The Venus of Konpara

by John Masters

  Smith turned to Mohan, ‘In about an hour?’

  Mohan nodded, and walked up to Cheltondale, called for his servant, and ordered a bath. He would ride to Deori in English clothes. The clothes he needed for the ceremony tomorrow were in the palace, in charge of the Chamberlain.

  Where was Rukmini? He climbed out of the tub and called to her. No answer. The servant spoke respectfully through the door. ‘The lady went out an hour ago.’

  He began to dress, frowning. What had made her insist on going out to Kendrick that night, the night before last? There was the mysterious business of the buffalo cow, of course, but . . . And her determination that the search for the Venus should be resumed, but... He was heading for madness if he started suspecting her of having an affair with Mr Kendrick, knowing what he knew about him, but...

  It couldn’t be Kendrick - but, when they returned here after the killing of the male man-eater, he had found that he was not as fully recovered from his fever as he had thought. Exhausted by the walk across to Konpara and back, and by the excitement, he had fallen into bed and at once to sleep. A little before dawn Rukmini’s moaning and muttering on the other side of the big European bed awakened him. Drowsily resentful, he put out his hand to push her, and mumbled, ‘Rukmini.’ As his hand touched her she said,’ Aaah, you are hurting me. Go on, go on,’ and her body writhed rhythmically as though in a sensual transport She spoke some more, but unintelligibly.

  She spoke in English. Her endearments to him were always in Hindi. He had lain stiff and a little afraid under the sheet, staring up at the ceiling. Her words, her actions, pointed to a sensual dream, the re-creation of a memory - but the tone of the voice did not He had never heard that tone from her, asleep or awake. It was flat and hopeless, utterly despairing, the contrast with the words so great that he had felt deeply troubled for her, rather than jealous.

  He finished dressing. God knew what she had been thinking of. She was full of affection when she awoke, and he told her nothing of what he had heard in the night

  Now he saw her coming up the path along the edge of the turned cricket pitch, Smith behind her. He stiffened and put his hands in his pockets. They entered the room, Rukmini said, ‘Leander’s ready. And the mare. Mr Smith’s riding her, isn’t he?’

  He said, ‘Yes. Where have you been?’ He tried to speak nonchalantly, but there was an edge to his voice.

  ‘Having a cup of tea with Mrs Kendrick,’ she said. ‘She’s alone, you know. And then I came back by the Rest House.’

  Mohan picked up his white topi, ‘We’d better be going,’ he said to Smith.

  Smith nodded, and followed him from the room. Rukmini came out to the verandah. ‘I wish I were coming with you,’ she called down as the servants held the horses’ stirrups for them. The two most handsome men in Deori. In all India!’ She laughed happily. Mohan did not answer, and a moment later rode off, without looking back, Smith placidly silent at his side on the borrowed mare. A syce followed twenty paces behind them on a third horse.

  Soon after they had passed the coolie camp and entered the long stretch of jungle. Smith said, Tell me more about this ceremony you are going to perform.’

  ‘We throw a man off the battlements,’ Mohan said shortly, and waited for Smith to laugh.

  Smith said, ‘Not a live man, these days, I suppose?’

  Mohan said, ‘No. Not since 1858.’

  Smith said, ‘It sounds un-Hindu to me. Very old, I imagine.’

  Mohan said, ‘It is.’ The other’s interest made him forget his sulks. ‘It’s older than the Brahmins, I think. They don’t approve of it, and never have, but they knew they’d never suppress it, so they took it over. The Suvala himself is supposed to carry it out, with Brahmins to advise and assist. That’s why I’m going down. If I weren’t there, my uncle would go, as the next nearest in blood. He did all the time I was in England - and each time that happens, more people think he is or ought to be the Suvala.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re right,’ Smith said.

  Mohan stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It is the exercise of duties and rights that make a king, as much as birth.’

  Mohan said, ‘But the eldest son is the Suvala. He can’t do anything about it, any more than he can about his caste.’

