Yuvanashva’s cradle was placed in Shilavati’s audience chamber. This disturbed the Brahmana and Kshatriya elders initially as they were not used to a leader who nursed a child while discussing matters of dharma.
Guided by Mandavya, Shilavati carried out her role as ruler and mother with aplomb. She organized the annual cow-giving ceremony for the Brahmana elders while putting Yuvanashva to sleep. She permitted the Vaishya elders to burn a forest on the western bank of the Kalindi for a new farmland while feeding her toothless son a meal of bananas. She gave the Shudra elders instructions to build a new gate for Vallabhi while Yuvanashva chewed on her hair. She decided the rate of tax while playing hide and seek. The ministers and advisors gradually got used to this and even started participating in the raising of the prince. A time came when the eldest Kshatriya, commander of the army, could discuss the need to organize an archery tournament to select guards for the palace while tying Yuvanashva’s dhoti.
When she was eighteen, Shilavati organized an elephant hunt. ‘There are no metal mines in Vallabhi. We can sell the captured elephants to the king of Anga for his gold and copper,’ she said. An elephant hunt demands many resources and complex organization: digging of vast pits to serve as traps, the beating of gigantic drums to scare the elephants into the trap, torturing and forcing the leader of the herd into submission. Shilavati supervised it all. Her success earned her the respect of Vallabhi’s Kshatriya elders, who at first thought she would merely be a figurehead.
Like any good king in Ila-vrita, Shilavati appointed a network of spies who posed as bards and who knew all that happened in Ila-vrita. These ‘eyes of Varuna’ as they were sometimes called told her of the strange ceremony by which Drupada had become father of twins: a boy and a girl. ‘From the yagna’s fire-pit, the two Siddhas, Yaja and Upayaja, churned out for the king of Panchala the children Shiva had long ago promised him.’
‘But did Ileshwari not give Drupada a son?’ asked Shilavati.
‘But not quite the son, he wanted,’ said the spies. ‘On Shikhandi’s wedding night, his bride had come out of the bedchamber screaming that her husband had no manhood, that he was a woman. The bride’s father, the king of Dasharni, was so angry that he sent his chief concubine to check if this was true. The concubine contradicted the bride and insisted Shikhandi was a man. The words of the wife, however, did confirm something that had long been whisphered on the streets of Panchala: that the son of Drupada was no son at all, that he would never be allowed to enter a battlefield and so could never kill either Drona or Bhisma. A desperate Drupada approached Yaja and Upayaja, two Siddhas, and had begged them to perform a yagna through which Shiva’s boon would be realized. He wanted the children who would destroy Drona and Bhisma and divide the house of Kurus. After a long and complex ceremony, the two sages drew out from beneath the embers of the altar a fully grown woman now called Draupadi and a fully grown man now called Dhristadhyumna.’
‘The king of Panchala manipulates cosmic forces in his desire for vengeance. The consequences will not be good,’ said Mandavya.
‘I agree,’ said Shilavati. Her father always told her that in crisis change your mind, not the world. Its easier. Simpler. Safer.
As ruler, Shilavati was responsible for ensuring everybody followed varna-ashrama-dharma and conducted themselves in accordance with their station in society and stage in life. She was constantly in touch with the elders of the four varnas making sure that all was well in the kingdom. That wealth poured inwards, not outwards. That there were enough lakes and tanks in the villages so that one did not depend on the whimsical rains. She organized festivals and fairs around Ileshwara at different times of the year, attracting more pilgrims and with them more wealth. She resolved conflicts between the varnas and received envoys of neighbouring kings. All those who came to the palace, were looked after by the royal mother. Vast amounts of food were cooked in the royal kitchens to feed them.
Had it not been for Shilavati, this small principality would have been swallowed by neighbouring kings as soon as her husband died. She secured the kingdom’s boundaries by allowing the royal horse of rival kings ride through her kingdom when they performed the Ashwamedha sacrifice, a gesture that symbolically expressed her submission to the horse’s master. This allegiance to multiple kings ensured no one claimed exclusive rights over Vallabhi, for while the kings were not afraid of a widow-queen, they were wary of each other. Shilavati was left alone provided she paid them a handsome tribute once a year.
