Aye, that’s true enough. I’ve contributed my share of war wagons.”

  “As have I,” Shatrugan admitted.

  “But what does Rama intend to do with this much mobilization? Who does he intend to invade? The last of the asuras are gone. The rakshasas that remain are all converts to Sanatan Dharma, thanks to King Vibhisena of Lanka. They’re as devout bhakts of the devas and practitioners of our vedic rituals as the Mithilans, I’ve heard said.”

  “You heard truth.” Shatrugan took a sip from his earthen mug. Chandra’s soma was pure nectar as always. The very taste brought back boyish memories that took an effort to push away. “It’s troubled me as well as my allies. Even Maharaja Janak and Maharaja Kusadhwaja met me to speak on this very matter, alongwith several dozen other troubled grama-lords.”

  Bharat nodded, quaffing his soma like water. “Mandavi told me so. She had word from Shruta Kirti. It was that very missive that prompted me to call a meeting of my local chiefs and that’s what brought me here today.”

  While Rama and Lakshman were married to Sita a
nd Urmila, daughters of Maharaja Janak of Mithila, king of the Videha nation, their brothers Bharat and Shatrugan were married to Mandavi and Shruta Kirti respectively, named sisters of Sita and Urmila, adopted daughters of Janak, but in fact they were the daughters of Janak’s brother Kusadhwaja, king of Sankasya, a pura in the Videha kingdom fed by the river Ikshumati. At the time of their wedding and several years earlier, Kusadhwaja’s ongoing feud with several other clans of the Sankasya pura region made it too dangerous for him to keep his daughters by his side, let alone arrange their marriages. So Janak had adopted his neices and raised them as his own. To most people, the girls were regarded as ‘Janak’s four corners’, the pillars of his household. It was only inevitable that they would all be married together – and pure good fortune that the eldest among them, Sita, happened to find a soul-mate with three eminently suitable brothers. In the years since, Kusadhwaja had not only succeeded in weeding out the hostile elements in his pura, he had united the clans and knitted together a veritable minor kingdom of his own, one that had begun showing signs of prosperity thanks to the rich fertile fields fed by the Ikshumati. Both brothers regarded the marriage of their daughters to the sons of Dasaratha as being responsible for their change of fortunes. Which was why they were so concerned to hear of Ayodhya’s inexplicable ammassing of a war treasury and build up of forces along the Kosala-Videha border. As the Kosala nation’s neighbouring kingdom, Videha stood to lose the most if Ayodhya went to war. Not because they feared Ayodhya would invade them but because they feared being forced to ally with their powerful warmongering neighbours and relatives and get dragged into yet another long and painful campaigne. Over time, the Chandravanshis had grown far more fond of spiritual triumphs than martial victories, and if they were called upon to support the Suryavanshis in a new war campaign, it would be with the utmost reluctance.