‘He killed Atharvan out of envy and jealousy; Kutsa due to his religious zeal; Vāyata and Aṅgiras to feed his need for power; and Veśa and the old man to keep them quiet. He tried to kill the courtesan for morality, and the queen and her unborn child in the spirit of bigotry. What this assembly does not know is that one night somebody tried to cosh me too as I was returning from the toilets. It must have been Bhārgava, though I can’t be sure. I did not want our guru to fret about my safety and stop me from investigating the murders.’
The guru and the others were shocked to hear this. Agastya especially looked scared. Vasiṣṭha said, ‘You took a big risk, my child.’
Sudās said, ‘What a complicated mind Bhārgava had! How devious!’
Kaśyapa said, ‘Yes, let us look at the motives. Let’s take the case of Atharvan. Atharvan was very good at the esoteric sciences, even better than Bhārgava. This is why Dīrghaśravas approached Atharvan first to cast the spell on the rival merchant. But true to his education, Atharvan refused to be drawn into such a scheme. This is when the merchant approached Bhārgava. Bhārgava was unhappy that he was the second choice. He was very jealous of Atharvan. However, he did the required job for the merchant. Can the merchant confirm this?’
The merchant said, ‘This is correct. I am not very proud of this.’
Kaśyapa continued, ‘After this, Bhārgava was worried whether our guru would find out. He had given strict instructions that the esoteric sciences should be used only for the general good. Of course, Atharvan knew about what Bhārgava had done. To add to this, around this time, Bhārgava had become an adherent of Varuṇa. Jaraduṣṭra had managed to convert him. However, since he was a student of my guru, he did not want anyone to know this. So many intrigues! Atharvan was a very strong proponent of Indra worship and he condemned Varuṇa worship strongly. Bhārgava did not like this.
‘He was very jealous of him because he was better than him in studies, he wanted to keep him quiet about something that he should not have done, but had done, and because he was philosophically against him. Bhārgava felt that these three motives justified killing Atharvan. That morning, Bhārgava mixed some herb in Atharvan’s milk. Bhārgava had become an expert at herbs and drugs. He was keeping and tending a garden that grew many herbs. The drug that was added to the milk must have been a sedative. A person under its influence is awake but does exactly as asked by others. He also won’t remember the experience later. When Atharvan came under the influence of the drug, Bhārgava asked him to walk to the rivulet, which the poor student did. Bhārgava followed him and was seen by my guru’s wife. The gatekeeper also noticed this poor student walking out of the gate with a dazed look.
‘Yadu saw Bhārgava come out of the gate. Vāyata had already started his esoteric sacrifice against the Cows’ Walk sacrifice by then. At the rivulet, Bhārgava was depending on the fact that the place was isolated and obstructed from view by bushes. Even if there were a few people around, they would not look at others relieving themselves. He must have instructed Atharvan to lie face down in the water, which the poor student did, under the influence of the drug. It was then only a matter of holding his face down till he died. Nobody noticed this. Bhārgava believed that even if somebody saw them, they would think that it was just two students fooling around.’
The guru asked, ‘What about the others?’
‘Take the case of Kutsa’s death. It was very convenient for Bhārgava when he was appointed the boy’s tutor.’
The guru squirmed when Kaśyapa said this. It was his decision to appoint Bhārgava as the boy’s tutor. Sudās was filled with remorse. He had left his ward at the mercy of a psychopath.
Kaśyapa continued, ‘One of his key aims was to convert the boy to Varuṇa worship. By then Sudās had declared open support for the Indra worship system and the queen, Menakā, and the old king, Turvaśa, were contemplating moving to the other side. As we know, Bhārgava had nothing to do with the kidnapping attempt. That was Menakā’s doing. However, the boy’s death was another matter.
