Son of Bhrigu

by CHRISTOPHER C. DOYLE

  ‘Why? What’s in the diary?’ Virendra countered. ‘The first I heard about it was when Maya mentioned it.’ He was annoyed that he had not thought of looking at the diary when he had had the chance. He had been so completely occupied with his own thoughts and the things he needed to get done that the diary had slipped his mind.

  Mahesh closed the notebook with a snap. ‘Dhruv was onto something. We know he had spent many years, after Shukra’s reappearance in Allahabad, searching for the weapons that would thwart Shukra’s plans. It seems, from the entries in this notebook, that he had found something significant. Whether it concerned the weapons or not, I cannot say. But it had to be significant.’

  Jignesh held out his hand for the book and leafed through it.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Parth said. ‘If you know it is significant, why can’t you say if it concerns the weapons or not?’

  ‘Because much of the diary is in Brahmabhasha ,’ Jignesh said, slowly. ‘Dhruv mentions this quite clearly. He certainly found something that was important enough to copy and record. I don’t know where he could have come across any text in Brahmabhasha , but here it is. And I don’t know how he planned to translate these verses he had copied, but knowing Dhruv, he must have had a plan.’

  ‘Surely, someone can translate it.’ Virendra reached for the book.

  ‘No human can,’ Mahesh said sorrowfully. ‘This is the language of the Devas , the mother of Sanskrit. A language as ancient as Satya Yuga, not meant for humans to learn. We have no way of knowing what these words mean.’

  ‘Damn!’ exclaimed Virendra, having leafed through the book. ‘Why didn’t Dhruv tell me about this? And what’s the rest of the book about? The parts that you can read?’ His annoyance had changed to resentment that Dhruv had not bothered to share something as important as this with him.

  ‘Mantras,’ Jignesh replied. ‘All kinds of mantras. Looks like Dhruv was collecting them all in one place. It’s like a fairly comprehensive manual for mantras.’

  ‘What about the Gandharvas? Can they not help with deciphering the bits in Brahmabhasha?’ Maya spoke up and immediately regretted it. The forbidding look directed at her by Jignesh plainly said that this was a matter to be discussed only by the Council and she should keep out of it. She shivered inwardly and decided to keep her thoughts to herself.

  ‘The Gandharvas won’t help,’ Mahesh replied, kindly. ‘Only the Devas could have. And we cannot contact them any longer. Whatever Dhruv found, whatever he was trying to do, it’s lost without him. We can do nothing with this diary. It is useless to us.’

  ‘Can I please have it back then?’ Maya requested. She didn’t like what Mahesh had said. Her father had clearly laboured over this. To copy out verses in an unknown language, while ensuring that there were no inaccuracies, was hard work. She didn’t like it being dismissed as useless. If they didn’t value it, she wanted it back.

  Virendra held out the book. ‘Here you go,’ he told Maya. ‘Keep it carefully. It may not be of much use now, but you never know . . . ’

  After the two children had left, Jignesh looked at the other members of the Mahamati Council. ‘We don’t have much time,’ his face bore a troubled expression. ‘Even as we speak, Shukra must be amassing his forces and getting ready for a fresh onslaught. Kanak, you say that the boy does not need too much training. That he is almost ready. I hope you are right.’

  ‘I know that I am,’ Virendra said grimly. ‘You will see for yourself. I have not spent the last fourteen years in vain. I have done everything in my power to prepare the boy. He will be ready to face Shukra! That is my promise to you. But where are his weapons — the ones mentioned in the prophecy? We have spent fourteen years looking for them and what do we have to show for it?’

  ‘Finding weapons that disappeared over 5,000 years ago is no child’s play,’ Amba gently chastised Virendra. ‘And it is even more difficult when we don’t know what it is we are looking for. We have only been able to go through a few lakh ancient texts in these fourteen years. There are millions left. There just aren’t enough of us to search any faster. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack, only in this case, we don’t even know if it’s a needle we are looking for. Dhruv seems to be the only one who had made any progress, going by his notebook. And now, even that is of no help.’

