The Aryavarta Chronicles Kurukshetra: Book 3

by Krishna Udayasankar

  ‘And so there must be war?’

  ‘They will blame it on me – call me a vengeful woman. Or on you… but that hardly matters, does it, after all that we have given up?’

  ‘No,’ Govinda said. He was less angry, but as yet not fully convinced. ‘Once,’ he said, as though thinking aloud, ‘a long time ago, I gave you up because I argued that to offer to sacrifice that which was so precious was the ultimate duty, the ultimate action of them all. Then, after years, I found you, and I told myself that duty and destiny were but illusions and I would protect you to the end, but…’

  ‘But… Instead, you had me married to Dharma, you made me Empress of Aryavarta,’ Panchali said. ‘This time because you saw that greater than duty was reason, and reason demanded you sacrifice me in the name of larger good.’

  Govinda nodded, ‘Sacrifice an individual for a family, a family for a village, and a village for a nation… It was a trade I had considered worthy till you taught me that compassion was greater than reason; that the system we protect must be worth the sacrifice. A system that could not protect you, one of the people that it was meant to serve, is a failure and so is not worth protecting in turn.’

  ‘And so you emerged from the despair you had descended into after Dharma had gambled the empire away. Compassion brought you out of that pit of darkness; compassion is what made you say that you can no longer tell the difference between Aryavarta and I. And it was compassion that made you prepare to sacrifice me again. This time not for Aryavarta, but as part of it. And this time the sacrifice would be that I would live with the pain of your death, your dishonour.’

  ‘You are Sri – the very essence of existence that had to be protected, no matter what the price.’

  ‘As I said, Govinda, without Narayana, there is no Sri.’

  Govinda chose his words carefully, ‘We can argue and debate abstract philosophy all night. That doesn’t change what you have done. It also doesn’t change the fact that I made a mistake. I predicted everyone’s actions but yours, possibly because, despite my claim to the contrary, I never did see you as some abstract instrument of humanity as a whole. You were…personal. You always have been. It was a mistake.’

  Panchali tried not to show any reaction, but the pain in her eyes was evident as she said in a hoarse voice, ‘In that case, it is a mistake you have made more than once. And you know what they say about a man who does the same thing over and over, expecting the outcome to be different.’

  ‘He is called a muhira, a fool.’

  ‘And you, Govinda Shauri, are no fool. You have determined through your life that greater than apathy is dutiful action, greater than duty is reason, greater than reason is compassion. Yet duty, reason and compassion – karma, jnana and bhakti – are all means to an end, a path, a way. What is the destination, Govinda?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A gwala, a young boy who did not know these staggering words, understood better than the wise Firewright you are now that no matter what we believe in the Truth is One. It exists beyond these names and philosophies. It exists equally for Dharma and Syoddhan, men who believe in duty and Divine Order; it exists equally for the Secret Keeper and all the Firewrights, who believed in reason. It exists for us, Govinda, in compassion. You didn’t need words to see Truth once. I did not know it, but it was that gwala I have trusted all along. It is whom I trust now. My sole regret in life is that I have not met that boy…’ Pausing, Panchali smiled, and continued, ‘I don’t need to have met him. I have placed my faith in humanity, but faith in the universal becomes meaningless without faith in the individual. I trust that there is compassion in every individual, Govinda…just as you do, whether you admit it or not.’

  Govinda raised his hands in admission of the argument, even as he continued it. He said, ‘Your faith in the power of the collective is not unfounded, Panchali. But the flaw in your idea is in the assumption that people stay united, that humanity in its entirety can function as a reasoning being. Those who have come together at Kuru’s Fields for this cause will be easily torn apart by war. When your farmers and fishermen lie dead, what then?’

  Panchali stood up, proud and straight as though the chair she had been sitting on was no less than the throne of Indra himself. She walked over to Govinda and reached out to take his hand in hers. ‘And that is why we need you. That is why Sri needs Narayana. Once all this is over I shall let you do as you will, but for now, I ask you, not as empress or queen but as a woman of Aryavarta, to see this through. Make your peace with the present.’