‘I believe that the boy’s death was a mistake. Bhārgava was trying to convert him to Varuṇa worship. The boy was under the strong influence of Sudās and the guru. Bhārgava was trying to use drugs and other esoteric sciences to get the boy out of that influence and turn him into a Varuṇa adherent. When the kidnapping attempt failed and the queen was not able to get control of the boy, Bhārgava redoubled his efforts. That was when Bhārgava accepted the challenge by Vāyata as to who was stronger in influencing people. Vāyata said that he would attempt to convert the boy to Varuṇa worship and Bhārgava said that he would prevent this. But secretly, Bhārgava was also trying to convert him to become a Varuṇa adherent. Vāyata was a straight-forward man. He did not understand Bhārgava’s tactics. Bhārgava must have felt that Vāyata would reinforce what he himself was trying to inculcate in the boy.
‘The night the boy died, after the nursemaid left, Bhārgava took Vāyata into the boy’s room. There, when Vāyata went into meditation, Bhārgava mixed the herb in the boy’s milk. He must have told the boy that it was some medicine that was good for him. The boy must have drunk it without suspecting anything. However, my feeling is that Bhārgava made a mistake with the dose. Instead of having a sedated boy on whom he and Vāyata could work esoteric sciences to convert his mind, he had a dead boy on his hands. When Vāyata came out of his meditation the boy was already dead. Vāyata must have thought that he was sleeping. So, he left.
‘By now, Bhārgava was becoming more and more firm in his commitment to Varuṇa. He was becoming a zealot. As long as Jaraduṣṭra and Vāyata were around, he deferred to them, but he was eyeing leadership of the group. One man that stood in his way was Vāyata. As long as he was alive, Bhārgava would not get primacy in the group. So, Vāyata had to go.
‘That night in the castle, Agastya and I had gone to the gambling den. Bhārgava’s plans were slowly forming then. When we got back from the gambling den, I had troubled sleep. When I got up once, I saw Bhārgava coming out of the room where Jaraduṣṭra and Vāyata were staying. I did not think much of it then. My guess was that he had gone to meet Jaraduṣṭra to ask for a favoured place in the group. Vāyata may have opposed this. This might have strengthened his resolve to get rid of him.
‘That night, after talking to Bhārgava, Jaraduṣṭra and Vāyata went into deep meditation. It was not too much of an effort for Bhārgava to get an axe from one of the store rooms and hit Vāyata with it. One or two of the people said that they thought they saw Bhārgava creeping around in the quadrangle. I suppose he was trying to figure out how to clean up his hands. This was when I also saw him with his hands red.
‘For Varuṇa worship to succeed, he knew that he had to ensure the reinstatement of the king, Turvaśa, and his dynasty. This is why he tried to give an abortifacient to the queen. For one, if the queen miscarried, there would be no progeny. Also, as I mentioned before, he was bigoted. He was quite against the Dasyus. He felt that the Dasyus were inferior. This also worked against the queen’s favour in Bhārgava’s mind. He clearly did not want any half-Dasyu son of Sudās becoming king.
‘The old man in the castle had seen Bhārgava come out of Vāyata’s room after killing him. He was rambling about what he saw to many people, but no one took him seriously. No one except Bhārgava. He knew that if the old man kept repeating what he saw, somebody would start asking questions. He did not want that. It was an easy task to mix some poisonous herb in a morsel of food and give it to the old man.
‘When Jaraduṣṭra fled the kingdom, and with Vāyata dead, Bhārgava was hoping to soon stake his claim to be the Varuṇa group leader. However, he was still not prepared to do this till he had completed his study of esoteric sciences with my guru. So, he waited. Since he was not immediately ready, the Varuṇa group went ahead and announced another leader, Aṅgiras.
‘Meanwhile, Bhārgava tried to enter the queen’s room to see if he could get rid of her, but this did not succeed. My gu
ru had announced that there would be a debate between the Indra and the Varuṇa group. Bhārgava knew that if the Varuṇa group won the debate, Aṅgiras would get the credit and the group may continue having him as their leader and guide. Bhārgava did not want that to happen.
‘This was when the idea of getting rid of Aṅgiras came to him. And the ideal opportunity presented itself on the night I laid the trap for Veśa, Dīrghaśravas and Yadu. After he had failed to attack Ghoṣā at her house, he came down to meet us. He had asked Aṅgiras to come to the road that goes to the docks from the main road. Bhārgava must have asked him to wait well into the road, but he told us that he had told Aṅgiras to wait near the intersection.