  ‘Kanak speaks the truth,’ Mahesh said grimly, countering Amba. ‘The fragment of the prophecy that we possess does not tell us what will happen when the boy confronts Shukra. We have to equip him to be fully prepared when the time comes. No matter how skillful he is as a warrior, without the right weapons he will be ineffectual against Shukra’s powers. The boy needs weapons that are powerful enough to destroy Shukra. If we cannot find them, then the world is in terrible jeopardy. And we can do little to stop what is certainly coming.’

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Maya Reflects

  Maya’s bedroom

  The Guesthouse

  Maya lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

  After leaving the Council meeting, she and Arjun had eaten dinner in silence and then parted company. Both of them were weighed down and preoccupied after the discussion with the Mahamatis.

  Maya could guess what was on Arjun’s mind. It was all very well to talk about him being the heir to one of the most respected Kshatriya lineages in Indian history. But to live it was quite another thing. She realized that the responsibility and burden of it was just beginning to sink in for Arjun. It was a scary thought. He was just a fifteen-year-old boy. Her heart went out to him.

  She, too, had her own demons to confront. While she had been ecstatic about her prospects of becoming a Rishi, during the meeting with the Council, she really hadn’t realized the import of Usha’s words. She had been so swept away by the prospect of being welcomed into the Gurukul that nothing else had mattered. Now, as she reflected with a cooler mind, the realization dawned.

  Nothing in her fifteen years upon this Earth had ever indicated that she had the ability to become a Rishi. What if she didn’t have the yogic powers that were needed to make the cut? It was clear that there was no place for her in the Gurukul if she didn’t prove herself. Where would she go if she failed? What would she do? None of this had occurred to her at that time. It hit her now. Her future was as uncertain as ever.

  It also occurred to her that perhaps the Council had taken her on out of pity. An orphan, who had recently lost her father. The daughter of an important member of the Sangha . They were giving her a chance, not because they saw anything special in her, but because of who her father had been.

  And she resented that.

  She didn’t want pity. She didn’t need sympathy. What she really wanted was to prove herself. But the uncertainty, the fear of failure nagged at her.

  Added to that was the callous treatment, in her eyes, of her father’s diary. It had been dismissed as being useless. Maya bristled at the memory.

  But that discussion hadn’t been entirely fruitless, she had to admit. She had learned something new. The existence of a language not accessible to humans. The possibility that there was knowledge that even the Sangha , with their human limitations, did not know about.

  Before retiring for the night, she had spent two hours reading the diary. She had gone through it seriously for the first time, spending time on its pages, attempting to understand what it was trying to tell her. The last time she had looked at it, in Tiwari’s house, she had merely flipped through it in curiosity. Tonight, she had studied it. She wanted to know more about its contents, at least the bits she could understand. She had lingered for a while on the pages with the diagrams and sketches, trying to make sense of them, to no avail.

  She had examined every Sanskrit shloka. Every mantra.

  Her father had specifically asked her to take the diary with her. Why had he been so insistent? There had to be a reason. She tried recalling his exact words. His last words. What had he asked her to do with the diary?

  Try as
she might, she couldn’t remember her father telling her to give the diary to Virendra or anyone else. He had simply asked her to take it and run. Of course, he had instructed her to call Virendra. ‘Call Virendra. Tell him.’ That’s what her father had said. At that time, she had assumed that what he meant was that she was to tell him about the diary.

  And she had. It was the first thing that she had mentioned to Virendra when she finally got to speak to him.

  Now, it struck her that perhaps she had been mistaken. Virendra had shown no recognition of the diary when it was mentioned. He hadn’t even acknowledged it on the call. Even tonight, he had admitted that he knew nothing of what was in the diary. It was obvious, now, that her father had never mentioned it to him. He definitely had not intended her to give the diary to him.

  Then what had he wanted?