Vallabhi could afford these tributes. The peace that followed Shilavati’s policy of submission had made it prosperous. No sugarcane harvest on the banks of the Kalindi was ever destroyed by marauding armies. Caravans of traders and pilgrims on its highways, making their way to the many festivals and fairs organized by Shilavati, feared no attack. The granaries of Vallabhi overflowed with grain. Stables were full of cows, horses and elephants.
When Brahmanas complained that peace and submission was making the warrior clans restless, Shilavati addressed the Kshatriya elders, ‘Kingship is not about winning wars. It is about maintaining order. Order is dharma and dharma is Vishnu. Vishnu holds in his hands not only the conch-shell trumpet of war but also the lotus of diplomacy. Diplomacy has served us well. It may not have brought glory but it has brought stability. In Vallabhi, Vishnu does not ride the hawk of war; he reclines in peace on the serpent of time. At his feet, seated on the lotus of diplomacy, is Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune, blessing us all.’
The Kshatriyas agreed.
Shilavati told her son, ‘If you want Lakshmi to follow you, be a Vishnu. Do your duty. Don’t run after glory.’
Yuvanashva obeyed.
mother
Ideally, at the age of seven, a prince is sent to the hermitage of an Acharya where he is educated with Kshatriyas and Brahmana boys his age. There he stays, serving his teacher, living and learning with him all year round, returning home only during the rains. But Shilavati broke from tradition. She appealed to Mandavya, ‘He is the last of the Turuvasus. I don’t want him in any danger. I don’t want him out of my sight.’
And so all the best of the Acharyas in and around Vallabhi were invited to the palace to educate the prince. A new section was added to the palace to serve as the royal school. To give the prince company, young Kshatriya and Brahmana boys were invited to stay with him. Their families agreed willingly. Amongst them was Vipula, Mandavya’s son, who became Yuvanashva’s best friend.
Every day, the prince was encouraged to run, wrestle, lift weights, climb on poles, regulate his breath, make his limbs nimble by performing asanas. Masseurs were engaged to relax his tired limbs, to make his bones strong and joints flexible. At dusk each day, the Veda was chanted in his presence so that the potent power of the hymns shaped his thoughts. He was taught how to string a bow, shoot arrows, use the spear and the sword. He learnt to wrestle and ride chariots and fight with the mace. Acharyas were appointed to teach him statecraft and economics and politics. He was also taught to appreciate the arts, music and painting, the smell of fragrances, the flavour of food. ‘The future king must know the importance of dharma. Of rites, rituals and rules. He must also appreciate the value of sensory delights. For what is life without indulging the flesh,’ said his teachers.
Every evening, Yuvanashva would go to his mother’s chamber to eat. Shilavati preferred cooking for her son herself. Her maids cut the vegetables, cleaned the grains, washed the meat and prepared the spices but it was she who did the cooking. Boiling, frying, roasting, steaming. A delight for her son every day.
Yuvanashva would refuse to eat alone. ‘You must eat with me mother,’ he would say.
A plate of gold would be kept before the prince. A banana leaf before the queen. When Yuvanashva asked why, the maids replied, ‘Your mother has no husband. She must eat simply.’
‘But my mother is queen. She must eat like one. Get her a plate of gold.’ The prince had spoken. A plate of gold was brought and Shilavati ate from it. ‘And yo
u will eat meat and fish and all the wonderful things you cook for me,’ he ordered his mother.
Shilavati hugged Yuvanashva. ‘I would love to. But it burns my stomach. I prefer fruit and water and some rice with milk,’ she said. A lie. Because she yearned for meat and fish and the spicy dishes she cooked for her son. She kept away from them because they kept her awake all night and made her body ache with desire for the man who was now in the land of Yama.
Yuvanashva adored his mother. Every evening, after his meal, he would tell her all that he had experienced that day. How he had learnt to string the bow and how he learnt to stand up straight and throw a spear even when the chariot moved at full speed. Shilavati heard all that her son had to say. She adored him too.
In the tradition of her fathers, Shilavati would tell her son all that happened in court in the form of the riddles of the Sixty-four Yoginis. Story after story. Riddle after riddle. Some of his answers would make her proud, some would make her frown, some made her laugh.
‘How many of the questions do you know answers to?’ he asked her once.