‘By then he had decided that Veśa too had to be killed. So, when Veśa appeared as he was killing Aṅgiras, he was able to kill him too with the same stone. There was only one bloodstained stone near the bodies. If Bhārgava’s story was true, there should have been two stones.
‘At the sacrifice, I gave myself away when I looked at him. He must have realized that I was on to him. You know what happened after that. Bhārgava did not think that we would follow him so quickly since we were at the sacrifice.’
Sudās said, ‘What a cunning mind!’
Ghoṣā said, ‘I shudder to think that this evil mind was living among us.’
Vasiṣṭha answered, ‘Ambition mixed with jealousy has been the driving force of many a twisted mind. This boy had bigotry thrown in for good measure. A lethal combination.’
*
The consecration for the new year’s Cows’ Walk sacrifice session was starting with a new sacrifice master. Thus, the cycle continued. Year comes after year. The sun moves from constellation to constellation among the stars, goes from its southernmost position to its northernmost and then back to its southernmost. Based on the sun, the seasons change from winter to spring to summer to rains to fall and back to winter. People sow and reap their crops cyclically. The sun also brings about day and night and people sleep and wake up in response to them.
The moon and the planets also follow their own cycles. Based on the moon’s cycle, women’s menstrual cycles are regulated. The habits of animals, birds and fishes are also regulated by the sun and the moon. The positions of the stars themselves seem to change over time. Long ago, the star Jyeṣṭhā was much more north of the celestial east–west line than it was then. There is no doubt that hundreds of years hence Jyeṣṭhā would move to the south of the east–west line. They say that the whole universe is regulated on cycles that are much larger. There is no beginning or end.
Epilogue
One month from the start of that year, the princess gave birth to a healthy boy. There was great rejoicing in Parśuvarta as well as the Dasyu kingdom. This boy stood to inherit both the kingdoms.
Kaśyapa was happy that he could shed some light on the murders so they could all see this auspicious day. His esteem among his fellow students and others of the kingdom rose by great measures. His guru, however, told him very pointedly that he should watch his ego and not become consumed by self-importance. Kaśyapa, throughout his life, kept this advice of his guru in mind, but managed to steal a moment or two to beam with pride.
He finished his studentship with his guru two years later and learned all the esoteric sciences; he became an expert but was careful never to misuse these for any selfish reasons. Kaśyapa was appointed as Vasiṣṭha’s assistant to help him with his ministerial duties. He had no doubt that the king and the guru were influenced by his solving the murders to appoint him to this position. He did not marry or start a family.
The kingdom finally settled down and people were beginning to appreciate and believe the fact that Sudās had no role to play in the murders. The king’s quick and effective action against the local rebels and enemies ensured that no one would attempt to start any rebellion for a long time. His success in battle and his conquest of the enemy Aryan kingdom in that great battle had increased his stature among both the Aryan and Dasyu kings. He ruled well and wisely for thirty years. He died when he was forty-eight years old. The effort of ruling a large kingdom with its vassals had taken its toll.
Dīrghaśravas’s business flourished in a peaceful atmosphere and added to the prosperity of the kingdom. The commander served Sudās loyally till his death. His daughter was married to the son and heir of a vassal king of a large kingdom that Sudās had annexed in war.
Kaśyapa saw Ghoṣā a few times after he started helping at the royal palace, but since his official duties were taking up a lot of his time, he did not have much time to think about her. But he still cherished the few moments he had spent with her. He never quite recovered from the dream he had about her! After the death of Vasiṣṭha, he was made the chief priest of the kingdom, an office in which he continued for two years after Sudās’s son came to power. Agastya served as Kaśyapa’s adviser—his right-hand man—and later went on to become the chief priest of the western vassal kingdom, having lost his wife soon after he married her. He remained there till the day he died.
