Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai

by Venketesh, R.

  ‘Ratan,’ he called out to his son, ‘I have a job for you. Borrow the horse from the soldier. You will need it.’

  The boy who had been looking longingly at the direction of the resthouse, turned to his father almost reluctantly. The old priest said solemnly, ‘You have to go and see the Rana.’

  CHAPTER 5

  A REVOLT QUELLED

  A few weeks after the first reports of the triumph in Lanka had trickled in, Vikrama asked for permission to return home. It had been three years since he had stepped on Pandyan soil.

  It was well-understood that only Vikrama’s planning and presence had ensured the swift end to a rebellion that could have dragged on for years. A quicker conquest always stopped the bleeding – both of the economy and of the sons conscripted into the army.

  Vikrama had sent a roll of palmyra leaves with his message etched on them. The prime minister had it placed on a stool next to the throne. When Kulasekharan walked in, he nodded to the prime minister to commence reading. Kulasekharan had already read the letter, but he wanted his nobles to know of Vikrama’s bravery too. The prime minister was a proficient orator and could vary his tone and volume based on the nature of each sentence:

  ‘I salute the monarch of Madurai, a representative of Lord Sundareshwara and his divine consort Meenakshi, as also their direct descendant who has divine blood in his veins. Your humble servant writes from the isle of Lanka, writhing under the force of Pandyan feet, whimpering for the mercy of His Highness. I have accomplished the duties you set for me in this land and beg your royal permission to return.’

  As soon as the declaration was read out, Kulasekharan’s face bloomed like a flower. He raised his hand to silence the prime minister. The Sinhala armies had emigrated en masse to the south and what little remained were a few mopping-up operations on the island. The king turned to his minister. ‘Inscribe a message for Vikrama commanding him to come over with the swiftest boat across the strait. And do not forget to put my royal seal on it.’

  The victor deserved a degree of personal touch. In an afterthought, the king added, ‘And don’t forget a welcome befitting a hero.’

  *

  And what a welcome it was! The capital was festooned with leaves and flowers and bunches of palm fruit and coconuts hung on the arches. At the portal of the palace complex beneath the welcome arch, the king waited for his brother, the hero of the Lankan expedition. As the gathered audience cheered on, the king hugged Vikrama when he alighted from his chariot. The two brothers then walked to the court followed by courtiers and the inhabitants of Madurai.

  The grandeur of the palace hall was enhanced, more by the smiles of a hundred courtiers than by the lamps. As the festivities continued, those who noticed Vikrama hunching in his seat remembered him striding tall into the battlefield when he’d left. A different man had returned from Lanka, one who was tired. It showed on his face.

  Many a poet had already formed rough ideas on the ballads they would present to the court next week. Cashing on the theme of the week could ensure rich gifts from the court and the topic this week was a hero’s loyalty to his king.

  But then, there was a shocking turn of events within a fortnight. The paeans of glory and courage that the poets had composed soon came to naught, because in a swift move Vikrama raised the banner of revolt.

  Kulasekharan was furious. Had he not proclaimed his brother’s loyalty just a fortnight earlier? ‘Hear, all of you,’ he had thundered with pride to the packed audience inside the regal hall, ‘my brother is the bravest in the country, my closest and most loyal ally, the staunchest subject of the throne of Madurai.’ The courtiers had nodded their heads gravely, while Vikrama himself had maintained a neutral expression.

  The king tried to drown the memories of his speech. Treason was a stone thrown at the throne and the reaction from the king had to be quick and the retaliation strong.

  ‘What does Vikrama know about fighting?’ he thundered to his generals, ‘this land is loyal to me. No one, not even his own shadow, will stand behind Vikrama.’

  But in a week, Vikrama’s shadow was fifty thousand strong.

  Kulasekharan had never been challenged before, not even when he had assumed charge as the heir apparent or when he was crowned. More than the shock of rebellion, it was the treason by someone who had been proclaimed his most loyal confederate just the previous week that hurt him the most. His serious error of judgement and misplacement of trust would certainly come up when supporters weighed Vikrama’s alleged disloyalty. That would determine on whose side the scales of allegiance would tilt. A king should not outwardly display his emotions, he thought. His royal training had perhaps been tarnished with time.

