Son of Bhrigu

by CHRISTOPHER C. DOYLE

  Satyavachana.

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Conversation with a Maharishi

  The Cottage

  Satyavachana’s first words came as a surprise to Maya.

  ‘Yes, I am Satyavachana. I have been waiting for you,’ he said, looking straight at her, though Maya was unsure if he could actually see her. ‘Sooner or later you would come. I knew it. There is still hope, then,’ he half mumbled to himself.

  ‘Come on.’ Satyavachana turned around and headed back to the cottage. Maya followed him. It appeared that the great Maharishi could see her.

  Inside the cottage, he sat down, cross-legged, on a low wooden platform, roughly built from planks of wood that had been crudely hammered together, placed on the dirt floor.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Satyavachana said.

  Maya looked around the room. It was bare, except for the wooden platform, on which the Maharishi now sat, and a second, larger and longer, wooden platform in another corner of the room, which she guessed was his bed. She wondered if there were other rooms in this cottage and what they held.

  Satyavachana gazed directly at Maya. He seemed to divine her thoughts. ‘Yes, I can see you,’ he said, waving his hands. ‘My yogic powers allow me to, both, see you and hear you even in your atmic form. Now, tell me, who are you?’

  Maya struggled to answer the question. In her spirit form, she didn’t possess vocal chords or a tongue to be able to create sounds to speak.

  ‘A novice,’ Satyavachana sighed, then looked at Maya curiously. ‘That’s interesting. You haven’t been tutored in atma travel. You’re doing this all by yourself.’

  Maya was shocked. This man seemed to be able to read her thoughts.

  ‘No, I can’t read your thoughts,’ Satyavachana said, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was responding to Maya’s unspoken thought. ‘As an atma, you communicate using your thoughts. So right now, your thoughts are as loud and clear as words to me. Only a powerful yogi would be able to receive your communication, though. And, if you had been trained in spirit travel, then you would know how to filter your thoughts, which would allow you to communicate only certain thoughts, while keeping the others to yourself. You obviously don’t know how to do that at the moment. Now, who are you? Definitely not the One.’

  ‘My name is Maya. I am the daughter of Maharishi Dhruv.’

  ‘Very good. You catch on quick. I knew Dhruv. I was sorry to hear about his passing on.’

  Maya was taken aback. ‘You know he is dead?’ How did this man get his news, living in a forest by himself?

  ‘Yes, I do.’ There was no further explanation forthcoming. ‘And you are here to seek my help, are you not? Where is the One?’

  ‘The One?’

  ‘Yes, the One,’ Satyavachana said, impatiently, ‘who will lead the Sangha against Shukra.’

  ‘Oh, Arjun. He’s back at the Gurukul.’

  ‘Hmmm. And where are the other five?’

  ‘The other five?’ Maya was puzzled.

  ‘Don’t behave like an echo,’ Satyavachana said, crossly. ‘The One. You. That makes two. Where are the other five?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ Maya said, bewildered. The thought that Satyavachana was too senile to help her came to her mind. She pushed it away instantly, as she remembered that she was communicating through her thoughts. She really had to work on this bit, if she were to truly master atma travel.

  ‘No, I am not senile,’ Satyavachana chuckled. ‘Old, yes. But I have my wits about me. And yes, you really do need to learn how to control your thoughts during spirit travel.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘So you don’t know. No one has told you yet. Hmmm. You said you wanted me to help you with something. What was it?’

  ‘I was told that you can help me translate some verses.’

  ‘That depends. I am a Maharishi, not a linguist, you know.’

  ‘They are in Brahmabhasha .’

  The Maharishi’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Brahmabhasha !’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you come by verses in Brahmabhasha ? It is a dead language.’

  ‘Yes. I was told by the Mahamatis and the Gandharvas that it was the language of the Devas, no longer in use. These verses are in a diary that belonged to my father, Maharishi Dhruv. I need to be able to decipher them. I think they may conceal clues that will help us find the missing parts of the prophecy and maybe even the weapons we need to defeat Shukra.’

