Sugandhi Alias Andal Devanayaki

by T. D. Ramakrishnan

  One day, she proposed that elephants should not be used in the army. When she said that the elephant brigade would be a burden in future wars, everyone including the ministers laughed. Even Mahendravarman laughed at the absurdity of fighting a war without elephants. Unable to bear their mockery, Devanayaki left the assembly earlier than usual.

  When the other queens told her that she should focus on giving the king a son instead of interfering in matters of state, Devanayaki felt terrible. She didn’t know why she hadn’t conceived even after seven months of marriage. Why were the seeds that were being sowed refusing to take root? As it would be treasonous to blame the seed, everyone was blaming the field.

  Mahendravarman too was upset when he entered the bedchamber at night. He wondered whether he should follow Devanayaki’s advice or accept the words of those whom he considered his gurus. He didn’t show any interest in unlocking the chastity belt that night.

  ‘If Peruman was troubled by my words, I won’t come to the royal court again.’

  ‘No, don’t take such a decision. But be careful about your words. It is not easy to change military strategies that are centuries old.’

  ‘But I am concerned about your safety and the security of the country. The spies informed you just two days ago about a substance the Chinese traders have with them. It can explode like thunder. It is said to be made with coal and sulphur. If someone attacks us using such things, won’t the elephants run amok? Our fort is also not very secure. Proximity to the sea has advantages as well as disadvantages. We welcome visitors who dock at our harbour with open arms. An enemy can reach and even enter the fort without any trouble.’

  He pretended not to hear her. Suddenly, he got up to fetch the gold key and Devanayaki forgot everything else. They became En Peruman and En Paapa. When she asked why everyone blamed the field for remaining fallow, he did not respond. But when his eyes filled up, so did hers.

  The next day, he compelled her to go with him to the royal assembly. He explained to the court why Devanayaki had proposed removing elephants from the army. Everyone listened in surprise. But Devanayaki remained silent. Finally, yielding to compulsion, she spoke about her anxieties regarding security.

  ‘But Kanthalur doesn’t have any known enemies. Most of the neighbouring kings have trained at our kalaris. In places like Sinhala, most of the guards have been trained here.’

  ‘That is the biggest problem, Your Highness. Most of the neighbouring kings and their soldiers know where our kalaris and weapon storehouses are. They also know the locations of trade centres and the treasury. This is not an issue when these countries are on friendly terms with us. But if they turn into foes, then this will certainly become a problem. The Sinhala king, Mahinda, wasn’t very happy when he left after the wedding.’

  ‘En Paapa, how did you know this?’

  ‘After I started attending the royal court, I formed a small covert group of seven members. I speak here on the basis of what they have told me. Mahinda had wanted to buy five thousand of our soldiers. You, My Highness, refused and demanded that they be paid on a monthly basis. This irked him. Moreover, Mahinda is also displeased because my father refused his proposal for my hand three times. He presented us the necklace studded with nine gems only to display his wealth and power. When he entered the ship, Mahinda whispered that he would crush Kanthalur under his foot.’

  ‘Is this the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The assembly was in shock. They discussed defence strategies in case the Sinhala king attacked. Arrangements were made to move the wealth of the country to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. It was decided to call back all the Kanthalur warriors from Sinhala and to stop selling weapons to the kingdom.

  But they fought over a trivial issue that night. When she looked at a betel leaf after dinner, she had a vision: Rajaraja Chola from Thanjavur was moving towards Kanthalur.

  ‘Periya Koyikkan has also informed me about this. We have made arrangements to send four hundred cavalrymen and one thousand soldiers to Aruvamozhi. We have also sent messages to the Pandya king who is in hiding,’ Mahendravarman said.

  ‘Please don’t misunderstand me, Your Highness, but the Pandya king withdrew after being defeated in Madhura and sought refuge in Agasthyakoodam. How can he, who could not help himself, help us?’

  ‘Then whom can we turn to for help?’

  ‘I think it would be wise to attack the Cholas at Kongu Point after informing the emperor. When there is trouble in the north, they will be forced to move away from Aruvamozhi. We can keep sending men and ammunition to Kongu Point.’