  The size of the revolt took everybody by surprise as the unrest spread like ripples in a windswept pond. Vikrama’s sheer magnetism attracted the cream of the army and almost half the officers. Several regiments owing allegiance to him rose in arms and imprisoned their commanders. The rebellion was so widespread that Kulasekharan realized it must have been planned in Lanka – which was why Vikrama had wanted to come back.

  The rapidity with which the revolt spread was an indication of the discontent in the country and the lack of intelligence reports on the preparations. Kulasekharan had preferred running the country from the palace, venturing out as little as possible. He had been seen by the populace only on festivities – his body bloated with disuse.

  Vikrama, on the other hand, seemed destined for the dais; he claimed the throne was his lawful right and legitimate privilege. Armed with the honour the king had just given him, he rode like the wind from encampment to encampment raising more troops. Soon, it seemed that the entire Pandyan empire, including many vassals, were united under his banner and all that the monarch held was Madurai.

  The empire was now a country under siege from within.

  *

  The students at the gurukulam cocked their ears to listen carefully. The reverberation of hooves on soft ground grew louder as the horsemen came nearer. The riders were wading through the river, avoiding the village and the bridge. Perhaps it was Vikrama, Veera and Sundar thought, and rushed out to greet him.

  The horsemen emerged from the dark. It wasn’t Vikrama, they noted with disappointment. Twenty riders trotted behind a leading stallion and waited. Three of them dismounted and their leader conferred with the guru. The boys were eagerly waiting when the guru sent for them.

  Rajadityan told the two princes with an ashen face, ‘His Majesty wants you both at the palace. You have permission to leave.’ Fear fleeted across Veera’s mind. Had something happened to his mother?

  ‘What happened? What’s the hurry?’ he asked with urgency. The guru turned away, reluctant to tell them the bad news. Veera turned to the group leader instead.

  ‘A war has begun,’ the man whispered.

  ‘With the Cholas?’ Veera inquired.

  The man swallowed, ‘No, Prince, it’s a rebellion.’

  Veera wanted to laugh. Now that Vikrama had come back from Lanka, any rebellion would be squashed like a bedbug under a slipper. He wanted to know who the poor devil was – who was going to face his death at the hands of his uncle?

  The man half-whispered the name and Veera shrank as if a boulder had been thrown at him. ‘It can’t be true,’ Veera whispered hoarsely. But the look on the soldier’s face confirmed what he’d just told Veera. ‘The king wants you back. We have brought two horses for you,’ he said firmly.

  The news spread through the school like wildfire and an uneasy silence enveloped the students. Vikrama had been friendly with most of them and their role model was now a proclaimed traitor. It would take a while to get used to it. The boys gathered in the darkness and watched the horsemen trot away with the two princes.

  On their way back, the horsemen paused once to water their horses. Veera was not hungry, and while the others ate their military rations, he asked the leader, ‘Where is Princess Meena?’

  ‘In Madurai.’

  Veera r
ealized his uncle had made a political move, not a personal one. He had not and would not think about taking the two princes hostages, not when he had left his only daughter in the king’s custody.

  The more he thought of it, the more obvious it seemed. Vikrama had earned even more respect with his Lankan victory and had grown in stature befitting only a king. There was only one piece of furniture that would make him comfortable now – the throne. And that had caused the conflict. Two swords could never fit in the same scabbard.

  The walls of Madurai fort were visible above the trees now. The road to the fort, built of compacted red earth, split into two and encircled the walls like a red serpent swallowing the fort. They had ridden all night. The horses had trotted in darkness as the king had forbidden the men to use torches. The riders picked up speed when they saw the walls. Those massive doors, with spikes attached to prevent elephants of the enemy from bludgeoning them, were closed. By now the boys had learnt that the spikes would not hinder the siege-elephants, which would have been liberally dosed with opium.