Kaśyapa eventually took to the life of an ascetic, at the age of forty-eight. He was ready to die. By then, all the others involved in the great drama of that fateful year had long died, except for Queen Jabālā. Sudās’s son received the best education a young boy of the warrior class could get. He learnt the sciences, mathematics, economics, language and debating. He was taught the art of warfare. Kaśyapa was one of his key instructors. He taught him all that his guru had taught him and also what he had learnt from his own experience. The prince was taught the martial arts under the supervision of none other than the commander himself. When he turned fourteen and entered adulthood, as was reckoned in the warrior class, the Dasyu king died and he was anointed as king of his maternal kingdom. Sudās too had left behind a stable kingdom with obedient subjects and vassals for him to take charge of.
Word had spread that the old queen, Menakā, had given birth to a boy in a faraway kingdom around the same time as Jabālā. It was certain that Menakā would have inculcated in him the ambition to conquer Parśuvarta. He tried to invade Parśuvarta twice when he was young but was defeated by Sudās. By the time Sudās died, the young prince was in the prime of his life. He expected another attack; the death of a strong king always throws up opportunities to test the resolve of the successor. The young king’s spies had recently reported to him that Menakā’s son was plotting a major invasion.
That was when Kaśyapa gave up on worldly life and became an ascetic. He knew that he had only a few days left to live . . .
Notes
1.Ralph T.H. Griffith (tr.), Rig Veda, Book 10, Hymn LXXXVI, Verse 1, (London: 1896). All quotes in the text, except Rig Veda 10.86.16 and Rig Veda 10.86.17, have been taken from this edition.
2.Rig Veda 10.173.1–2.
3.Rig Veda 10.173.4–6.
4.Rig Veda 10.86.15.
5.Rig Veda 10.86.7.
6.Rig Veda 10.86.17.
7.Rig Veda 10.86.16.
8.Rig Veda 9.112.4.
9.Rig Veda 10.86.6.
10.Rig Veda 1.42.1.
11.Rig Veda 1.42.2.
12.Rig Veda 1.42.3.
13.Rig Veda 1.42.4.
14.Rig Veda 1.42.8.
15.Rig Veda 10.34.1–4.
16.Rig Veda 10.34.6.2
17.Rig Veda 10.34.13-14.
18.Rig Veda 10.119.1.
19.Rig Veda 10.18.9.1
20.Rig Veda 10.18.11.2
21.Zoroastrian Liturgy, Yasna 46, Ushtavaiti Gatha, Verse 1. Note that ‘Ahura Mazda’ in the original has been changed to ‘Great Asura’ here.
22.Rig Veda 6.75.1.2.
23.Rig Veda 6.75.2.
24.Rig Veda 6.75.19.
25.Rig Veda 1.32.15.
26.Rig Veda 1.32.4.
27.Rig Veda 4.42.4.
28.Rig Veda 4.42.1.
29.Rig Veda 4.42.7.
30.Rig Veda 4.42.2.
Acknowledgements
The first person whose contribution
I want to acknowledge is my cousin, late Eledath Kapali, who gifted me Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s The Orion or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas. The book uses the eighty-sixth hymn of the tenth mandala of the Rig Veda, the Vṛṣākapi hymn, to buttress the evidence he gives for establishing that the Vedas were composed during the Orion period (that is, when the vernal equinox was in Orion). The clever way in which Tilak interpreted the hymn to derive a suitable astronomical significance gave me the idea to interpret the hymn as representing a historical event that took place in the ancient times. The story of Sudās, the first Aryan, resulted from this.
It took me more than twenty years to get this book into the shape that it is in now. In the early versions of the book, Sudās’s rebellion against the reigning king does not succeed. Neither does the religious rebellion succeed. I want to thank V. Umashankar (USV) for taking the effort to send this version to somebody he knew in a publishing house and following up with her. However, that did not work out. My friend, K.G.Y. Narayanan (KGY) also took an active interest in the book. He introduced me to some people he thought could help. Thanks, USV and KGY.
However, I still got nowhere with the publishing of the book, since it was not in suitable shape.
I then reinterpreted the hymn—I think that this interpretation is more meaningful—and changed a highly descriptive, almost documentary, style of narration into a more ‘dialoguey’ style. In this new version, the secular and the religious rebellions succeed and the reigning king is overthrown. I was then wondering how to get this published.
The First Aryan Page 27