  ‘So Dhruv did find the verses,’ Satyavachana mused. He perked up visibly and beamed at Maya. ‘Forgive me for doubting you, Maya,’ he said contritely, ‘but I was beginning to wonder if you had any connection with the prophecy at all. You didn’t seem to know anything about it and you seemed to have accidentally stumbled upon the secret of atma travel. But what you have just told me makes things very different.’

  Maya didn’t understand what he meant or how things were any different. As far as she was concerned, nothing had changed since the beginning of this very strange conversation.

  ‘I will explain later. And, yes, I can help you with the verses, though I cannot translate them myself. But first, there are things that we need to do.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Hang on a moment.’ Satyavachana rose and walked over to the wooden platform that Maya had identified as his bed. He lay down and closed his eyes.

  Suddenly, Maya sensed another presence next to her. Startled, she instinctively thought of the Gurukul and the safety it afforded and in an instant, she was back again in bed, in her room in the guesthouse, jerking awake as her atma re-entered her body.

  There was a knock on her balcony door.

  She sat up in bed, a sense of terror gripping her.

  Who could it be, on her balcony, at this time of night?

  Chapter Seventy-two

  Satyavachana’s Advice

  The Guesthouse

  Gurukul

  ‘Open the door, Maya.’

  Maya’s eyes widened in surprise. It was Satyavachana’s voice. But hadn’t she left him in his cottage in the woods?

  ‘It is I, Satyavachana.’

  Maya sat, frozen in bed, unable to bring herself to open the balcony door. How could she be so sure that it was, indeed, the Maharishi? She had read and heard enough about Shukra’s powers of illusion. What if it was the son of Bhrigu?

  The memory of the chanting of mantras at the boundaries of the Gurukul came to her and cleared the fog of panic and fear. The mantra was aimed at keeping the Gurukul safe. She remembered Jignesh’s assurance that even Shukra would be unable to penetrate the security offered by the mantra to the Gurukul.

  But, if it was Satyavachana, how had he reached here? If he was able to knock on the door, he certainly wasn’t here in his atmic form.

  The knock persisted. Maya had read enough stories in the ancient texts about the curses that Maharishis were prone to dispensing, if someone offended them. She didn’t want to be at the receiving end of a curse by someone who was supposed to be the most powerful Maharishi to have been born since the start of Kaliyuga. She sprang out of bed, afraid to keep the Maharishi waiting any longer, and flung open the balcony door.

  Satyavachana stood there, his eyes twinkling in the soft light, to Maya’s great surprise.

  ‘I’m sorry I startled you back at my ashram,’ he chuckled. ‘I will not enter your room. Come on out onto the balcony. We need to talk.’

  Maya stepped out into the balcony, enjoying the feel of the soft night breeze in her hair and on her skin. She realized what he was talking about.

  ‘It was you.’ She felt sheepish. ‘The presence I felt at your ashram. It was your atma. You startled me out of my skin!’

  An almost mischievous smile played on Satyavachana’s lips. ‘Actually, I startled you back into your skin, didn’t I? You aren’t the only one who is capable of spirit travel, you know.’ His face grew serious. ‘I want to show you something. If you are, indeed
, one of the Saptas , then it is up to you, and the others, to stop what Shukra has already set in motion. I can only hope that it is not too late. The Sangha , as usual, are navel gazing, and have no idea what is happening.

  The Saptas ? Was the old Maharishi rambling again? What was he alluding to?

  ‘I will return to my ashram now,’ Satyavachana told her. ‘Come back there in your atmic form as soon as you can. Do not tarry longer than necessary.’

  Maya nodded, but the Maharishi had already vanished. She looked around openmouthed. How had he done that? Had he even really been here?

  The urgency in Satyavachana’s tone had not been lost on her. She returned to her room, locked the balcony door and sat on her bed, reciting the shantaa-kaaram mantra, which she now knew, was the gateway to her ability to travel using her atma.

  Before long, she had dropped into a deep sleep and her atma was on its way to Satyavachana’s ashram, even though she still didn’t know exactly where it was located.

  Maya reached the little cottage and sensed, rather than saw Satyavachana’s atma .