  Govinda frowned. ‘Your tone is… Frankly, it is not heartening, Panchali. What is it that you know that I don’t?’

  Panchali laughed. ‘A rather peculiar choice of words, Govinda, considering that you remember all that I do not.’

  ‘Some things are a matter of skill, not memory. I have no doubt that you are capable of all that you might have…persuaded…the Secret Keeper to consider.’

  ‘Then trust me again, as you claim you once did. It is but a short while to dawn, and war is upon us. Despite Dharma’s injunction, we will need you. We will need that gwala who still hides inside you so you can see for yourself what you must now do. Find him, Govinda. We will need him many times over before all this is done.’

  ‘He said what?’ Suka asked, rubbing the remains of a troubled, restless slumber out of his eyes.

  Sanjaya felt an inexplicable twinge of jealousy as he took in how charming and youthful the scholar appeared even when woken in the early muhurttas before dawn. He willed it aside and said, ‘It’s true. Syoddhan refused the offer of peace. And he did so, he claims, in the interest of the Firstborn. He said to allow Dharma’s reign a trasenu atom’s worth of legitimacy was to question Divine Order on earth. The Grandsire Bhisma, too, agreed.’

  A flicker of consternation showed on his brows, and then Suka regained his composure. ‘Very well. War it is. But the world that emerges on the other side of the fire of death and doom will be as I wish it to be. Sanjaya, I will need you here, at Hastina. Your task is to relay all developments on the battlefield to King Dhritarastra, as he requests, but I expect you to keep me abreast of all developments. Use the white doves, they are faster.’

  ‘You plan to leave?’

  ‘Yes. In the morning, we shall return – all of us Firstborn scholars – to my father’s hermitage. Join us there when this is done, Sanjaya. You know he’ll be happy to see you.’

  ‘He’ll be happy to see me? With all due respect, Acharya, this… this is not what we had planned.’

  Suka was curt. ‘Do you doubt me, Sanjaya? Do you not trust me?’

  ‘I do, but…’

  ‘In that case, this conversation is over. Now, let me sleep!’

  A reluctant Sanjaya bowed, and made his way out of the room. Suka watched him leave. He shut the door and made his way to the simple reed mat that served as his bed, even in the luxuriant palace of Hastina, but then decided against sleep. He went to stand by the windows and looked out. The rain had passed, and the moon now cast a gentle light over everything in sight. Suka held up a hand towards the silver beams that he knew he could not hold. He stilled his mind. Either way, he reassured himself, this would end as he had hoped. For all the bargains and barters that had been made this one night, there still remained one last move, the ultimate stroke of Suka’s plan.

  Give me the present and I will give you the future, Govinda had said, and Suka had been right to accept that bargain. After all, it was the Vyasa who would decide what was to be remembered as the history of Aryavarta; he would determine how the curious and complicated story of these times would be told. And as with every good story, the noble would win. Rather, the ultimate prize gained by those who won would be nobility.

  It was why, Suka mused, Divine Order was infallible and their chosen ones always emerged victorious. Those who survived, those who lived to tell the tale, became the gods and their faithful. Those without a voice had no choice but to become demons.

 
; And yet, his inner voice taunted him, it is on Govinda that you now depend. Both you and he made use of the feint of war, but when the dice were cast your gamble was lost. Now it stands to Govinda to prevent war, in the brief time that remains.

  Suka dismissed the thought, invoking reason to focus on what came next.

  Once Syoddhan won the not-quite-war, as he would, Suka would ensure that he and his brothers would be the chosen ones, the symbols of all that was right and good. It would be a simple matter to forsake Dharma and his kin; the five ambitious brothers led astray by a vengeful princess born of fire and sorcery. After all, to chronicle reality in the most appropriate form was a talent Suka had acquired from his father. If only his father had learned, as he had, that when the opponent always has a plan one needs to have two. Oh well…

  Suka smiled, thinking for a while of the story that these events would make. All else would pale in comparison to that tale of lust and treachery…and death…that would eventually be told. Indulging himself in a loud yawn, he moved away from the window to lie down on his mat for what little was left of the night. He was asleep within moments.