  Had her father expected her to be able to figure out, by herself, what the notebook contained and why it was significant? That thought seemed preposterous to her. Until tonight, she had no idea that a language called Brahmabhasha even existed. And even now that she had found out about it, there was no way to translate the sections of the diary that were inscribed in that language.

  Was it possible that her father had not told anyone about the existence of this diary? That seemed illogical. Why would he want his hard work to be consigned to the dustbin of ignorance? If he had worked so hard to put together these inscriptions, there had to be a reason. And there had to be someone he had shared this with, who could decipher it all.

  But who could that be? And how could Maya find out?

  Or was there another way of figuring out how to translate the contents of the diary?

  The maelstrom of thoughts in her mind kept sleep at bay. She sat in the darkness, unseeing, thinking, sorting out the strands in her mind. And she came to a conclusion. The only thing she didn’t know yet was how she would put it into motion. But she knew she would find a way. She would just have to keep trying.

  Now, as she tried to sleep, another thought troubled her. A thought that wouldn’t go away, however hard she tried. She didn’t know why it nagged her so much, but it clung to her mind, not letting go.

  Why had Shukra not appeared tonight? This would have been his big chance to achieve his objective. She had seen a demonstration of his power against her own father who, she now knew, was a powerful Maharishi. It would have been child’s play for Shukra to eliminate Arjun tonight, especially with the backing of his army of monsters.

  So why had he stayed away when his prey had been vulnerable and within reach?

  Was it possible that everyone was mistaken about his keen desire to kill Arjun?

  Was there something that everyone was missing?

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Gurukul Day 1

  Day Five

  The Gurukul

  ‘You have to understand,’ Jignesh said, ‘that this is a rather unusual teaching assignment for me.’

  Maya looked at him and nodded in acknowledgement. She knew what he meant. Arjun and she were the only students in the Gurukul who were not sitting in one of the classrooms, where all the other students got their instruction. At least for the foreseeable future, this anomaly would stand.

  In the morning, she had been woken up at 5.30 a.m. by one of the girls, a novice, who accompanied her to the Assembly Hall, where Mahesh was waiting to instruct Arjun and Maya in the science of meditation. The Assembly Hall had turned out to be the large, mysterious wooden building that had been shrouded in darkness, last night. The building consisted of a large subterranean hall, in which all members of the Gurukul would gather each morning to pray, meditate and chant mantras for a positive mindset through the day. There was also a smaller hall on the ground floor of the building.

  After the morning assembly, the students had dispersed to their respective classrooms, while Arjun and Maya had climbed the stairs to the hall on the ground floor, where Mahesh began their meditation classes.

  Both of them had been provided with special clothes — Maya, the white robes of the Rishis and Arjun, the silk uniform of the Kshatriyas.

  ‘Someone got all my stuff from the car last night,’ Arjun had whispered to Maya at the first opportunity they got to talk. ‘I wonder what they did with the Land Cruiser, though. I’m sure they wouldn’t have left it there to be found by the park rangers in the morning!’

  After their session with Mahesh, Arjun had left to join Virendra, for his first training session at the Gurukul, while Maya was led to one of the classrooms where Jignesh awaited her.

  ‘Let us walk around the Gurukul,’ Jignesh suggested after emerging from the classroom where he had just completed a class on mantras. ‘Have you had a chance to look around yet?’

  Maya was wary. Though Jignesh seemed quite warm and friendly, in contrast to the stone and steel exterior that he had exhibited last night, she wasn’t sure of him. Something in Jignesh’s tone last night had indicated to her that he didn’t approve of the idea of Maya enrolling at the Gurukul. Why he should have displayed such animosity was beyond her understanding, but she was quite sure that her feeling about him was correct. She decided to be careful and not get on his wrong side. He seemed to be the kind of person who would harbour a grudge.

  ‘Just a bit,’ she replied. It was only in the daytime that the true size of the campus had become apparent to her. Last night, all that Maya could see were the cottages lining the central avenue that terminated at the Assembly Hall. Today, she had learned that these brick and thatch cottages, quaintly rounded in shape, housed the dormitories for the students.