  ‘It’s okay,’ Satyavachana assured her, hearing her thoughts. ‘You really can’t see an atma. You can sense it, if your yogic powers are sufficiently developed.’

  ‘But I don’t have any powers,’ Maya said, despondently. ‘I don’t even know if I am a sadh or not.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a sadh alright,’ Satyavachana said, cheerfully. ‘Everyone is. We are all born as sadhs . It is then up to us to become yogis or not. Or, as in the case of the Sangha , to become Rishis, Maharishis or Kshatriyas. True, our past lives do have a bearing on our circumstances of birth in our current life. But that doesn’t mean that our past lives determine the course of our present lives. It is our actions in this life that determine what we will achieve in this life itself. That is the law of Karma. A sadh can become a Rishi. Or even a Maharishi. Look at Visvamitra. He was a Kshatriya to start with. But a sadh, nevertheless. He never had the powers the Kshatriyas of the Sangha have. Yet, he became a Maharishi. And not just any Maharishi. He became a Saptarishi. He is a member of the current Saptarishi Mandal.’

  ‘But I can’t use any of the higher mantras,’ Maya responded. ‘I’ve tried and failed.’ As soon as this thought occurred to her, another thought flashed through her consciousness at the same time — the mantra that had enabled her to enter the Gandharva valley.

  ‘There you are,’ Satyavachana corrected her. ‘You were able to use one of the highest classes of mantras. One that can only be used by the most powerful Maharishis. There are just a handful of people in the Sangha who have the capability to do what you did.’

  Maya said nothing. She didn’t know what to think.

  ‘Give it time,’ Satyavachana urged. ‘If you failed to use a mantra, it wasn’t because you cannot. It was because you could not focus your mind properly. That is a sadh trait, the inability to remove all material distractions from the mind. When you used the mantra to enter the Gandharva valley, your mind was clear of clutter and free of distraction. Your entire being, your consciousness was focused on the mantra and what you wished to achieve. That is why you succeeded.’

  Maya thought back and realized that he was right. In the forest at Panna, when she had attempted to create a ball of light, her mind had struggled to focus. At the Pandava falls, however, her concentration had been single-minded and she had focused on entering the valley. She had wanted to enter the valley. She also remembered Jignesh’s words during her first lesson, about the difference between sadhs and the students at the Gurukuls. He had said exactly the same thing that Satyavachana was telling her now.

  ‘But there will be time to talk about this later,’ Satyavachana said, firmly but gently. ‘For now, we need to act, if all is not to be lost. I am now going to bind your atma to mine, so that you can follow me wherever I go, even if you don’t know where I intend to travel. I don’t want you getting lost in the spirit world. You probably haven’t realized, but Shukra now controls the spirit world. All spirits bow to his command as a result of a boon from Lord Shiva, who is the real master of the Bhuta gana . You have to be careful otherwise you will find your atma trapped, even while your body is alive, and you will become a vassal of Shukra, like the other spirits.’

  Before Maya could respond, she found herself being whisked away in a blur of motion. She had no idea of time or space, just a sense of being connected in some way to Satyavachana as he drifted at high speed to an unknown destination.

  It took just a few moments before the strange movement stopped. They had arrived at their destination. Maya steadied herself and looked around. She found herself gazing down on a sight that horrified her.

  Chapter Seventy-three

  The Search for Vishwaraj

  Day 12

  The Gurukul

  The day dawned with a surprise for the students of the Gurukul.

  ‘No meditation classes for a while,’ everyone was informed.

  Maya and Arjun had been the first to know, when they started for the Assembly Hall for their meditation classes. Jignesh had informed them, meeting them at the doorway of the subterranean assembly hall. ‘Mahamati Mahesh will not be in the Gurukul for a few days. Your classes will resume when he is back.’

  He had then led Maya away to begin his classes with her while Arjun left to join his uncle in the practice field for his own training sessions.

  As the day progressed and the news of Mahamati Mahesh’s absence spread among the students, everyone agreed that this was highly unusual. Added to that was the unexplained absence of Usha and Amba. Today, only Parth appeared for the combat practice session with Arjun. There was no sign of Amba.

