by Haskar
After some time a private letter was received from Sagaradatta. Greetings to the respected Buddhavarma in Rajagriha, it read.
Sagara from Ujjayini embraces you and conveys that a daughter has been born to your friend. She is embellished with auspicious signs and no girl will match her in beauty. It is good if your wife has borne a son. But if it is a daughter, we have been cheated by an adverse fate, for just as prosperity needs the protection of power to endure, friendship too remains precarious unless strengthened by an alliance.
The merchant Buddhavarma consulted his wife after welcoming the messenger bearing the letter. ‘Tell me,’ he asked her, ‘what should be done now that the matter has come to this pass?’
‘What do women know?’ she responded. ‘They have just two fingers’ worth of mind. But you have asked and I will answer. A person like me is emboldened at being questioned. There is both truth and untruth in the merchant’s profession, and neither can be set aside. To do that with one’s natural vocation is both unprofessional and condemnable. You have a son and there is no falsehood in saying so, but his defects you should describe as merits. All things can be mentioned with contrived names. A lethal poison has been called a sweetmeat. Given the importance of the job, falsehood is indeed the truth. Didn’t the Pandavas say that Ashvatthama had been killed?3 Consumed by greed for wealth, people like you even go out on the salty sea with its deadly waves as if in sport to a lotus pond. That man is a master sea trader. His daughter will not come to your house without great wealth from the sea in her train. Don’t spurn such riches, difficult for poor folk to acquire. Tremendous efforts are needed to obtain them, but it is coming to you without any at all.’
‘Well said!’ Buddhavarma complimented his wife, as he gave his reply to Sagaradatta’s emissary. ‘Tell our friend that we too have a child, a boy. How can we describe his appearance or his merits, physical and mental? Our friend will see them for himself.’ With these rather imprecise words he sent the messenger off respectfully, with money for his journey back.
Eight years passed with messengers coming and going thus. Finally an emissary spoke bluntly to Buddhavarma. ‘Sagaradatta and his spouse have told me,’ he said, ‘not to come back without seeing the son-in-law. So, if you wish me to return to Ujjayini, show me the boy and his merits.’
The merchant looked at him for some moments and then replied serenely: ‘He is studying and staying with his uncle in Tamralipti.’4
Another four or five years went by like this. Then some smooth-talking envoys came in a group. ‘Please listen to what your friend’s wife has to say,’ they told Buddhavarma, dispensing with the usual courtesies.
It is now thirteen or fourteen years, but we have not seen our son-in-law’s face even now. Haven’t you heard the saying that an article needs to be seen before it is bought or sold? As for your statement that he is in Tamralipti for his studies, it seems both laboured and deceitful. Even those whose vocation is to study spend only a part of their time on it. That your son spends his life on nothing else is just nonsense. So, stop this game and produce the boy, either here or in Tamralipti.
Buddhavarma panicked. ‘Please wait till he comes,’ he replied, and went back to his wife. ‘Hoping against hope, I did not even think of such a problem when I acted on a woman’s word,’ he told her. ‘Now, have your son’s bodily defects disappeared with time? On the contrary, as the body grows, its defects grow even faster. Our boy looks like something from Shiva’s circus.5 Show him to these people, or use your head and think of something else.’
She said, ‘I have a plan. We can carry it out if you agree,’ and whispered it into his ear.
‘Excellent!’ he cried, and put it into action straightaway.
He met privately with a brahman dependent and friend whom he had cultivated with kind words. ‘What can I say about my son, his looks and other qualities?’ he said plaintively to that man. ‘He is well known as something absurd, a crow that is white. You also know all about my exchanges with Sagaradatta and the visits of his messengers. Your friend is in trouble, and you can help him in your own interest, though I may be a fool to doubt that. Your son Yajnagupta is handsome, versed in the scriptures and adept in all the arts. Let him marry Sagaradatta’s daughter, bring her here untouched, and give her to my son. Of the jewellery, gold and money that comes with her,’ he added, as if embarrassed, ‘a share will of course be yours.’
The brahman was spurred by self-interest. ‘There is no need for one like you to make such requests to me,’ he replied eagerly, and summoned Yajnagupta whom he told, in Buddhavarma’s presence, what they had discussed.