  Madurai’s walls were surrounded by a moat a hundred steps across. The earlier practice was to keep crocodiles in the moat, which were kept hungry for a few days and then pushed out when the invader waded through the stagnant waters. There were no crocodiles now. Much of the moat had silted up in times of peace and had not been dredged. At best, the moat could now only impede the progress of the invader and allow time for the besieged to prepare for an attack.

  The boys heard the gong from above. ‘Who is there?’ asked a voice. The prince wanted to answer, but the leader of the riders stated his name and those who were accompanying him. The drawbridge was lowered and a smaller gate within the larger one, through which only one person could enter at a time, opened. A flickering torch was thrust outside and a check was quickly done.

  ‘Welcome, princes,’ the man said, and hurriedly closed the gates behind them.

  Once inside, Veera noted that the main gate had been strengthened by planks of wood and blocks of stone. Dry mortar was kept ready to build a wall just after the gates. These idiots are overreacting, Vikrama would never lay siege to the fort, Veera realized. Vikrama was not a man of patience.

  They were produced before Kulasekharan once they reached the palace. The king seemed absent-minded, with more silver hair on his head than the last time Veera had seen him. ‘Ah, so you have got back safely. I did not want the rogue Vikrama to take you as hostages. That bastard wouldn’t hesitate to kill you,’ Kulasekharan announced grandly.

  The next day, Veera visited Meena at the first opportunity. Though they loved each other as the siblings they did not have, their conversations had become fewer as both had grown up. But now Veera wanted to see and comfort her.

  ‘I am so thankful for your visit, Veera. Nobody will even speak a word to me,’ she confessed. She was bewildered by what her father had done.

  *

  With the king locked up in his fort, Vikrama visited many parts of the country, exhorting the people to rise in the hope that dissidence would spur on rebellion and impel several battalions into mutiny. Both sides, Kulasekharan’s and Vikrama’s, had to constantly revise their list of friends and enemies.

  But as quickly as it had started, Vikrama’s campaign had slowed down. It seemed he had the energy to excite a rebellion but not the time, resources or energy to engineer a full-scale war. Vikrama had clearly failed to determine the pulse of the populace and the disposition of the army. He had also failed to distinguish between a short-term dissatisfaction and a deeper variety of dissent, one that could spur the downfall of a king.

  The main reasons were economic, however. Vikrama lacked the resources needed to maintain a sustained insurgency, which was needed to trigger a civil war. Rebels could not extract resources from the population, as it would alienate them.

  Gradually, the rebellion seemed to fizzle out. It was a classic case of the golden rule – one who has the gold makes all the rules. Kulasekharan, it seemed to Vikrama, was bound to win because of the power of Madurai and its wealth, which was in the hands of the king. The power of the city was what he had underestimated. Several Chola kings in the past had even changed their names to ‘Madurantakan’ – one who destroys Madurai – a title warranted by the fact they had conquered this city. Even its archenemies had understood the capacity and strength of the city. Though the leadership of the aged generals was ineffectual at best, the king had forestalled any rebellion within its walls. Kulasekharan held on to Madurai with an iron grip and that created the sanctity of his sovereignty. A monarch who held Madurai was the legitimate ruler, there was no doubt about that.

  Even the territories Vikrama had won were not substantive. Most of the minor battles had gone either way but had brought about a sense of shame and guilt among the rebels. Civil wars brought about by royal sibling rivalry divided the family as much as the country and created the trauma of pitting a brother against another in a killing frenzy. That was precisely what Kulasekharan had wanted.

  Vikrama had expected one major battle, which he would have certainly won. But Kulasekharan attacked him in half a dozen places. There were reports of skirmishes in several places with both armies engaging in hostilities on a daily basis. The populace, which saw the figures of the dead multiplying, was now angry with Vikrama for starting the war and destroying the prevalent peace. Soldiers from both sides openly wept when they found a friend or relative on the opposite side killed in battle. War was a grisly game and the king was winning.