  34

  GOVINDA DID NOT KNOW WHEN HIS RESTLESSNESS HAD GIVEN way to sleep, or whether he was, in fact, still awake and trapped in memory, but his body felt light and heavy at once, as though he was free of himself but imprisoned elsewhere. He was all of nine or ten, back in the vraja of his childhood. The day was hot and he had spent the morning entertaining himself by scrambling up and down rocky hillocks, having left the cows and bulls in his care to their own devices. Pleasantly tired and sun-weary, he stretched himself out in the shade of a tree, one arm under his head for a pillow, the other instinctively swatting at the determined fly that landed now and then on the dried mud on his feet and ankles. Govinda waited, then and now, for habitual stupor to take him, spill over into the present and make the images in his mind fade away into the dark nothingness of true sleep.

  A shrill scream rent the air of the past. The young dream-Govinda was immediately on his feet and running in the direction of the sound. He found the children of the vraja clustered on the verdant banks of the river Yamuna and saw the other figures in the distance running towards them.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, coming up on the terrified group.

  ‘A calf…a calf fell into the river. He was carried downstream by its force.’

  ‘What!’ a voice Govinda recognized as Balabadra’s came from behind them. ‘What are you children doing here? You know the river is in spate, you were told to stay away from it. Now we’ve lost a calf for nothing…’

  Govinda did not stop to hear another word. He ran as fast as he could along the river’s edge, following its flow.

  He found the calf beyond a bend in the river. The poor animal was caught in the swirls of an eddy, his eyes wide and nostrils flared with fear, his whining scream-like bleat of terror filling the air. At any moment the water would pull the helpless beast below the surface or, worse, dash him against the sharp rocks that lined the river.

  ‘Govinda, no! Don’t be silly!’ he heard a shout in the distance. And then he jumped. The last thing he saw before being pulled into the river’s depths was the calf’s large, mournful eyes.

  It had been decades, and Govinda still lacked the words to describe what he had seen in those brown orbs, the emotion he could have sworn was there, as though the animal were capable of a human tongue. Wonder, amazement, hope, despair, caution, joy, terror…all of these, and yet none. It was his own reflection he had seen, but it had not been a true image – for the boy mirrored in the calf’s eyes had been smiling, not floundering in the white waters of the river; he had been dancing, not drowning.

  Govinda sat up with a gasp, unsure of what it was that had instinctively woken him up. He closed his eyes again and tried hard to remember what had happened next, all those years ago, but the dream did not return, nor did memory. The image of the calf continued to nag at him, as though he had forgotten something he knew to be important.

  Drawing in a calming breath, Govinda opened his eyes. Darkness, he saw through the partly-open tent flap, had begun to give way to the red skies that preceded dawn. Having lain awake for most of the night after Uluka’s departure, he had, Govinda realized, overslept while the rest of the camp readied to march out. Nevertheless, the sense of urgency, the sporadic bustle of movement around him hinted at something more. He knew what was going on even as he swung out of his bed and let his feet touch the ground. The subtle tremble of the earth, the steady, almost-soundless tremors could mean just one thing. Cursing himself, his turbulent dreams, and everyone and everything else for his not having woken sooner, Govinda slid his feet into his sandals and walked out of the tent, his sword-belt in hand.

  The first glimmer of day streaked the horizon. The Command Tent was silhouetted against sun-bruised skies and, in front of it, the royal banners of Emperor Dharma Yudhisthir and his brothers rippled in the breeze: Dharma’s bore the sign of a golden moon surrounded by planets, Bhim’s a silver lion with eyes of blazing lapis lazuli. Partha’s flag had the insignia of an ape, Nakul’s was the part lion-part bird Sarabha, and Sadev’s banner was emblazoned with a silver swan.

  Under the proud flags, the leaders of Dharma’s army stood as shadows. Govinda joined them, noting abstractedly that they were all dressed for battle, Panchali included. None, however, turned to acknowledge him, for all eyes, everywhere in the camp, lay on one sight alone.