‘It is not for children to ponder over the propriety of their elders’ words,’ the youth observed, ‘so let it be as you say.’
After some days Buddhavarma presented a well-attired Yajnagupta to the representatives of his prospective in-laws. ‘Here is the boy, back from Tamralipti,’ he told them. ‘His appearance and merits are for you to see.’
The envoys were wonderstruck. ‘He is like the new spring!’ they exclaimed. ‘It will be perfect when Kundamalika is united with him. There is no need to examine his merits, for such looks and composure can never be seen without them. But his name is inappropriate, if it is indeed Ugly. It is not correct to call the tree of paradise a stunted shrub. Of course, even good things can have bad names: the moon has been called a sore, and the wind a mother’s dog. But mere designation cannot denigrate anyone. You, sir, should now choose an auspicious day for the bridegroom’s travel as there is nothing to obstruct the nuptials.’
The wedding journey was then arranged. The brahman boy was attired as the bridegroom, adorned with the gold rings of a merchant’s son, and Ugly as his friend Yajnagupta. In time the wedding party arrived at the splendidly decorated capital of Avanti like a celestial army at the heavenly city of Alka. They stayed at a mansion in a fine park full of springtime beauty by the banks of the river Shipra.6 Local citizens ignored their temple of Mahakala and, full of curiosity, crowded around to see the groom. He spent some time with the people of Ujjayini, preachers and scholars, rogues and gadabouts, skilled flautists and lute players, till his brothers-in-law came to escort him. Thereafter he proceeded to Sagaradatta’s house to get married.
After the marriage ceremony the bridegroom pretended to be ill, much to the consternation of the bride and her parents. They sent for doctors to whom he said that he wished to return home. They informed Sagaradatta of this and asked him to make arrangements. ‘He might recover if he goes home,’ they told the merchant. ‘The sight of dear ones is a well-known cure.’
Sagaradatta then dispatched his daughter and the groom with an army of attendants headed by a nurse, and a huge troop of camels carrying hordes of wealth. With them he also sent some trusted servants, twice as many as the stages in the journey. ‘At each stage,’ he told them, ‘two of you should bring back the latest news of our son-in-law.’
The servants returning from the first stage informed the merchant that the groom was a little better. The news from each successive stage was that he was improving gradually. The servants back from the final stage told Sagaradatta that his son-in-law was hale and hearty. Overjoyed, he distributed money to everyone, from scholars to sweepers.
Meanwhile the fictitious groom had abandoned that pretence. He put on his normal brahman garb and set off on foot on the road. Relieved of the artificial attire, he shone with his own innate radiance, like the moon emerging from a cloud streaked with lightning and rainbows. But Kundamalika was still within the bridal carriage. The villain Ugly was delighted and, now attired as the groom, climbed in beside her. His hideous appearance was worse even than that of any being in Shiva’s retinue. On seeing it, the bride could only shudder and shut her eyes.
Curious for a sight of the bridal couple, the people of the groom’s town had come out. They wrung their hands at what they saw: a pair as ill-matched as a pearl and an iron clod. They cursed heaven for this contrary joining of an angel with an imp. The me
rchant Buddhavarma too arrived with members of his guild. He led the bride to his house, which surpassed a royal palace in its splendour. ‘May she be both a son and a daughter to you,’ he told his wife as he embraced the girl, and the day ended with sunset, music and dance.
Kundamalika was taken to a beautiful room together with Yajnagupta and his hunchbacked partner. She was seated on a colourful chair near the bed while the groom and his friend also sat on a high seat next to it. All seemed confused by the delicacy of the situation, and doodled on the floor with their toes, their heads lowered in thought.
‘Why doesn’t this brahman leave me and go away?’ thought Kundamalika mistaking Ugly for Yajnagupta.
‘Why indeed doesn’t he go?’ thought Ugly, who was eager for some fun in private.
Yajnagupta noticed the hints and, thinking that it would be best to leave, got up to go.
‘Where are you going, leaving your wife in trouble?’ Kundamalika asked anxiously.