  Kulasekharan ran a public relations campaign that painted an imaginative picture of the dire and dreadful danger to the country, which came from within and not from outside. Wars usually led to neglect and famines. Battle scars dotted farmlands and the countryside tottered on the brink of starvation.

  The resolve of the rebels was weakening by the day. Vikrama had by now accepted that he was not ordained for the throne, but wanted to go down in a flourish, exhibiting all his capabilities on the battlefield. He decided on one final battle – a do-or-die attempt – and gathered all his forces for a two-day march to Madurai. His intentions were clear. He would attempt to storm the citadel. If he defeated Kulasekharan in the battle, Vikrama stood a chance of taking Madurai in two days. If he didn’t, he was only hastening a defeat that would have ignominiously come a month later.

  When the news came that Vikrama had pitched his tents near Tiruparamkunram, the king knew, with a sense of finality, that he could no longer delay waging a battle himself. Preparations were soon in full swing, beginning with a solemn ceremony. The ladies of the palace performed an arathi with plates of vermilion-soaked water and burning camphor. The continuous knell of the temple bells announced the news that the king was leaving the city for the battlefield. With his head smeared with a liberal daub of vermilion, his crown and breastplate of armour shining in the sunlight and garlands around his neck, he spoke to the population before leaving. ‘I will fight the rebel,’ he thundered ‘as the lawful king. If I do not return’ – he gave a pregnant pause for men to gasp and women to weep – ‘I hope you will continue to fight for the rightful king.’ He paused halfway as the power of his own words shook him.

  The impact was no less on the audience. Kulasekharan was surprised at the vigour of his own words. Most of the listeners were crying, but Veera wanted to laugh. He had been allowed to attend the previous night’s war council and he knew that Kulasekharan was going to watch the war like any other spectator from the hills of Tiruparamkunram. If the tide turned against him he would rush back to the fortress, bolt the doors and await a siege. The fort was impregnable and any blockade could last a year.

  The armies stood half a mile apart. The various flags seemed like festoons on a festival day and the coloured uniforms and animals made the area look like a weekly market. It was a market indeed – a market for a place in history. The soldiers were restless, waiting for someone to make the first move. Almost every soldier had a brother in the opposite camp and their qualms were reflect
ed in their hesitation. When the sun came up, Vikrama’s army made the first move. He was attacking with the sun behind his back to blind his enemy. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. The roar of the two armies reached the hilltop where Kulasekharan waited, his horse saddled to get into the fort in time if the winds of war changed against him.

  Kulasekharan was playing a safe game. Vikrama would still need to capture the fort even if he won the battle, but it would not fall without a prolonged siege. Kulasekharan’s procrastination paid off its dividends. But he also had a masterstroke in mind, hidden away till he could use it. There would be no appeasement with Vikrama, he had decided early on, as that would be construed as a sign of weakness. Instead, he had sent an urgent messenger to the Cheras from the hill country, who had rushed several units of cavalry to assist the throne. While keeping the rebels guessing, Kulasekharan had built up his force. A Chera soldier would not have any qualms about killing the rebels, whereas a Pandyan soldier might see a compatriot or even a cousin on the opposing side. It was a masterpiece of strategy. Kulasekharan had finally shirked off the lethargy of a life of administrative chores and had woken up the warrior within him.

  In his push for legitimacy, Vikrama’s flags were embroidered with twin fishes – the traditional symbol of the Pandyans. Yet, he was surprised to find the frontrunners of Kulasekharan’s army carrying flags embroidered with bows, the symbol of the Cheras.

  Columns of dust rose from the feet of the soldiers and their horses like earthen pillars built to reach the sky. The uncertainty was unbearable as the king waited on the hill for the tell-tale signs indicating the outcome of the war. The battle lasted half a day, perhaps, and it was over almost as abruptly as it had begun. Most of Vikrama’s soldiers dropped their weapons when they realized the futility of fighting and surrendered, their feet rooted to the ground in resignation. Many fled in panic, tired of the whole business.