  Not only was she missing from Arjun’s training sessions but her classes with the other Kshatriyas had also been suspended, as were Usha’s classes.

  The students were quick to connect the dots. With Mahesh, Amba and Usha missing, all at the same time, it seemed apparent that the three of them had left the Gurukul together.

  But that was not all. At lunchtime, Arjun searched for his mother, as was his usual practice, but he couldn’t find her.

  ‘Where’s Mom?’ he asked Virendra finally.

  Virendra mumbled something that Arjun couldn’t understand.

  ‘Come on, uncle, please tell me. I haven’t even seen her today.’

  Virendra took Arjun by the arm and led him aside to a corner of the mess hall. ‘She’s gone with the other Mahamatis ,’ he informed Arjun, his voice low.

  Arjun was mystified. The three Mahamatis leaving the Gurukul together was understandable. They could all be headed for a meeting of the Sangha Council. But his mother?

  ‘Where have they gone?’ he asked, keeping his voice low. From Virendra’s attitude, he could gauge that this news was to be kept confidential.

  ‘We received information last night that Vishwaraj has been located,’ Virendra told him. ‘They’ve gone to bring him in. They needed two Kshatriyas and two Maharishis. I would have gone, but your mother insisted on going instead.’

  ‘Who is Vishwaraj?’

  Virendra told him about Vishwaraj and Trivedi and how it was possible that Vishwaraj had a hand in the attack by Shukra’s monsters on the night of their arrival at the Gurukul.

  Arjun’s heart sank. If Vishwaraj was in league with Shukra, as the Mahamatis believed was possible, then he could be dangerous. Arjun corrected himself immediately. Vishwaraj would be dangerous. The danger of the mission was implicit in the fact that the group that had gone to fetch him had to include two Maharishis and two Kshatriyas. It was an acknowledgement of either Vishwaraj’s power or the possibility that he had reinforcements that would need to be subdued in order to capture the fugitive Rishi.

  And his mother was part of the mission. She had voluntarily put herself in great danger. A part of him swelled with pride. But he couldn’t push away the feeling of dread that had suddenly overcome him either.

  He had lost his father to Shukra. He didn’t want to lose his mother
now.

  Chapter Seventy-four

  Satyavachana’s Arrival

  That evening

  The Guesthouse

  The Gurukul

  Tiwari studied Maya’s face as he mused on what she had just told him. They were both sitting in the living room of the guesthouse after Maya had requested a private word with the Maharishi.

  Maya had been restless the entire day, earning a rebuke from Jignesh for not concentrating enough on her mantras. But how was she to focus on articulation and concentrate on the purpose of the mantras when her mind was driven to distraction by what she had seen the night before?

  The scenes of the roiling mass of dark shapes as they emerged from the immense hole in the ground, the light of the moon and the stars glinting off their black-vermilion hued scales, goaded on by none other than Shukra himself, were burnt into her memory. She had spent the rest of the night shivering in her bed, notwithstanding the fact that Satyavachana had spoken to her at length about what needed to be done to counter them, trying to calm her down.

  For, amid the general roar of Shukra’s words, one phrase had stood out. As Maya huddled in her bed, post her atma travel, shrinking from the thought of the monstrous creatures she had seen, the words echoed in her head, chilling her to the bone.

  ‘Destroy the Gurukul.’

  Maya didn’t have to guess very hard to figure out which Gurukul Shukra was alluding to. There was only one Gurukul where, according to the prophecy, his nemesis was being sheltered. It was clear that an attack on the Gurukul at Panna was imminent.

  ‘What you say is serious, Maya,’ Tiwari said, at length. ‘Why did you wait so long to tell me?’

  ‘I was afraid,’ Maya said, plaintively. ‘How could I reveal how I had come by this information without giving away the secret of my out of body experiences? And you had told me yourself that I should keep this secret to myself lest people suspect me of being linked in some way to Shukra. Besides, I thought that the Gurukul is protected by our mantra and cannot be overwhelmed by any of Shukra’s creations. So I can’t understand how Shukra could penetrate our security.’