‘Not all,’ she replied, caressing his head.
‘I think you know most. If you were a man, you would surely have been a Chakra-varti.’
Shilavati hugged her son. ‘Thrones are for men, my little king,’ she said, her heart brimming with affection.
Yuvanashva realized it pleased his mother when he obeyed her. So he obeyed her, doing all that she said without question. There were days when he wanted to swim, but he would stay in the palace and read aloud the verses from the dharma-shastras. There were times when he wanted to play the flute. ‘That’s not appropriate for kings,’ she would say. He would immediately put the flute down.
What made him most happy was the look of approval in his mother’s eyes. ‘What do you think mother?’ he asked when he released an arrow that struck its mark, the eye of a fish suspended from the roof.
‘Good, very good,’ she said. ‘But can you do it looking at its reflection in a vat of oil placed below as Arjuna did to win the hand of the princess of Panchala?’
‘Is it true that he shares his wife with his brothers?’
The news about the decision of the five Pandava princes to make Draupadi, Shikhandi’s younger sister, their common wife had spread like wildfire across Ilavrita. The women said, ‘How lucky she is.’ The men said, ‘She is a whore.’ Shilavati recognized it as a political move. Pandu’s widow, Kunti, in her foresight had ensured that the woman who could have pulled her sons apart by marrying one had ended up uniting them by marrying all. Sure enough, soon after their marriage to Draupadi, the five Pandavas were able to force their blind uncle and their hundred cousins to give them their half of the inheritance on which they built the kingdom of Indra-prastha. Draupadi had apparently told Kunti that if she wanted her to be woman enough to satisfy her five sons, her five sons had to be men enough to make her queen of their rightful inheritance.
‘Yes, his mother said that he should share everything with his brothers and Arjuna obeyed. Such a worthy son,’ said Shilavati, her voice full of admiration.
Yuvanashva struggled harder with the bow. Not to be as good as Arjuna but to be as good as his mother wanted.
‘The prince should be trained to yoke wild bulls too,’ said the Kshatriya elders. ‘The king of Kosala gave his daughter to the man who yoked seven wild bulls.’
‘Since when did Kshatriyas yoke bulls? That is the vocation of Vaishyas.’ said Shilavati.
‘Maybe the king of Kosala wanted a Kshatriya who was raised amongst cowherds to marry his daughter,’ said Mandavya.
Shilavati knew the council was referring to Krishna, a young Yadava warrior who was the talk of all Ilavrita.
The Yadavas were a confederacy of tribes who lived around Mathura, south of Vallabhi. Like the Turuvasus and the Kurus, they descended from Ila and Yayati. But they had no king. They preferred being ruled by a council of worthy elders. But the ambitious Kamsa, with the backing of his father-in-law, the mighty king of Magadha, audaciously disbanded the Yadava ruling council, declared himself the dictator of Mathura and killed all those who threatened his power. Krishna was Kamsa’s sister’s son. He was raised in secret amongst cowherds to protect him from his murderous maternal uncle. He had returned to Mathura a grown man, rallied his kinsmen behind him, openly challenged Kamsa’s authority, killed him with his bare hands and restored power to the Yadava ruling council. This had angered the king of Magadha who sent his vast army to destroy Mathura. The Yadavas under the leadership of Krishna fought back. After surviving seventeen attacks, the king of Magadha managed to raze the city of Mathura to the ground but the Yadavas refused to submit. They followed Krishna to the west across mountains and deserts and finally across the sea to establish a new home on the island of Dwaraka, which was now a flourishing trading port. The story of the Yadava uprising under Krishna’s leadership had inspired bards to compose songs that were now on the lips of every young man and woman in the land.
Krishna was related to the Kuru clan. Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, was his father’s sister. To protect the interests of his cousins, Krishna had helped the Pandavas build the city of Indra-prastha on their half of the inheritance. The Pandavas, in turn, helped Krishna avenge the destruction of Mathura and kill the king of Magadha. Krishna arranged to crown Yudhishtira, eldest of the Pandava brothers, king in the presence of all the kings of Ila-vrita.