  Smith said, ‘In one way, I agree. But I also think that if a hereditary monarch doesn’t inherit a sense of duty towards the position, as well as the position itself, the people usually have a right to choose another... What are the details of the ceremony?’

  ‘Guards go out from the palace before dawn, seize the first person they find in the streets, and drag him up to the battlements. After some ceremonies his hands and feet are bound, and he is thrown off, at dawn. A dummy is thrown off nowadays. The man hides in the palace the rest of that day and the next dawn he gets twenty rupees and goes back to his home, but he has to change his name.’

  ‘To preserve the fiction of his death,’ Smith said thoughtfully, ‘which used to be a reality ... Do you know what the purpose of it is?’

  Mohan said, ‘Not exactly. The priests say it is to make homage to Indra, others that it is to avert evil from the state. It’s called the Rite of the Labourers. No one knows why. Hundreds of people come into Deori for the day, and there’s a big fair - but no one’s allowed to watch the ceremony itself.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ Smith said, ‘and very unusual.’

  There was little more conversation between them until they reached the outskirts of the city. As the three horses forced a passage through the crowded streets Mohan carefully examined the people’s expressions. He had been into Deori two or three times since the riot, and never without a qualm of anxiety as to what awaited him. But today the people had come for the fair, and those who recognised him greeted him with profound respect. Amid the same respect he rode into the palace courtyard, and walked between salaaming servants into the palace itself.

  Later he joined Smith in the great reception room and together they went to the museum-like room allotted to the Archivist. The old gentleman greeted them with a long flowery speech and ceremonial cups of tea. An hour later he was still showing them through the relics, statues, and manuscripts he had collected in the past forty years, and the subject of their visit had not yet been mentioned.

  Smith’s patience and interest never flagged, but Mohan at last could stand it no longer. He interrupted a learned lecture. ‘You have seen the gold bars in the treasury, guru-ji. Can you tell us anything about the stamp marks on them?’

  The old man said, ‘I fear there is nothing about such marks in the Suvala-Gita,’ He shook his head sadly.

  Smith caught Mohan’s eye. They waited.

  The old man said, ‘But elsewhere, yes, there are records. You see, each .Suvala sovereign had a personal mark. One of the marks - that of the trident, the bull’s head, and the four small bows - was used by three different Suvalas; that is, by your grandfather, my lord, and by a ruler of the twelfth century AD.... and by the Suvala who was defeated and driven out of Deori in 147 B.C.’

  ‘Not as recent as your grandfather, surely,’ Smith said. ‘One of the other two. But which?’

  The other mark,’ the Archivist said, ‘the plain bow. I can’t tell you whose mark that is because once it was used by all Suvalas. It is the mark of the god Indra, as you know. In the earliest times the Suvalas were believed to be actual reincarnations of Indra, so they used his mark without further identification. A better, and nobler concept than the later one, if I may say so.’

  ‘What was the latest period in which the bow was used thus, alone?’ Smith asked.

  The Archivist said, ‘The fifth century B.C.’

  Mohan whistled. ‘So the gold bars found by the Venus’s leg were stamped some time earlier than 400 B.C., perhaps centuries earlier.’ He tried to remember more of the history which Rukmini kept urging him to study. He had rather resented her efforts. It was one thing for her to improve herself; he was the Suvala, whether he knew ev
erything or nothing about the past. But Smith’s remarks during the ride, and now a growing interest in what the old Archivist was telling them, made him wish he knew more about the sources of his own pride.

  Smith said quietly, ‘Four hundred B.C. is a long, long time ago, guru-ji. Can you tell us anything about that age? A date means so little.’

  The Archivist pushed his spectacles up to his forehead. The Prince Gautama Siddhartha, later called the Buddha, lived from 560 to 480 B.C.,’ he said. The sacred Brahmins at about the same time gave its final form to our religion. Brahminism and Buddhism began a long struggle for the souls of men here in India. It was the Golden Age, for as men sought in their souls to find the truth, their spirits flowered. But I have said, of that bow mark, only that it was used earlier than 400 B.C. How much earlier, I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Later than 1500 B.C.,’ Smith said.