  Across the reddened field, streaming in through the entrance to Syoddhan’s camp was a company of marching men – no, this was more than a company, much more. An army. Lines of metal glimmered as they caught the rising sun. Govinda knew each flash was not one but at least a hundred men, each spark just a glimpse of a huge horde. It was now light enough for him to note the fair skin and leather uniforms that identified the men as mercenaries from far lands, but Govinda did not think to dwell on that. All he was aware of, all that filled his consciousness, was the sheer size of this new army. He could not tell how many deep the ranks were, but he knew it would not matter. Even the thinnest of marching formations meant that he stared at an advance force of over two akshauhini divisions of soldiers, with more to follow.

  Govinda wondered how it was that Syoddhan had been able to amass extra divisions at this last moment, but then as his eyes fell on Panchali he understood. This had obviously been a part of Syoddhan’s plan, a fact that the Secret Keeper would have known. It was why, Govinda concluded, the Firewright leader had easily given in to Panchali’s intervention and thus led Syoddhan to reject his offer to surrender himself, in exchange for peace. She expected something, if not this. That was why she insisted I find my answers before dawn.

  Panchali gave Govinda a pointed look as if to confirm the unstated premise in his mind, but he had no response. Next to him, Partha gasped at the results of his own, silent calculations of the enemy’s strength and staggered back as though bodily struck. Govinda caught the warrior by his elbow and pulled him along as he headed into the Command Tent. Partha did not protest, but followed with limp acquiescence. One by one, the others made their way inside.

  ‘Now what?’ Bhim said, sullen. ‘That must have been more than three divisions of men!’

  ‘Much more,’ Govinda said. ‘I’d say three and a half, maybe four. That brings Syoddhan’s army to a total of eleven divisions.’

  ‘Eleven!’ Partha cried out. ‘But…we counted on seven, at the most eight. Eleven akshauhini against our seven? How did this happen? Shalya…Shalya reported troop movements of only half a division from the west and the frontier. He wouldn’t lie! Or would he…?’ He turned to Nakul and Sadev, angry.

  ‘He didn’t,’ Shikandin said. ‘He was misled, just as we were. My guess is that the half division from the west was just a distraction. We were meant to think these were all the men Jayadrath would spare, when in truth he has brought his entire army as well as the Qamboja forces – nearly two division strong – to fight for Syoddhan. Not to men
tion that he has had no qualms recruiting mercenaries to supplement his numbers.’

  ‘How did he get them here without us knowing? Your men were acting as scouts…’ Partha turned on Shikandin.

  ‘Asvattama must have sought help from the Nagas to bring the men through the forests without our knowledge. Brihadbala, Takshaka’s son, fights for Syoddhan, and his foresters could move a mountain through their woods without stirring a leaf – such is their skill, their oneness with these lands.’

  ‘It’s a bad decision,’ Dhrstyadymn pointed out. ‘Jayadrath leaves none to defend the north-western frontiers of Aryavarta, which was the pretext he put forth…’

  Nakul snapped, ‘Are you mad? Nagas or not, Syoddhan’s army is now one and a half times the size of ours! And you’re worried about the frontier?’

  Panchali began to say something but was cut short by Partha as he, Nakul, Dhrstyadymn and Yuyudhana began to argue among themselves.

  In all that tumult, Dharma alone remained calm, as though he were reconciled to the situation at hand. ‘Swasti!’ he commanded, bringing silence to the proceedings. When he spoke his voice was without the least trace of doubt: ‘It all makes sense… Why would Syoddhan agree to peace on our terms, no matter how conciliatory those conditions were, when he could have war and victory on his terms? He must have known… They all must have known. It is the obvious answer.’

  ‘But…’ Partha protested. His voice was heavy with disappointment and he radiated a sense of doom. ‘How could the Grandsire allow this? And Acharya Dron…?’

  ‘Don’t you understand, Partha,’ Dharma’s tone was kind. ‘They are duty-bound to stand by Syoddhan, just as I am to stand against him. This is not the time for doubt or denial. Destiny has brought us this far. Destiny will see us to the end.’

  ‘But, Agraja… Fight Dron? He is our teacher!’