It hurt Shilavati terribly when the invitation to Yudhishtira’s coronation was addressed to her young son. It reminded her that while everyone in Vallabhi treated her as a worthy ruler, for the rest of Ila-vrita she was just a king’s widow. Inauspicious.
the crows
It was when Yuvanashva was thirteen and whiskers of manhood first appeared on his face that Mandavya felt it was time he be crowned king. He advised Shilavati to conduct the ceremony at the earliest. ‘But he is incomplete. Let us get him a wife first,’ said Shilavati.
That was true. In Ila-vrita, men were considered incomplete unless they had a wife by their side. Without her, said the Rishis, they have no right to worldly pleasures. For she is the field of the next generation, foundation of a home. She is Lakshmi, container of pleasure, prosperity and power, who transforms a man into Vishnu—lord, king, controller, master of the world. For Yuvanashva to be Raja, upholder of dharma in Vallabhi, he needed to have a wife by his side.
But Shilavati was in no hurry to find a daughter-in-law. No girl was good enough to marry her son. ‘I will not compromise. The soil on which my son’s seed will sprout has to be worthy of my household.’
It was then that the Pitrs swept into her life.
They slipped into her dreams in the form of crows. Hundreds of crows. No, thousands. Descending on Vallabhi, perching themselves on rooftops and windows and flagpoles and gateways. Everywhere she looked she saw crows. In the gardens, in the inner courtyards, next to sacred ponds, in royal orchards. Covering the domes of every shrine, big and small, including Ileshwara Mahadev, blocking out the sky, the sun, the clouds. Cawing without a pause. A deafening sound. It was the shriek of the dead demanding they be heard from across the Vaitarni. They did not let Shilavati sleep. They reminded her of her duty as the matriarch of the royal household. ‘Don’t delay his marriage, Shilavati. If your son, your only son, does not bear sons, we will be trapped forever in the land of the dead. And it will be all your fault. You were stingy with your womb. Let only one of us pass. Now make your son our father. Or else we are doomed. Help us, Shilavati. Raft the Turuvasu forefathers across Vaitarni to the shores of a new life. You are our only hope.’
first wife
But getting a wife in Ila-vrita was not easy, especially for a prince. Men were invited by kings to demonstrate their worthiness in a tournament. The worthy ones were garlanded by the daughters. The unworthy ones had to resort to abducting girls or buying them. Such practices were permitted in Ila-vrita. For more important than the will of a woman was the desire of the ancestor.
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nbsp; Shilavati could have ordered her Kshatriyas to abduct a princess for him as Bhisma had abducted the princesses of Kashi for Vichitra-virya, his weakling of a brother. Or, with all the wealth at her disposal, she could have easily bought him a wife as Bhisma had bought Madri for Vichitra-virya’s son, Pandu, when his first wife, Kunti, showed no signs of pregnancy after marriage. But Shilavati liked the idea of her son being chosen. She told Yuvanashva, ‘Only Rakshasas abduct wives. Only Asuras buy them. I want you to be Gandharva, irresistible to your wife, as Vishnu is to Lakshmi.’
When Yuvanashva was fourteen, ready to step out of his teacher’s shadow, news reached Vallabhi that the king of Udra was organizing a swayamvara for his youngest daughter, the princess Simantini. Invitations had been sent to many kingdoms, including Panchala, Indra-prastha, Hastina-puri and Dwaraka. This made Shilavati anxious.
The king of Udra was powerful. That made his daughter a coveted prize for all the royal families of Ila-vrita. Shikhandi of Panchala would go to Udra as would the Pandavas of Indra-prastha and the Kauravas of Hastina-puri. The Yadavas of Dwaraka would send a representative too, maybe Krishna himself.
Shilavati wanted the princess of Udra for Vallabhi. Not to forge a political alliance but because she wanted a daughter-in-law, a wife for her son, a mother for her grandsons. A royal field that would nurture the royal seed.
Shilavati was relieved to learn the swayamvara did not involve an archery contest. Yuvanashva was a good archer, but no match for Arjuna. Simantini was to choose a husband from amongst the assembled kings and princes. Yuvanashva was a handsome boy, brown as the earth after the first rain, with sharp features and thick long hair, long limbs, lean muscular body, a broad chest, very much like his father and his grandfather. ‘But he is not as handsome as Krishna,’ said the bards, who had seen Krishna and fallen in love with him.