  ‘Certainly,’ the Archivist agreed quickly. ‘We accept that in that century Indra led the Aryans into this land... I sit here alone, my lords, all day, every day. I have done so for forty years. I do not have visions, but - sitting and thinking, hours on end, in silence, alone - I see the past. However far back I go, I cannot see the jungles without the Gonds, just as they are now. But later I see others coming here, the remnants of the defeated Dravidians, men, women, and children, and babes in arms, fleeing before Indra. They have fled from their ruined and burning cities, as described in the Vedas. Those cities must have been of the plains, my lord - where else can subsistence come for the populations of such cities? I see the Dravidians reaching this valley. It is much smaller than the great plains where the cities stood - but there are many fewer Dravidians. Here they make a new beginning. They till the land, perhaps building a walled town. Time passes. How much time, who knows? A score of years, a hundred, three hundred - they are nothing in the sight of the One. But soon Indra’s sons, your fathers, march again. They come here. Again the defeated are defeated; again the land is taken from them. What did they do? What would you do, lord? I see some staying as slaves, some going up into the hills, to begin once more. Their bands are very small now, for the land they can find to till is small and poor... Konpara is such a place, a few acres tucked among great cliffs. But back here in Deori, I see the leader of the invaders, astride his horse, looking round this valley. He is not the greatest of Indra’s sons, nor yet the least. I see his army gathered round him, and black corpses lying in the lanes, the survivors crouching in chains, waiting. The Suvala speaks - ‘This shall be my kingdom.’ To his yeomen he gives land in the plain, and authority under him, and slaves to till the land. Thus he rules.’

  ‘Like the Normans in England,’ Mohan said. ‘After the Battle of Hastings.’

  ‘I have heard of that event,’ the Archivist said.

  Mohan said, ‘But later the Normans and the Saxons became one people.’

  ‘It was a long time, I think,’ Smith interposed, ‘before Sir Roger de Montmorency really felt that he and Hal Bloggs the cultivator were both Englishmen. Until recently de Montmorency had much more in common, with Sir Bertrand de Prevert over the Channel in France.’

  The Archivist said, ‘It would be the same still, sahib-if the original difference had been fixed by caste.’

  ‘But there was an original difference,’ Mohan said obstinately. ‘The Normans were superior to the Saxons, and the Aryans to the Dravidians.’

  ‘They, won,’ Smith said.

  ‘They were more civilised,’ Mohan said.

  ‘Certainly, certainty,’ the Archivist said soothingly. ‘We were discussing the time, not later than 1000 B.C, when your ancestors established themselves in Deori... The armies of Indra were many, my lord. The Suvala was here, but another son of Indra was over in Saugor, another in Nowgong, another - there were many, and they were all warriors, and all hungry for land and glory. The Suvala builds a fortress. It must have been here in Deori, for his herds and flocks and fields were here. But there would have been another - built upon a rock, in an impregnable position, not to guard the whole people, but as a last keep for the soldiers and the royal household only. A strong place, able to be defended against any attack. As long as it held, no enemy could rule in Deori.’

  ‘Konpara,’ Mohan said.

  The Archivist nodded. ‘I have long thought so, lord.’

  ‘And the cave?’ Mohan said. ‘Do you think it is something to do with the fortress?

  The Archivist said, ‘No one knows where the cave of the Suvala title is. I have a feeling that it, too, must be at Konpara. The sahib’s letter about the stone debris and the bones has convinced me.’

  ‘But what was it?’

  ‘It exists still,’ the Archivist said quietly.

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘If we knew that, we might be able to find it tomorrow.’

  ‘A shrine of some sort,’ Smith said.

  ‘I agree, sahib.’

  ‘A shrine, but not a universal shrine - otherwise there would be no need to keep it secret.’

  ‘I agree, sahib.’

  ‘A shrine in which only certain people were permitted. That applies to the fort, too. Only Brahmins and Kshatriyas ‘

  ‘Perhaps - But I believe it is older than the acceptance of those caste divisions.’

  ‘Only for the Suvalas?’

