‘May I go to the temple first?’ an impatient Drupada had requested.
‘That is not possible,’ Pruthalashva had said. ‘It is new moon. Only women will be allowed to enter the shrine tonight.’
‘I need but a glimpse,’ Drupada had pleaded.
‘Even if you enter the temple tonight, you would not see Ileshwara. You will see Ileshwari.’
‘What do you mean?’ Drupada had asked.
Pruthalashva had then revealed the secret rites of Ileshwara of which the kings of Vallabhi had been guardians for generations.
‘On new moon nights the deity in the temple is an enchantress displaying fourteen symbols of womanhood. Red sari, unbound hair, bangles, nose-rings, pots, parrots, sugarcane. As the moon starts to wax, each symbol of womanhood is replaced by a symbol of manhood, one each day. On the first day, the unbound hair is replaced by a curled moustache. The next day the red sari gives way to a white dhoti. Then the pot is removed and the bow put in its place. Gradually, the parrot becomes the peacock, the sugarcane becomes the spear, turmeric becomes ash, so that on the full moon, when only men enter the temple, the deity is an ascetic displaying fourteen symbols of manhood. Ileshwara makes men fathers. Ileshwari makes women mothers.’
Drupada had agreed to wait in the palace while his wife visited the shrine.
Pruthalashva’s queen had draped Soudamini in a red sari and had unbound her hair. After taking a dip in the temple pond, she had entered the shrine dripping wet with a garland of jabakusuma flowers in her hands. Inside the temple, Soudamini had seen the beautiful face of Ileshwari. Her face was covered with turmeric. Her earrings were shaped like dolphins. She had a diamond on her nose-ring, emeralds on her ear-rings and rubies on her toe-rings. She was adorned with armlets, bracelets and anklets. Chains of gold coins round her neck made her resplendent. In her hand, she held a pot of water and a sugarcane rich in sap. Her large unblinking silver eyes gave Soudamini assurance, love, and the promise of motherhood.
When she emerged from the temple, Pruthalashva’s queen had asked her, ‘Why is your husband so impatient for a child? Does he not have six sons already?’
‘They are all dead,’ she had sobbed. ‘Killed.’
‘By the Kurus?’
‘No. By their own father. They fought beside my husband when the Kuru princes challenged him to battle. But they were no match for Drona’s students. My husband said they were useless. Disappointments. They could not stop the division of their father’s property. So he slit their throats like a farmer who destroys diseased crops. Their mothers were discarded. I am the new field, his youngest queen, still a virgin. I am supposed to give him a better crop, children of worth, who will kill his enemies and restore his pride.’
Meanwhile, across the city square, Drupada sat alone in a courtyard within the palace. As he waited for his wife to return, the memory of Drona’s words had resurfaced to sting him like lashes of a whip. ‘We were once the best of friends, Drupada. Inseparable. You promised me then that you would share all your wealth with me should I ever need it. I came to you for just one cow because I realized I was so poor that my son could not distinguish milk from rice water. Instead of helping me, you humiliated me. Said that friendship exists only between equals. That I was a beggar and hence could claim only alms not friendship. I swore that day that I would be your equal. And now, thanks to my students, I am. We are masters of two halves of the same kingdom. Once I could not give my son a bowl of milk. Today, I gift him a kingdom full of cows. Remember, Drupada, henceforth your rule extends only south of the Ganga. To the north is the kingdom of my son, Ashwatthama.’
Drupada had gritted his teeth and had fixed his mind on Ileshwara. ‘Some say you are Shiva, the destroyer. Help me destroy the Kurus.’
‘He would rather destroy your rage.’ Drupada had turned around and had found a bull talking to him. On the bull sat a man with matted hair smeared with ash holding a trident in his hand. A serpent slithered round his neck. The bull’s feet did not touch the ground and the man’s face radiated an ethereal glow.
‘Are you Shiva?’ Drupada had asked.
The man on the bull had ignored his question. His eyes were shut. He swayed as if lost in a narcotic dream. The bull had then spoken up once again. ‘Shiva is the silent one. This is Shankara, the one who speaks, not as distant as Shiva. Each is different. Though still the same.’
Shankara had then spoken, his voice cold as the snow-capped northern mountains, ‘You have called me and I have come. What do you want?’