  Behind and beyond the dormitories were the residential cottages for the teachers, the communal dining room where all the students had their meals, the sick bay and the guesthouse, where the group from Delhi was housed.

  All the buildings had been cleverly woven into the tapestry of the forest that sprawled on this side of the hill. Except for the central avenue, which was bereft of trees, the entire Gurukul was a mass of foliage. Another reminder that they were in the middle of a forest — an impression that was easily dispelled by the artificial lights and the density of humans that she had witnessed last night — was the presence of sambar, chital and nilgai, wandering around with no fear of the humans who lived here. It was an amazing sight.

  Maya had caught just a glimpse of the campus that lay beyond the Assembly Hall, as she walked down to meet Jignesh. The previous night, it had seemed that the campus ended at the Assembly Hall. In the morning light, she was amazed to see how it stretched out, beyond and away from the Hall, though her view was restricted by the cottages housing the classrooms that were lined up along a second central avenue; a mirror image to the layout on the other side of the Assembly Hall.

  ‘Well, then, we’ll just saunter around and talk,’ Jignesh replied.

  So, here they were, walking down the central avenue with the classrooms on either side. Through the closed glass windows, Maya could see the students sitting inside attentively listening to their instructors.

  ‘The cottages are air-conditioned,’ Maya noted with surprise. It hadn’t occurred to her last night when she had slept in an air-conditioned room. This was the last thing she had expected to find here, especially in the middle of a forest.

  ‘We live in the 21st century,’ Jignesh smiled, ‘not the Vedic Age. As you will see shortly, one section of the campus is dedicated to an array of solar panels, which powers most of the electricity requirements of the Gurukul. And, in case you haven’t noticed, every cottage has its own solar power generator.’

  They came to the end of the central avenue. Maya gasped at the view that greeted her eyes. It was breathtaking. This was where the heart of the Gurukul lay.

  On one side, the river Ken flowed past the campus, hidden from her eyes by a border of trees thickly closeted together, forming a natural barrier that stretched from the hill behind the Assembly Hall to the point where the river curved away from the Gurukul. The border of trees hid the cottages from anyone c
ruising down the river, though she could see the river through gaps in the trees, the sunlight twinkling off the swiftly flowing water.

  Maya realized that this was the entrance that Virendra had been aiming for, before the appearance of the spirits forced him to change his plans.

  In the shadow of the forest that lined the river was a vast, open field that served as the training grounds for the physical exercises of the Kshatriyas. At the moment, there were only two figures in the grounds — Maya guessed it was Arjun and Virendra, engaged in their training session.

  On the opposite side, was another vast stretch of open space, bereft of trees.

  ‘That’s where the Rishis practice the application of their powers,’ Jignesh told her. Maya wondered what kind of application was practiced in the open, but didn’t ask.

  Beyond the practice field of the Rishis, lay another vast, dark, forest that seemed to stretch until the horizon, its trees tightly packed together, making the forest look like it was shrouded in a blanket of darkness even in the daytime.

  ‘And that’s the Dandaka forest,’ Jignesh pointed out. ‘Or what’s left of it.’

  Maya recognized the name. This was the forest mentioned in the Mahabharata, and referred to in more detail in the Ramayana. It was in this forest that Lord Rama, with Sita and Lakshmana, had spent most of his years of exile. It was from this forest that Sita had been abducted by Ravana. And it was in this forest that Lord Rama had killed Rakshasas. She remembered reading that it was a vast forest that had spread across most of central and south India. From Jignesh’s words, she concluded that the forest had shrunk over the centuries and diminished until this was all that was left of it.

  ‘The forest is out of bounds for students from the Gurukul,’ Jignesh informed her sternly, emphasizing the restriction. ‘No one can go in there. But if any student even attempts to enter the forest, we will get to know immediately. And there will be consequences.’

  Maya wondered why he was being so emphatic in his warning. Had students transgressed before this? Or did Jignesh suspect that Maya would try and enter the forest? On her part, she had no desire to go into the forest, which looked decidedly uninviting.