  ‘And their men - the knights, courtiers, picked soldiers. All Aryans.’

  ‘And it was finished some time between about 1000 and 400 B.C.? That is a long spread, guru-ji.’

  The old man said eagerly, ‘It is! But the execution of the workmen by throwing them off Indra’s Rock... that seems to me to be a deed which would not, could not have been done in the Golden Age, or anywhere near it The slaughter of enemies in battle, of prisoners, of whole populations - yes. I fear such deeds have been done in my own lifetime. But the slaughter of workmen, to keep a secret... there is something primitive about that deed, sahib. It is an act of superstition, not of vengeance or reason, nor done in hot blood. So I think the cave was made very early... Well, perhaps I shall know before my eyes take their last look at these relics that have surrounded me for so long.’

  Smith said, ‘Have you thought of anything that could give us an idea as to where the mouth of the cave might be guru-ji? We are exploring a crevice in the pit cliffs, and we are searching the ground above, but there is so little time.’

  ‘Time?’ the Archivist said. ‘Men die, but learning does not.’

  ‘The dam,’ Smith said.

  ‘Ah. The dam, which will fill the pit. I see...’ He stood up and hobbled across the room. ‘Sit down, my lords. Here.’ He produced a large tome, hand-written, and clothbound in the Western manner. This is my own copy of the Suvala-Gita, made with my own hand. In the original Sanskrit, of course. I might mention that I am now composing a couplet which I hope will be suitable for this year. It links the opening of the Kendrick Dam and your ascent, my lord, to the gaddi - in a single couplet. Not ill-turned either, if I may say so. The scansion is extraordinarily difficult, you know, and... Ah, yes, the cave. Here is the couplet for the year 265 B.C. Do you see?’

  Smith read the couplet aloud. He knows Sanskrit, too, Mohan thought. Smith said, ‘It seems to have nothing to do with the matter.’

  The Archivist said, ‘It doesn’t! Because that is not the original couplet. On three occasions the original couplet was so false - or so true, eh? that a successor succeeded in having it expunged and replaced by another. These three occasions were A.D. 1858, A.D. 810 - and 265 B.C. The expunged couplet officially ceased to have had any existence... but those of us responsible for the past, sahib, have a higher duty.’

  The old man looked cautiously round the room, and then opened a locked drawer. Pulling out a single sheet of rolled cream parchment, he unfastened the yellow tapes binding it and spread it on the table. His voice sank to a whisper. ‘This is the true verse for 265 B.C. Do you see?’

  Smith read aloud, and then translated into Hindi ‘From ridge to ridge the impious son
his evil battle raged, Nor stayed the king his hand inside the holy place.’

  The Archivist beamed. ‘A scholar, sahib! It is strange. When we first met, I had a notion that I smelted about you gunpowder, battle, stratagem, and, h’m, rape - but for an English gentleman to have acquired your mastery of Sanskrit and Hindi points in an entirely different direction. It was surely midnight oil that I should have smelled. Parchment, ink?

  ‘What do you infer? Smith interrupted politely, but firmly.

  ‘Ah. The new couplet states merely that the King bought twenty elephants and made a pilgrimage to the Ganges. The next year he died, and his son succeeded him - and expunged the original record that he had tried to overthrow his father and had been defeated, but not, apparently, executed. You see?’

  Smith said, ‘You think the holy place referred to is the cave?’

  The Archivist said, ‘It might be. There are no ridges down here in the valley.’

  ‘From ridge to ridge,’ Mohan said. From the Dobehari to the Konpara.’

  The Archivist nodded. ‘I agree, my lord... Suppose the ridges marked the limits of the fighting, as stated. The last stand of the insurgents would have been made at one limit, rather than in the middle. And at the site of that final stand was the mouth of the cave, so that the last survivors could enter it, and continue the fight. You agree?’

  ‘It seems logical,’ Smith said. ‘Unless the rebel prince was surrounded. But in which direction was the king attacking?’

  The Archivist spread his hands and sighed. ‘I am not a military man. I had hoped that you...’