  ‘You are right. Mahodayapuram is more secure than Kanthalur anyway. The enemy cannot reach it from Kongu Point easily. But our emperor isn’t that open-minded. He will say that we are burdening the empire with our internal problems. He only shows interest in collecting taxes every year.’

  ‘Kanthalur is a province in the Chera empire and you, My Highness, and the emperor are good friends. He even presided over our wedding ceremony.’

  ‘I had to pay him ten thousand gold coins and three baby elephants to ensure his presence. He even had an eye on your Arab steed, but I ignored it.’

  ‘So what is your decision?’

  ‘I am not going to beg for help. Kanthalur will face the enemy boldly – whether it is the Chola or the Sinhala.’

  ‘I don’t think it is an intelligent move. The Cholas have more men in their army and are better equipped. Their foot soldiers are strong. It will be difficult to win a war against them.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest we do?’

  ‘Why not a treaty? Isn’t it better to pay taxes to the valorous Cholas than to the cowardly, selfish Chera emperor?’

  ‘Devanayaki!’

  The sound of his voice sent shock waves over Kanthalur. She trembled in front of Mahendravarman when she saw the usually soft-spoken king burning with rage. It was the first time that he had addressed her as Devanayaki.

  ‘The kings of Kanthalur may lose wars. They may die on the battlefield. But they will never beg the enemy for peace when they have declared war. Any woman will compare her husband unfavourably with a warrior braver than him and may even want to sleep with him. That is the reason why I have locked you up in a chastity belt.’

  Consumed by anger, Mahendravarman swept out like a hurricane from the bedchamber. Devanayaki spent a sleepless night weeping. None of the queens came to offer solace. The king came to her room just before dawn. Devanayaki fell at his feet. She was so full of sorrow that she couldn’t find the words to ask forgiveness. At that time, the Chola army was approaching Aruvamozhi like a turbulent sea.

  The next morning, immediately after the court had assembled, a messenger from Rajaraja Chola arrived. When Mahendravarman read the missive written on deer skin, he trembled with rage. The message said that the Chola empire would annex Kanthalur and that they would take care of everything without collecting taxes for a period of three years. They would also rename the harbour Rajaraja Cholapattanam.

  Mahendravarman ordered the messenger’s head to be cut off. He shouted, ‘Who gave them the right to do this?’ But Devanayaki stopped him. She reminded him that messengers should not be killed, punished or humiliated. Still, the messenger was stripped naked, tonsured and pushed into Agasthyakoodam.

  That was Mahendravarman’s greatest folly. Accusing Kanthalur of humiliating their messenger, the Chola army attacked Kanthalur on the fourth day.

  It was the bloodiest attack in the Chera–Chola war. Over twenty-one days of battle, the Chola army succeeded in destroying Kanthalur’s defences step by step. By the afternoon of the twenty-first day, they had besieged the city from all sides. The surviving Kanthalur army was trapped. Mahendravarman, who was riding an elephant, was captured alive. They refused to end the war, and killed soldiers and civilians indiscriminately. They set fire to trade centres, houses and ships anchored in the harbour. They looted the city and raped the women, not sparing young or old. The Cholas used fire as a m
ajor weapon in the battle. As their spies knew exactly where the army chieftain’s house and the kalaris were located, they burnt them all down. They only spared the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple and the Vedic schools that lay beyond the Thiruvaiga. Finally, when they broke down the entrance to the fortress, fewer than a hundred women and children remained alive.

  5

  Later, different stories were narrated about the aftermath of the battle. The most popular one is attributed to Periya Salai, where it was firmly believed that Devanayaki had divine powers.

  On the twenty-first day of the war, when it was certain that Mahendravarman would lose, she made her way to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple using secret underground passages. Praying to the Lord to save her husband, she sang the Thiruppavai and danced until dusk. When, at last, she finally fell before the deity, a divine glow enveloped the temple and she became one with Lord Padmanabha. It was then that the marauding Chola army reached there, after having hanged Mahendravarman. But seeing the bright glow that surrounded the temple, they turned back without crossing the Thiruvaiga. Even her body was not seen after that. It was believed that this was how Devanayaki became Goddess Devanayaki.

