RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (53 page)

KAAND 2

ONE

Kush smelled the strangers long before they appeared. 

He had been roving with Sarama and her pack since morning, pretending to be one of her cubs. It was a game Luv and he had played ever since they could keep up with the lovable mongrel. Now, of course, she was old and greying, the dark whiskers around her muzzle turned completely white, and she often trailed behind the pack. Kukur, the alpha male of her first litter, now a mature but still robust fellow, led them, and he set a hard pace. But he never chastised the others when they straggled or came back to check on Sarama who was often left heaving far behind. In that sense, he was a kind son and not prone to the instinctive cruelty that animals resorted to in packs. He corrected himself mentally—Maharishi Valmiki always cautioned them that it was not ‘cruelty’ no matter how harsh such behavior may seem at times; animals too, like humans, or birds, or insects, or even the rocks and trees and water and earth, were simply aspects of brahman in different forms. And all forms of brahman were subject to the law of dharma. 

The thought made Kush smile now as he loped along in a crouching stance, imitating Sarama who panted heavily as she jogged beside him. The sounds of the pack were several dozen yards ahead but they were still quiet so that meant they had not yet found their prey. He smiled because he sometimes found gurudev’s pronouncements amusing after the fact. When listening to gurudev’s pravachans Luv and he were always intent and rapt, hanging on every word, particularly the Vedic shlokas which were full of such wonderful stories. But afterwards, when discussing what they had learned at gurukul that morning, usually with Maatr, they sometimes found something quite amusing in retrospect. The thought of dogs adhering to dharma was one of these. How could dogs have dharma! It was too much to comprehend. Their mother had laughed as well, her eyes crinkling in that way he loved to see, and he had exchanged a glance with Luv, for it was not often that Vedavati laughed, and rarer still that she smiled. 

Others smiled much more often. Rishi Dumma for instance, probably the fattest rishi he had ever known and also the jolliest, seemed to laugh or smile all the time. He often had to be admonished for it by Maharishi Valmiki, especially when other rishis were visiting or when they went travelling to other ashrams or to the occasional sammelan in the big city. Maatr never came with them on those trips, particularly the visits to Mithila city, which was a shame, because both Luv and he loved visiting Mithila. They loved everything about the city, and the palace was a thing to marvel at for days. But most of all, Maharaja Janak was such a fine king; “the finest who had ever lived,” Maharishi Valmiki always said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders when he said it, his face turning skywards and that familiar expression of infinite sadness coming over him. 

“The finest king who ever lived, and a wonderful father as well,” he would usually add, which always mystified both of them because what did Janak’s relationship with his children have to do with anything? Even stranger was the fact that Maatr also grew as sad as Maharishi Valmiki when they tried to tell her about Mithila, about the market place and the streets and the buildings and palaces, and all the wonderful sights, and the grand feast that Maharaja Janak had laid out for the visiting brahmins and scholars from all the Bharata nations, and how his daughters and their husbands and children once came especially to join in and to feed the brahmins personally. 

At this last recounting, Maatr had suddenly produced a choking sound, risen from the floor and left the hut. Gurudev had stopped them from going after her, pacifying them with the explanation that it was a womanly matter and she would recover in time. He then suggested, gently, that perhaps they should speak less of Mithila and tell her about the other wonderful things they had seen on the trip. Of course, nothing had been as wonderful as Mithila, but both Luv and he were smart enough to get the point and they had changed the topic when Maatr returned, her eyes pink-cornered as if she had been weeping. 

Now, he paused, resting on his bunched fists and forefeet to imitate the elderly mongrel beside him, raised his head, and sniffed curiously. At once, Sarama stopped and did the same. From her reactions he deduced that he was not alone in detecting a strange odor among the normal earthy smells of the forest. 

She suddenly issued a growl, and he saw her hackles rise, and then he was sure. That was unwashed uksan he smelled on the downwind, and unwashed human too, if he was not mistaken. And even if he was mistaken, Sarama was not. She would only growl if there was a creature that posed physical danger to her or her pack—which of course included Luv and himself—not just a deer or other docile creature of the woods. As he and his brother knew so well by now, the deadliest of all predators were those that walked on two legs. 