‘A son,’ Drupada had said, ‘one who will kill Drona and his patron, Bhisma. And a daughter, who will divide the house of the Kurus.’
How can that be, the bull had wondered. Drona was a Brahmana. Did Drupada want a Brahmana-killer as a son? Wasn’t killing a Brahmana the greatest of misdeeds for it broke the connection between man and God? And Bhisma? All the gods knew that no man could possibly kill Bhisma. Before the bull could say anything, Shankara had said, ‘So be it.’
Realizing that his master had not clarified whether he would give Drupada one son or two, or a daughter, or both son and daughter, in two bodies or in one, the bull had warned Drupada, ‘Beware of what Shankara has given you. He is Nilakantha with poison trapped in his throat. He is Bhairava, lord of terror. The smoke of hemp fills his lungs. What he speaks is often muddled, difficult even for the wisest Rishi to comprehend. He could have destroyed your rage. Given you peace. But you have asked him to create children for destruction. He will do that. But not as you imagine it. There will be confusion. Blurring of boundaries. Twisting of emotions. Division of land and flesh. Splitting of desires and destinies. Yama will laugh. Kama will weep. Blood will flow. Blood of fathers and brothers and sons and friends, so much blood that the kings of the earth will, in disgust and fatigue, beg for peace. Peace that could have come much earlier, before the destruction and the bloodshed, if you had only asked Shiva to destroy your rage.’
That night, charged by the vision of Shiva on his mighty bull, Drupada had made fierce love to his wife as soon as she had returned from the temple. That very night she had become pregnant.
Drupada had returned to his half of Panchala singing songs praising Ileshwara. Ten moons later, Panchala had awoken to the sound of a child. A girl.
With trepidation, the midwives had presented the child to Drupada. He had looked at her, had smiled tenderly and had then declared proudly, ‘This is the son that Shiva promised me, the son who will kill Drona and Bhisma. I name him, Shikhandi, the peacock.’
The midwives had looked at each other and the queen not knowing how to react. With a stony face, Soudamini had looked at her newborn daughter and said, ‘Yes, indeed, it is a son.’ She realized that rage had made her husband mad.
Fearing the mad king, the midwife had covered the child’s genitals and had announced to the world, ‘Panchala’s king has fathered a son.’
The Brahmanas, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras of Panchala also saw what the midwife had seen. But they all had agreed, ‘Yes, yes, it is a son, a prince, an heir. Killer of all our king’s enemies.’
Everyone cheered.
Amidst the celebrations, the bards sang, ‘Glory to Ileshwara of Vallabhi, who is at once god and goddess, who gave Drupada the child he wanted, one capable of killing the man, who Yama says no man can kill.’
crisis in vallabhi
Fourteen years later, around the time Drupada felt Shikhandi was old enough to be given a wife, disaster struck Vallabhi. The stars revealed a great calamity that would soon befall the Turuvasu clan. King Pruthalashva’s only son, Prasenajit, was to die at the age of eighteen, two years after his marriage, two months before the birth of his son. And to the dismay of Vallabhi, the king refused to take responsibility for the situation.
‘I have been fettered long enough,’ Pruthalashva told his guru, Mandavya. ‘First by varna-dharma that forced me to be follow my father’s footsteps, be king and rule Vallabhi. Then by ashrama-dharma, that compelled me
to marry and father a son. Long have I waited for my son to grow up and have a son of his own so that I can leave this wretched householder’s life and be a hermit, seek the true meaning of life beyond this delusion of civilization.’
Having failed to change the king’s mind, Mandavya decided to consult the Rishis.
Rishis were guardians of the Veda, the body of sacred chants mouthed by Prajapati, the primal father, at the dawn of time. Transmitted orally from one generation of Rishis to another, the Veda was believed to contain great power and wisdom. But to capture its power and decipher its wisdom, the chants had to be heard by a mind free of all prejudice. This was difficult. So the Rishis stripped themselves of all desire, stayed away from women, family and society, wandered through forests never letting anything worldly fetter their fetterless souls.
Since they had no interest in society, Rishis were often approached to solve social problems. They were incisive in their understanding and dispassionate in their advice. When Mandavya learnt that the Rishis of the Angirasa order had been spotted on the banks of the Kalindi, not far from Vallabhi, he thought it best to seek their advice on the problem facing Vallabhi.