‘Don’t call it trouble when you are by the side of the man chosen for you by fate,’ was the reply. ‘Let him receive your embraces and kisses. I am just the bearer of a cruel burden of duty.’ Saying this, Yajnagupta went out with the servant maids.
The oaf Ugly then lunged for the unwilling girl. She quickly ran out after the brahman, the ornaments on her hips and ankles ringing as if for help. In the courtyard there were intoxicated citizens and servants dancing enthusiastically, but Yajnagupta was nowhere to be seen. She rushed out to the street and into a potter’s hut where she saw a kapalika ascetic,7 dead drunk and fast asleep. ‘This is the best of protections,’ she said to herself. Then, taking off her expensive jewels and ornaments and tying them carefully within her sash like a trained merchant, she took the holy man’s skull-staff and other paraphernalia and, staggering in the kapalika’s garb, went out of the town to a village just beyond it.
There she saw a white-haired brahman woman sitting on the terrace of her cottage, spinning cotton, bewailing her fate and cursing Buddhavarma. ‘He is a good, honest man of merit, madam. What has he done that you so deride him?’ she asked her.
The woman noticed Kundamalika’s ascetic’s clothing and said, ‘Holy one, you must be very simple or crooked not to have heard about his infamous misdeeds. But you will need to learn of them from others, for someone as timid as I can say nothing.’
And, even as she spoke, a proclamation could be heard in the town to the beat of drums. ‘The king decrees that any citizen who reports the whereabouts of Buddhavarma’a daughter-in-law will be rewarded, but anyone who foolishly hides her will lose his wealth and be put to death mercilessly with saws.’
On hearing this, the old brahman woman was content, laughing as well as crying, her face bathed in tears. ‘Is it a surprise that the people of Ujjayini will not let themselves be cheated by such rogues?’ she cried. ‘Well done, Kundamalika! You are clever as well as praiseworthy for having tricked the wicked Buddhavarma and his hunchbacked son. May you live happily with Yajnagupta, my girl, as you should, in Rajagriha.’
‘Here is a second mother who will hide me,’ thought Kundamalika, and she quickly told that woman about all that had happened. The old lady hugged her lovingly and took her inside the cottage where she had her take off the skull-bearer’s garb, massaged her limbs wearied by its weight, and washed them with pleasantly warm water. She then had her lie down on her bed and covered her with a quilt.
The next morning Kundamalika put on the kapalika’s hideous chain of bones and went back to the town where people were running about excitedly. ‘Why are they so agitated?’ she asked someone, who replied, ‘A greedy brahman rogue, who is also a eunuch, got himself married and then gave away his wife to Ugly, the son of Buddhavarma who is the chief merchant here. The man is as deformed as his name would suggest, and the woman left him last evening, going off to look for the brahman. Hence this excitement.’
Kundamalika smiled to herself. ‘Good sir,’ she said to her informant, ‘can you please take me quickly to that brahman eunuch’s house?’ Won over by her politeness, he accompanied her to Yajnagupta’s home which resonated with sacred chants. There she saw the brahman sitting before the fire sanctuary with students, absorbed in giving them a lecture.
Putting down her skull-staff, she too sat down cross-legged at the class. ‘What is the text you are commenting on?’ she asked the brahman aggressively.
‘Holy one,’ he replied, ‘this is Manu’s dissertation on dharma, describing the fourfold castes and stages of life.’
‘Why lie?’ she retorted. ‘This is no dissertation on dharma. I think it is on atheistic materialism which is dear to immoral people. How can it be on dharma, against which you act yourself? A physician who knows his science will not eat meat if he has leprosy. You, a brahman lecturing on Manu’s code, violated your own caste duty while marrying your bride. She was surrendered by a healthy, handsome, talented man to a stupid, one-eyed bug. Why did you commit this transgression, I ask you, a devotee of the great god? If it was proper, say so.’
‘Proper or not,’ he responded, ‘let that be, holy one. Those who serve need to obey the master’s order as it is. Just as Parashurama8 cut off his mother’s head on his father’s unquestionable command. What do you say to that?’