Sarama suddenly released a volley of barks. Kush wanted to shush her but knew better than to try. She was simply alerting her pack. They responded at once. Kush recognized Kukur’s distinctive mournful howl, followed by a chorus of excited yaps and barks. In moments, the pack was racing back to join their matriarch. Luv was with them, bounding along in the same bent-over position as Kush. He woofed once at Kush who woofed back and they slapped “paws” together in a playful imitation of sibling pups before turning their attention to the approaching threat.

Sarama crouched in a low stance, teeth bared, snarling. She was pointing her muzzle upwind. Luv and Kush cut back a few yards, slipping behind a thick sala tree; the trunk was big enough for both their slender forms to stand behind and there was still room on either side. The pack remained with Sarama, Kukur standing wither-to-withers beside her, howling long and low. Elsewhere in the woods, birds took off in flights, monkeys chittered, and other creatures issued sounds that most humans would not even notice, spreading the word that a predator was in this neck of the forest. 

Luv knew the pack well enough to be able to tell what kind of predator they had scented. If it was bear, they usually reacted with snarls and low growls but retreated without barking or howling. There was no point barking at a bear—the rksaa was apt to get mad and come chasing after them, and a bear on all fours was a beast no dog ever wanted to take on! If it was a big cat—there were lions in this part of the woods and a few other felines, though no tigers—then they howled and barked and got riled up but still retreated. The scent of cat brought out the dog in them to the utmost, but they still knew better than to go head to head with it. They took what satisfaction they could from warning off any prey the cat might be hunting and then running away themselves! If very hungry, they waited till the cat had killed and eaten, then harried it from a safe distance till the cat retreated in disgust, leaving the pickings to them. 

But when it came to man, they stood their ground, howled long and hard to alert the whole forest, and were prepared to fight to the death if necessary. The great dog packs that dominated the forests around this region had no fear of men at all. It was men who feared them—and for good reason. With their low height, ability to see in the dark, powerful jaws, and fearlessness in battle, only a very foolish man would dare oppose them in their own terrain. The thick vegetation camouflaged and obscured dogs perfectly, while leaving humans woefully exposed. Even a dozen armed men could be taken down by a dozen dogs, at best leaving every man severely wounded, and at worst, slaughtering every last man and feasting on the remains. Luv and Kush had seen it happen on one grisly occasion when a gang of bear-hunters had come by to visit some old friend they claimed lived in this region. Maharishi Valmiki had tried to prevent Luv and Kush from seeing the terrible scene but as already expert trackers they had been able to retrace most of the encounter afterwards. 

Other packs that lived closer to human habitation, such as this one, had an uneasy relationship with men. They could be tamed individually but when roving in packs and living wild and free for generations as this pack had done, they distrusted armed men in groups and often attacked if provoked. The reason of course was that armed men—such as the bear-killers—were the only creatures on earth who killed for no discernible reason at all. Not all men, and not always, but often enough that a wild dog’s initial reaction was one of distrust and fear. And with a wild beast, fear always manifested itself as hostility. 

There were exceptions of course. Luv and Kush had proved that by befriending Sarama when she was still a pup, the solitary survivor of a litter that had been killed by unknown means in a ravine near the ashram. As young boys, they had dearly wanted to keep her in their hut as a pet, the way they had seen other men do sometimes, tying a dog to their wagon or horse with a rope on their travels or keeping the animal tied to a pillar or post outside their homes. 

But their Maatr had explained to them that it was cruel to treat any living creature thus. “Would it be all right if someone were to tie a rope around our necks and keep us tied to a post?” she asked gently. 

They admitted it would not be all right. 

“Just because they are a different species from us does not make them inferior in any way. We have no right to control them or treat them harshly, no more than we have the right to treat other humans badly. We were all born free, and none of us have the right to take away that gift of freedom.”

So they had set Sarama free. And she had roved the woods nearby and visited them often, almost daily, but retained her freedom. Once or twice she had come back with a companion dog or two—a stray separated from its pack or a runaway. That had given them the idea of seeking out travelers with dogs in tow and secretly slipping the animals loose! That was one of the many little mischiefs that Maatr as well as Gurudev didn’t know about. Thus, Sarama’s pack had been assembled, a motley bunch of creatures, some of such vastly different appearance from her own that the twins had taken to comparing each one with a different animal or creature. So there was Monkeytail, because her tail curled like a Monkey’s; Wagh, because his fur was a beautiful golden hue and his eyes a mesmerising yellow too; Vaman, because though a third the size of most full-grown dogs, he was compact and powerfully muscled. Over time, she had mated and birthed her own get, and now the majority of the pack were her children or grand-children, but the motley mutts still stood out and the pack itself had grown expert in finding and setting free other imprisoned dogs on their own. At present, the pack was thirty-strong and growing constantly. 