The Angirasa were keepers of the most cryptic chants of the Veda, hence were the most revered of the Rishis. They ate what no one ate, wore what no one wore and saw what no one saw. Mandavya found them sitting on rocks under a banyan tree.
When the Angirasa saw Mandavya, his face full of worry, they sang, ‘From Prajapati has come the problem. From Prajapati will come the solution.’
The Rishis were naked, their limbs covered with ash, their hair was matted, their faces radiant and eyes curious. ‘Prajapati has placed the solution in your heart, Mandavya. Why does your head refuse it?’ they said in unison.
A gentle wind distracted Mandavya from responding immediately. He adjusted his dhoti and his uttarya, the two pieces of unstitched cloth that every member of civilized society was obliged to wear. The dhoti was wrapped around the waist to cover the loins and the legs. The uttarya was wrapped to cover the shoulders and the chest. By the manner in which the dhoti was draped and the uttarya wrapped one could decipher a man’s station in society. Mandavya was a Brahmana, an Acharya, his dhoti and uttarya worn in the style of teachers. The heavy silver anklet was an indicator of his close association with the royal family. Since he was not a performer of rituals, he had not shaved his head. His hair was long and tied into a neat knot behind his head. He had a long black beard that drew attention away from his thin sharp lips. ‘I told my king that we had to find a girl, fertile and intelligent, one who will bear Prasenajit a son and who, after he is gone, will rule Vallabhi as regent, custodian of the child’s inheritance.’
‘And?’
The Angirasa heard the protests in Mandavya’s heart.
‘A woman! How can a woman rule? It is like asking a man to bear children.’
‘Don’t let your experience impose limits on the mind of God, Mandavya,’ said the Rishis, their voices sharp. ‘The dharma of Ila-vrita may not let women do things that men do and men do things that women do but that does not mean such possibilities do not exist.’ Pointing south-west, they said, ‘Go to Avanti. You will find there a girl who has never been taught the dharma-shastras but whose understanding of dharma will put you and all the kings of Ila-vrita to shame.’
a woman with a man’s head
Her name was Shilavati. She was the eldest daughter of Ahuka, king of Avanti, scion of the Janaka clan, daughter of his senior queen. And she always sat behind her younger brother, Nabhaka, son of the junior queen, listening to everything their father and his bards had to say.
The bards of Avanti often narrated tales of Ila’s many sons: Pururava, who married an Apsara or river-nymph called Urvashi, angering the Gandharvas, whose music makes the waters flow; Nahusha, who so impressed the Devas with his valour that he was invited to rule Amravati, their city above the sky; Yayati, who married daughters of Asuras, residents of the dark and mysterious realm under the earth.
‘The descendents of Ila are truly illustrious. They have connected Manavas to the other children of Prajapati. Most royal families in Ila-vrita, be it the Kurus of Hastina-puri, the Yagnasenis of Panchala, the Yadavas of Mathura and the Turuvasus of Vallabhi, trace their ancestry to Ila. But not us,’ clarified Ahuka. ‘Our forefathers descend from Manu’s true son, Ikshavaku. For us this land is not just the enclosure of Ila’s children; it is Arya-varta, the land of the noble ones who uphold dharma. Our family deity is Surya, the sun, whose rays bring life, light, warmth and clarity of thought. Theirs is Chandra, the moon, who waxes and wanes, twisting emotions and morals.’
Shilavati overheard it all and absorbed it all. True son? What does that make Ila? False son? What does that mean? She did not ask. She left asking questions to her younger brother, the crown prince.
Ahuka always discussed the disputes he was asked to settle by his sabha with his son. This, the Janakas believed, was part of royal education. It enabled young princes to appreciate the complexities of a problem: how does one distinguish fact from fiction, truth from perception. Formal understanding of dharma-shastras under the guidance of the Acharyas was never enough. There was more to dharma than what was written.
The cases were always presented in the form of riddles: ‘The riddles of the sixty-four Yoginis’.