  They worshipped Devanayaki, who was as proficient as Goddess Saraswathi in music, dance and the scriptures. A beautiful temple was built for her at the point where the Thiruvaiga emptied itself into the ocean. All the idols in this temple were in the female form. Even Lord Ganapathi was in the female form of Vigneshwari. During the Panguni festival, the idols of both Lord Padmanabha and Saraswathi were bathed in the sea. In the fourteenth century, due to some natural disaster, the Thiruvaiga changed its course and, as a result, the Saraswathi temple was submerged. For a long time, the people of Periya Salai conducted music festivals and scholarly meetings in Devanayaki’s memory, which later came to be known by different names. Slowly, Devanayaki, like Kannaki, became a part of the Arya Devi myth.

  Another story was that the temple guards mistakenly assumed that Devanayaki had died. They took her unconscious body in a carriage and discarded it in the forests near Malayam. They planned to rob her jewels and bury her in the forest. As they were removing her ornaments, they felt a great lust rising within them and decided to violate her corpse. As they were cutting through her chastity belt, she woke up and cried out loud. Hearing her cries, a sanyasi called Thanumalayan came there. The soldiers panicked when they saw him and, gathering her ornaments, got into the carriage and fled.

  Though he belonged to the marginalized community of Kuravas, the sage hailed from the family of the great Agasthya. Thanumalayan, who had prayed to the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva and gained miraculous powers, had foresworn marriage. Thinking that the naked body belonged to a nymph who had come to distract him from meditation, he cursed Devanayaki with losing her memory. Though his curse wiped out her past, Thanumalayan found that he still could not meditate. Unable to control his lust, he took her to his ashram. His celibacy ended that day. On her body, he tried out practices of tantric sex he had only read about. Though she was disgusted by the ageing body of the short-tempered sanyasi, his expertise in bed gave her so much pleasure that his physical appearance became unimportant. As Thanumalayan emerged from the river after his bath with mixed feelings of pleasure and guilt swirling within him, he heard a disembodied voice:

  ‘Don’t be upset. Your divine powers are intact. Goddess Parvathy has blessed you. The position of a grihastha-ashrami or householder is higher than that of a bachelor. The rituals of a wedding are irrelevant now. Bathe in the holy waters of Suchindram, pray to Lord Siva and assume the role of a husband. You will be blessed with prosperity and happiness.’

  Devanayaki too heard the divine voice. Her guilt at having disrupted the sage’s austerities disappeared. She took a dip in the Thiruvaiga, adorned her hair with flowers and touched the sage’s feet. She was upset that she couldn’t remember her past. But for the sage, she was Goddess Parvathy incarnate. He chanted a shloka:

  The earth placed in the muladhara, water in the manipura,

  Fire in the svadhishthana, air in the heart, and space above.

  Placing the mind between the brows and breaking through the kula-path,

  You sport with your Lord secretly in the thousand- petalled lotus.

  Unable to complete it, he gathered her in his arms. Though she didn’t understand the meaning, she stood in his embrace with piety.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘It is the Soundarya Lahari – Shankaracharya’s verses in praise of the goddess. I will teach you all this later. What is your name, my beauty?’

  ‘I don’t know. You erased my memories.’

  ‘That was a grave error. I cannot return what I have taken away.’

  ‘It is not anger alone that you can’t control. What about last night?’ She smiled knowingly, disarming him.

  ‘Yes, I lost control. Pardon me if I hurt you.’

  ‘Please don’t say that. You gave a hundred times more pleasure than pain.’

  ‘You too gave back more than what I gave you.’

  She lowered her head, feeling shy. He too felt embarrassed. As they rested after prayer and lunch, he advised her on how a sage’s wife should behave. She listened attentively. ‘If I meditate, will I too be able to speak to the gods like you?’