Luv exchanged a glance with Kush as they listened to Kukur’s deep booming bark echoed by the varied howls and barks of the others. They shared a deep love for the pack; these wild dogs were not pets to the twins, they were playmates and friends. And they were proud of their friends. The usual behaviour of the pack would have been to charge towards the approaching threat; the only reason they were waiting here was because Luv and Kush had requested them to do so. 

Now, both grinned and winked at each other as they strung their bows and fixed arrows. The increasing intensity of the pack’s barking told them that the stranger or strangers were closer now. Both boys pointed their arrows around the trunk of the sala tree, aimed in the general direction at which the pack was barking, and waited for the enemy to show itself. 

TWO

There was a darkness in Rama’s heart that would not dissipate. 

Lakshman knew this just as he knew everything else that lay in Rama’s heart and mind. Twins were supposed to be joined thus in emotion and thought but somehow, by some quirk of karma or kismat, it had turned out that he shared such a connection not with his own twin Shatrugan, but with Rama. The pairing had happened soon after they were able to move on their own volition, and after that, Rama and he were inseparable. When Bharat and Shatrugan partnered up as well, it was obvious it was because they wished to emulate Rama and Lakshman. Although they shared a close brotherhood too, it was not like the one shared by Rama and he. Somehow, Lakshman had always been like the mirror to Rama’s face, the leaf to his branch, the river to his rain. He could not claim to actually feel everything that Rama felt, or think his thoughts, or know what he was about to say before he said it. But he knew these things. He knew them well enough to be able to know what Rama was feeling at any time, or thinking, or was likely to say. And he was rarely wrong. He might not like knowing what he knew, or agree with Rama’s thoughts and feelings and pronouncements on many things, but he rarely erred in the facts of those matters. 

Just as he knew now that the darkness that lay upon Rama’s heart was one that would result in grave consequences. It was a darkness vast and dense enough that if unleashed it could easily cover the entire world. Like a fog that would pass across the land and envelope every living creature in its cold clammy embrace. 

Everything Rama did was epic. His epic love, his epic tragedy, his epic war, his epic life itself. And now, if he unloosed the darkness within his soul, it would be an epic tragedy not only for him and all those around him, but for the world entire. This war itself was the final stage in that unleashing, and Lakshman worried that it might engender the very rebellion it sought to suppress. 

Lakshman was not afraid of war itself. Or of dying in one. It was a greatly desirable end for any kshatriya. He wanted to die fighting, not old and sickly and wasting away in his bedchamber in the palace, tended by Urmila and her maids and the royal vaids, a pale shadow of his own self. What else was death by natural causes if not a kind of war as well? A war against disease, old age, chronic debilitation or injury, old wounds and new ailments? If he must die fighting, he would rather fight foes he could face with a sword and a bow, rather than those invisible demons of the flesh and physic that slaughtered you piece by piece without ever showing themselves or abiding by the kshatriya code of battle. Phshaw! That was no death for any warrior, male or female, mortal or otherwise. He would rather be fighting this way from now until the end of his days, whether that end came today or a hundred years hence. 

But if there was one thing he did fear, it was a needless war. Violence without purpose or necessity. Like any kshatriya who had been bloodied in battle on myriad occasions, Lakshman loathed violence. Contradictory as that might seem, he knew that it was the very essence of the warrior code. A warrior’s dharma was not to fight or kill or maim for the sake of doing so. It was to do so when all other means to communicate failed and one’s enemy threatened one’s life, one’s loved ones and one’s homeland with certain death and destruction. Violence and war were the final steps in a human tragedy. The kusalavya bards might sing their songs from city to city and extol the praises of epic warriors—such as Rama himself and even he, Lakshman—from now till the end of time; it would not change the fact that war was a brutal terrible tragedy, nothing more or less. The only victor in a war was death itself. Only Lord Yama could walk a battlefield after the conflict ended and claim to have won. Any other claim of victory was a sham. 

And yet, one went to war when one had to, when there was no other way to survive, to protect one’s own, to defend one’s land. 