‘The sixty-four Yoginis are handmaidens of Shiva and Shakti. They hold aloft a throne. He who sits on this throne becomes Chakra-varti, ruler of the world. But to sit on it one has to answer the sixty-four riddles of the sixty-four Yoginis. These are no ordinary riddles. They have no definitive answer. The answers vary in different periods of history, in different parts of the world. Appropriate answers are those that ensured stability and predictability at any given time in any given place. Only one Bharata has been able to answer all the riddles thus far. He was the one and only Chakra-varti. The rest of us are Rajas; our dharma satisfies most but not all,’ said the Janaka fathers to their Janaka sons.
One day, based on a particularly puzzling case presented in his sabha, Ahuka created a riddle for Nabhaka. ‘The twenty-third Yogini asks the man approaching the throne: Who is the father of Rohini’s child? Her old wrinkled husband or his young assistant who made her pregnant? Both claim the child.’
The actual accused and the actual defendant in this case were Vaishyas. The husband was an old cowherd, the lover was a distant nephew who helped the old man castrate young bulls. Ideally, the case should have been tried by the Vaishya council of elders since both the defendant and the accused belonged to the same varna. Kings of Ila-vrita were asked to intervene only when disputes involved two varnas or when the case had no precedent, as in this case.
‘That’s a simple one,’ Nabhaka said, ‘Surely the father is the man whose seed sprouts in her womb. That young scoundrel of a student.’
If it was so simple and straightforward, it would not be a Yogini’s question, thought Ahuka who was disappointed by his son’s hasty reply. He remembered the young student in court, hardly a scoundrel, more a youth quivering under the weight of desire.
A quiet voice sprang up from behind Nabhaka. It was Shilavati. ‘Tell me brother, to whom does the sapling in a field belong? To him who sows the seed or to him who owns the field?’
What an intelligent question, thought the king of Avanti. He looked at Nabhaka and watched him reply, once again, hastily. ‘To the owner of the field, of course.’
‘Rohini is the field, her husband its master, the student merely one who sowed the seed. Is that not what the dharma-shastras say? She may not love her husband but only he can be the father of her child.’
Nabhaka was at a loss of words. Ahuka was impressed. Shilavati had given more importance to the institution of marriage than to the whims of the heart. She has established the primacy of law over desire. From such actions was dharma born; it gave life certainty and predictability.
‘Since when did you read the dharma-shastras, my child?’ he asked Shilavati.
‘I have not. But I pay attention to everything you say,’ said Shilavati. Ahuka smiled, beaming with pride.
‘I don’t agree with her answer,’ said Nabhaka, a little irritated at being upstaged by his sister. ‘Culture cannot twist the truth of nature.’
‘In nature there is no wife,’ said Ahuka. ‘A man can go to any woman and a woman to any man, provided he has the power or she has the will. So it was in the age before Shvetaketu, who watched his mother go to several men right in front of his eyes. He wanted to know of which seed he was the fruit. She had no answer. So he created laws that fettered women to fathers before marriage, husbands after marriage and sons when they are widows. That is why today you know I am your father and I know you are my son.’
‘In nature there is no king, father,’ said Nabhaka. ‘What law binds me to be king after you? Why can I not be a poet, play the flute and make music on the banks of the Saraswati?’
‘Making music is for Shudras,’ said Ahuka, disturbed by his son’s question. ‘You must be king because I, your father, am king. All men are bound to their lineage. The sons of Brahmanas must be Brahmanas. The sons of Kshatriyas must be Kshatriyas. The sons of Vaishyas must be Vaishyas. The sons of Shudras must be Shudras. This is the varna-dharma. It ensures continuity of the past with the present. Guarantees predictability. But before you become king, we must find you a wife and she must give you a son. That is ashrama-dharma that all varnas are obliged to follow. It divides life into four quarters. Right now you are in the first quarter, a brahmachari, a student preparing for society. I am in the second quarter, a grihasthi, a householder contributing to society. When your wife gives you a son, I will go into my third quarter, become a vanaprasthi, stay in the hermitage of teachers outside the city and slowly withdraw from society. As soon as you become a grandfather, I will enter the final quarter of my life, become a sanyasi, a hermit, and renounce all things worldly. Varna-ashrama-dharma organizes life in Ila-vrita. It was established by Manu. All Manavas, and that includes you, are bound to it. It makes humans of animals.’