‘Divine deeds cannot be examples for ordinary people,’ she retorted. ‘Just as Rudra’s drinking wine is not an example that brahmans ought to follow. And wise people will not do everything their master says. What can’t he say when moved by grief, anger and suchlike? If a father with a bad headache tells his son to cut off his head, should he do that? As for Parashurama, if he decapitated his mother at his father’s word, he also possessed the power to rejoin her immediately. You did something wrong at your father’s word, but have no divine power yourself. How can you undo it? What’s done is done and now, sir, you just have to stay married to that dear girl.’
The unexceptionable statement left Yajnagupta speechless. Kundamalika sat there till noon when she took leave on the pretext of going to beg for alms. ‘Eat here, holy one, this house is yours,’ said the brahman.
‘Even kapalikas are forbidden food from an atheist like you, sir,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But it is permissible from a person rehabilitated with due penance, even after some great sin.’ Returning then to the old woman’s abode, she took off the skull-bearer garb and had a bath. Donning it once again, she went back at dusk to Yajnagupta’s house and spent the rest of the evening there.
Kundamalika did this for several days: meals and nights at the old woman’s dwelling and the rest of the time at Yajnagupta’s. ‘This man did the impermissible because of greed,’ she concluded finally. ‘By inciting it I too may be able to lead him.’ She then had the old woman sell her string of pearls and purchase some gold and silver for its price. This she put into a pair of copper pots which she buried at the village boundary.
On the following day, after a long discussion with Yajnagupta about the location of buried treasures, she told him that she knew the secret science of Mahakala on the subject and had seen clear signs of such a treasure while wandering at the forest’s edge. ‘If you like me,’ she said, ‘please accept it. Contacts with good men are always fruitful.’
Yajnagupta went with her and dug out what she had buried. Taking it home, he apprised his father about the kapalika’s knowledge of the secret science. ‘Abandon your study of the Vedas!’ said the older man. ‘They are worthless. Study the Mahakala science with this great ascetic. Propitiate him as if he were Mahakala himself.’
Encouraged by his greedy father, Yajnagupta asked Kundamalika to take him along on the pilgrimage she planned to make to the temple of Mahakala in Ujjayini.
They went first to Varanasi and then to Naimisha, to the Kuru country and to Pushkara where they spent the monsoon months. ‘I will now go to the capital of Avanti,’ she told him one day. ‘But the sin you committed in Ujjayini makes it as difficult for you to enter that city as it is for a slayer of brahmans to enter heaven. So, retu
rn to your parents.’
‘This great soul is pleased with me!’ Yajnagupta thought. ‘I have served him long and he does not care for himself. So why indeed will he not give the Mahakala science to me? Ah! That science is now within my reach. As for the sin I committed on my father’s behest, there is an easy way to conceal it: in dark, tattered garments and with dirty unkempt hair, I will lurk in the temple’s corners where none will notice me.’ Deciding on this course, he told Kundamalika, ‘Is it proper for pupils to leave their teacher in a difficult situation? Wherever you go, sir, so will I. The full moon’s blemishes will always stay with it.’ Delighted by his words, the girl in the kapalika disguise permitted him to come with her.
Eventually they reached Ujjayini. ‘It has been a tiring journey,’ the girl said to Yajnagupta. ‘Rest under this fine banyan tree till I return after locating some buried treasure.’ Then she proceeded with a group of local mendicants to her father’s seven-gated mansion, full of all that one could desire. ‘Give me alms!’ she cried at the door of her mother’s bedchamber. A maid came out with an offering. She looked the visitor over from head to toe, recognized her after some time, and went back to her mistress, beating her own chest and head. ‘You are ruined!’ she whispered. ‘The daughter that you held to your breast is standing at your door in the disreputable dress of a kapalika. See for yourself!’
The mother came out, saw her girl as described, but did not care because she loved her. She tore off the feathered band from her daughter’s head, smashed the skull she carried with her begging bowl, conch shell and crystal, and took her inside for a bath of purification. ‘Speak freely, child,’ she demanded. ‘What is this?’
‘Nothing that should upset you, mother,’ the girl told her. ‘Could your chaste daughter ever become a kapalika? One whom even unchaste women disdain? But let that story wait. Call father. I have an important task and he can get it done.’