Was this campaign they were embarking upon, this grand Ashwamedha yagna, a necessary one? Would it serve its stated purpose and unite all the various factions of the Kosala nation and neighbouring principalities as well, or would it simply be seen as a naked act of aggression. An open declaration of war to serve Rama’s intentions of building an empire? Might it not be misconstrued to be the very opposite of what it was intended to be, as things often were in this world? And what then? Total war with all Aryavarta? With their own fellow Aryas, Bharatas, call them whatever one desired? Unite them at the point of a sword? Compel them to bow symbolically to the magnificent black horse – and, by implication, to Samrat Rama Chandra as well? Or, if they refused to acknowledge the horse and to let it pass freely to rove across their lands, symbolizing Rama’s claim over those territories, then what? Round them up like stray kine and force them to bow? 

Lakshman’s bond with Rama was such that it far exceeded any normal mortal standard of loyalty. He would do every single thing he was told or expected to do, regardless of the consequences. But he was deeply concerned about some of Rama’s recent decisions; particularly those that he felt might have adverse effects on Rama’s own well-being. 

In particular, this Ashwamedha campaign troubled him greatly. It was too loud a statement of imperial might and power, too provocative a display. He feared it might well stoke the fires of disagreement and churlishness into a full-blown rebellion. He was glad that the horse had chosen to head South at the outset rather than North. Had the stallion gone the other way, the pahadi tribes and the rugged Himalayan clans would have taken it as an outright taunt and come roaring down to do battle. Blood would have been shed before the horse could go more than a few dozen yojanas. Thankfully, the nations to the immediate South of Ayodhya were less belligerent and might be more prudent in their response to the yagna. At least, he hoped so. 

He was also deeply uncomfortable with the deviation from the ritual. As per Vedic ritual, the Ashwamedha yagna had to be initiated by the Queen Consort in order to be fruitful. That meant Sita, of course, because Rama had no other wives or concubines. Lakshman knew for a fact that Rama had not so much as laid hands on another woman with that intent since Sita’s departure. Since only the King’s own consort could undertake the ritual, that left a void. The purohits had urged Rama not to undertake the yagna as it would be inauspicious to do so in the Queen’s absence. One or two bold pundits had even suggested—timidly and with appropriate deference—that perhaps Rama might choose to take a wife in order to fulfill the ritual requirement. After all, Arya kings were required by dharma to produce progeny, especially heirs, and Rama had none. 

Rama would not hear of it, of course. Instead, he had ordered that a life-size effigy be made of Sita, carved from jet black lohitstone—the famed ironwood of the Sarayu Valley—and fixed upon a one-horse chariot. The statue had been used as a stand-in for the ritual, despite the disapproving protests of the purohits, and it was that same statue that now followed close behind the unbridled horse at the head of the great procession winding its way out of Ayodhya. 

He twisted in his saddle to look back at the endless rows of foot-soldiers stretching out along the raj-marg as far as the eye could see, over the rise of Seventh Hill, and down to the Sarayu Valley, stretching yojanas back towards Ayodhya—and yojanas up ahead as well. The chariots and horse regiments had already gone on ahead and the elephants were being taken by a different route to avoid congesting the raj-marg further. The sheer logistics of the campaign were mind-boggling and if not for the rote obedience of Ayodhya’s troops, this undertaking would have been impossible. As it was, there would be a line of grama-trains following behind the army, stretching back all the way to Ayodhya, in order to keep this enormous fauj supplied and fed. 

He spurred his horse into a canter, moving up the rise and beyond the Sarayu Valley in moments. Ahead lay the mist-shrouded silhouette of Mithila Bridge. The spray produced by the impact of the roaring white waters striking the rocks below cast a perpetual mist-shroud over the bridge. Seen now at this angle, with the rising sun peeping over the eastern horizon, the infinite droplets of water suspended in mid air caught the sunlight and refracted it, turning the air around the bridge into a glittering veil of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. It was a sight to behold. After being shown this same sight as young boys, Rama and he had taken to riding out here to view the sunrise over Mithila Bridge every day for a week, even though they had been forbidden at the time to go outside the Sarayu Valley. That was before they had achieved the age of seven and turned old enough to go to Guru Vashishta’s gurukul for formal education. Lakshman leaned on his pommel and smiled at the thought: those had been some of the best years of his life. The world had been filled with infinite wonder and hope, the impossible had seemed possible, the sky had loomed larger and bluer, the river’s cool water an elixir of youth, and they had been princes of the earth and all upon it. Princes of Ayodhya. 