  ‘Chastity is the best form of prayer for a woman. If you are chaste, the gods will bless you. If you call them in your hour of need, they will come to your rescue. Tomorrow morning, we will leave for Suchindram. As the country is at war, we have to be very careful. We must disguise ourselves. Wear clothes that will conceal your beauty. If anyone asks, tell them we are sages from the Himalayas. From today, your name is Anasuya – she who is without envy – that is the quality most desirable in a woman. May the trinity bless you.’

  She liked her new name. They started on the journey early next morning. Covering her head with a tattered garment, resembling an aged sanyasin, she followed Thanumalayan. During the course of the journey, he spoke about himself. She listened in wonder to his story. Though Thanumalayan had been born in the Kurava community, he had attained knowledge from gurus who meditated on the Himalayas. And after three years of meditation in Agasthyakoodam, the trinity finally appeared before him.

  ‘What was the boon they granted you?’

  ‘Though it is a secret, I will tell you about it, as a man is not supposed to keep anything from his wife – I can wish for anything to happen, but I cannot reverse it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you wish for us to reach Suchindram without undergoing this arduous journey?’

  ‘That is the difference between a sanyasi and an ordinary mortal. A sanyasi will never use his abilities for himself. The fact that I cursed you and erased your memory is unpardonable. I have married you as penance.’

  ‘Oh! I thought it was because you liked me.’

  ‘Of course, I liked you. But this was the reason why I married you.’

  ‘I can’t understand what you are saying.’

  ‘If you live with me for a while, you will begin to understand.’

  The journey, which took four days, passed without any mishap. Though the Chola soldiers returning with their loot stopped them, they were allowed to move on. They heard stories that Mahendravarman had been hanged and that the Chola army could only lay their hands on one-tenth of the wealth of Kanthalur. Anasuya, who had lost her memory, had no interest in these matters. She didn’t even realize that it was her they were talking about when they spoke of how seven of Mahendravarman’s queens had committed suicide by jumping into the fire, and how the soldiers had searched in vain for the beauteous eighth queen who had somehow managed to escape. When Thanumalayan jokingly asked, ‘Are you the eighth queen?’ she laughed and said, ‘You have high hopes.’

  But she was shocked when, after she had a bath in the temple pond in Koteshwara, the women there remarked upon how beautiful she was.

  They bathed in the holy waters of Suchindram, cleansed body and mind, and entered the
state of marriage. Obeying someone’s orders, the village elders had arranged an ashram for them. The people welcomed the couple who were graced with divine blessings. They happily started their life together at the ashram. Soon, the ashram became a nerve centre for intellectuals. Anasuya welcomed everyone with respect and served food to the guests. She was the perfect wife. After bathing at dawn, she would wake the sage by touching his feet. She took care of his needs all day long. She accepted his opinions without question. She would not venture out without him, whether it was to the temple or to the street outside the house. She always walked behind him. She never looked at another man. Before lunch, she would wash his feet and drink the water. She waited for him to eat and would eat only what was left over. When he fell asleep after pleasuring her, she would touch his feet before sleeping. It is said that Lord Siva told his wife to emulate Anasuya in order to become the perfect wife.

  But Thanumalayan’s transition from a state of renunciation to one of material pleasures was quick. When he started teaching language, grammar and medicine to children, his fame as a teacher spread far and wide. The students gave him money and jewels in return for his knowledge. He accepted everything for Anasuya and their unborn son. He had to build rooms nearby for his disciples to stay in. The ashram turned into a small palace. They became prosperous. But the sage did not become vain, because he attributed all his prosperity to Anasuya’s luck. Soon, she gave birth to a baby boy.

  Through his disciples, the world came to know that Thanumalayan’s wife was beautiful and that she had recently given birth to a child. After months of effort, the spies of the Chola emperor discovered that Anasuya was none other than Devanayaki. The emperor commanded Thanumalayan to come to the royal court and, at the same time, he reached the ashram disguised as a sage. Thanumalayan had told Devanayaki that her chastity would protect her. When the emperor reached their ashram in the guise of a sage, Devanayaki was breastfeeding her baby. She welcomed the sage and began preparing food for him.