The smile faded slowly as he remembered who and where he was and the many duties, chores and obligations of his post returned to clamour for his attention and time. He was still a Prince, and Rama now a Emperor, not just a King. But nothing was the same again. Even the mesmerizing beauty of the sunlight refracting through the mist over Mithila Bridge seemed like a tawdry effect produced by a travelling theatre troupe for an hour’s entertainment. Those two boys who had sat thus upon this very ridge, chins resting on their palms, elbows on their pommels, gazing at this very sight with ecstatic rapture…those boys were long gone. And with them, all that they felt and hoped and dreamed was gone as well. 

Lakshman shook his head to clear it of foolish fancies and childhood memories. Twisting his horse’s bit a little harder than was needed, he rode down the raj-marg past the endless lines of soldiers, picking up pace as he went. Some sipahis raised their wooden shields instinctively to avoid being struck across the face by the pebbles and stray stones kicked up by his horse as he passed, one of the routine hazards of foot travel on the king’s highway. The majority didn’t even bother with the shields and trudged on in the infinitely plodding way of all foot soldiers. 

By the time he reached Mithila Bridge, he had forgotten all about those childhood mornings spent watching this magical sight from the ridge. Like the ridge itself, those idyllic childhood days were behind him now. He rode onwards, leaving them both behind.

The head of the procession had reached the junction where the raj-marg forked in three directions: one road went on over the hilly ranges to Mithila, another went west, and the third went east. The chariot with the black wax statue was almost at the crossroads as Lakshman came riding up at a brisk canter. The sarathi driving it was none other than the old pradhan mantri Sumantra, his straggly white hair tied behind his head, his large bald spot shiny with perspiration. He glanced back as Lakshman came up beside him, then jerked his head, pointing. 

Lakshman looked in that direction and saw the black stallion stopped by the side of the crossroads, head lowered, munching kusa grass. He looked like any wild horse ranging freely, stopping where he pleased, foraging when he desired. And he was free. The great army following behind him was none of his concern after all. The whole point of the Ashwamedha yagna was that the horse represented Rama and that Rama was free to go where he pleased. It was only when he was stayed by any man’s hand that it represented a challenge to Ayodhya’s sovereignity and could be regarded as tantamount to a declaration of war. 

Lakshman fervently hoped that no man would be foolish or rebellious enough to stay the stallion. Declaring war against Ayodhya was one thing; challenging the might of this great army was suicide. This was no mere token force symbolizing the sovereignity of Ayodhya, as the horse ritual customarily required; it was the entire fighting strength of the nation! There had rarely been a precedent for such a massive display of military might, if only because most chieftains and tribal leaders might rightly view it as exceeding the requirements of the Vedic rite and amounting to imperialistic aggression. Which, Lakshman admitted regretfully, it was indeed. 

He glanced back at the winding line, stretching back across the gently undulating dips and rises of the raj-marg, like a great serpent snaking its way across the land. Like the serpent it resembled, its sole intention was to swallow the independent nations and tribes of the Bharata world alive. 

“If we stand here, the line will have to stop,” he said to Sumantra, leaning over the rim of the chariot. “And if the line stops…”

Sumantra nodded. A veteran of more logistical operations than Lakshman had year-notches on his life-stick, he was well aware of the problems that would arise if such a large juggernaut had to stop and stand for even a few minutes. The resulting congestion and confusion would snarl up the raj-marg for hours. The best thing for such a huge force was to keep it moving, constantly moving, stopping only when they reached one of the designated overnight campsites. The old face turned eastwards, catching the sunlight which unkindly limned every one of the myriad lines and creases of the aged statesman’s features. In his own quiet, unassuming way, Sumantra was part of the unselfishly dedicated system that had kept Ayodhya functioning through every crisis, war and outbreak. Men and women like he were the backbone of the nation and of Arya civilization itself. The basic tenet of Vedic philosophy: to do one’s duty without concern or desire for the fruits of one’s labours, was rarely better exemplified than in men like Sumantra. 

“Lord Bhadra has given instructions that if the horse should stop, it is to be encouraged,” he said quietly to Lakshman. Even though there was nobody within hearing distance—the first row of cavalry was several yards behind them—it was evident that he was speaking the words for Lakshman’s ears only.