A Mauryan Adventure

by Subhadra Sen Gupta

  By now Madhura’s mind was buzzing with questions. What was going on here? Suddenly Kartik and Tilaka were working together and they were clearly not in the business of selling cloth or pottery at Vidisha because the goods were to be delivered to some shops in Ujjaini. Also, her mother was not very surprised at his words which meant she clearly knew what he was up to. Then she remembered the palm leaf pages that Kartik was reading that night and the piles of silver and gold pana coins gleaming in the lamp light. She had to find out what was going on.

  ‘You are very quiet,’ Kartik gave her a piercing look.

  ‘I’m in a quiet mood,’ declared Madhura with a superior sniff.

  ‘Really? That has never happened before!’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  As Tilaka got up to leave, Kartik went to see him off and Madhura crept up to the door and peered out. It was late and the courtyard was empty, bathed in silvery moonlight with deep shadows under the tree in the middle. Tilaka and Kartik were standing there talking in low tones, and even though Madhura craned her neck and perked up her ears, she couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t get any closer either because if she moved out of the room they would see her.

  Behind her she heard her mother lie down on the mattress on the floor and wrap a cotton quilt around herself. ‘Madhura, come to bed.’

  Kartik entered the room, a tall shadow against the glow of the dying kitchen fire, and Madhura said, ‘Bhai, do you work for the king?’

  He stood still as if surprised by her question, and then turned and asked casually, ‘What king?’

  ‘You say you are a trader but I have seen Tilaka give you a bag of coins in Pataliputra.’ Kartik was staring at her, and their mother was now sitting up. ‘You told Amma that you had to obey the orders of the king. Then one day I thought I saw you go into the palace with the red pillars, but Amma said I was mistaken. Today Tilaka said that the king trusts you. Bhai, what do you do?’

  ‘You saw Tilaka in Pataliputra?’

  ‘Yes. I was sitting in Ranju’s house and I saw him talk to you.’

  ‘Kartik, I think you have to tell her,’ Ganga said quietly. ‘She’s family and she is old enough to understand.’

  Kartik sat down beside her and ruffled her curly hair, ‘I forget you are growing up. How did you find out all this?’

  ‘I’m your sister, I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll tell you everything but you have to promise you’ll never talk about this to anyone—not to Ranju or even the princess . . .’

  ‘Of course not, I promise.’

  ‘I’m not a trader. I am a spy, I am called a Cara and Tilaka is my officer. I report to him.’

  ‘A SPY?!’ Madhura sat up, her eyes wide in shock. ‘But I thought spies worked in hiding inside other kingdoms. Do you go and live in other kingdoms? That is dangerous, Bhai! They could capture you!’

  ‘No, I work inside our own kingdom. Be patient, let me explain . . .’ began Kartik. ‘You know the king has enemies everywhere.’ Madhura nodded as Kartik explained, ‘There are two kinds of Caras employed by the king. There are the spies who enter the neighbouring kingdoms to collect news. They try to find out if that king is planning to attack our kingdom, how big is his army, who are his friends, are they trying to start a rebellion in our kingdom, and so on . . . They also watch their armies and this has become even more important after the battle at Kalinga.’

  ‘Why?’ Madhura frowned.

  ‘Because our king has now vowed that he will never attack another kingdom again. Now, this could make the other kings think that His Majesty has become weak and they may plan to attack us.’

  ‘Oh! That would be a very stupid thing to do!’ Madhura said hotly.

  ‘Absolutely. His Majesty has not disbanded the army and we are always ready to defend our kingdom. He may not conquer other kingdoms but he will smash anyone who attacks us. Any of these small kings defeat our great Ashoka? Not a chance!’

  ‘So these spies live in hiding inside these kingdoms?’

  ‘Yes. They take on new names, get jobs and keep an eye on everything. One of my jobs is to meet them, get their reports and carry them to the king. And for that the disguise of a trader is a very good one. Sometimes they slip back into our kingdom and I collect their messages. Then sometimes His Majesty has orders for them and I pass them on. These men lead very dangerous lives, so I have to be very careful that they are not betrayed.’

  ‘What happens if they are caught?’ Madhura breathed nervously.

  ‘They will surely die. We are going to Ujjaini because one of the spies working inside the Shaka kingdom is going to come there soon and I have to meet him and get his report. We have to wait till he can find a way to come from the south.’

  ‘Then why are we stopping at Vidisha, Kartik . . .?’ Ganga asked, ‘if your work is at Ujjaini?’

  ‘His Majesty has given me some important letters to be delivered to the Prior of the monastery at Vidisha. That is another of my jobs: to carry the king’s private letters and deliver them and bring back the replies. I do whatever the king wants me to do—deliver messages, keep an eye on suspicious characters, listen to the complaints of the people against officials and report their problems to the king. His Majesty likes to be informed about everything that is happening in the kingdom and I act as his ears, listening to everything.’

  ‘And the pottery and cloth are just an excuse for travelling everywhere?’

  ‘Well, I do make very good money by selling them. The king buys the goods for me and I keep the profits!’

  Next day as the walls of Vidisha came into view, the two carts with Madhura, Ganga and Lakshmi, and driven by Kartik and Dhanu, stayed back as the rest of the caravan went on along the main highway towards Ujjaini. They entered the town through the main gateway, with Tilaka riding beside them on his horse. Then Madhura noticed something that worried her. She saw that Tilaka had tied a sword at his waist and a spear was tied to the saddle, and Kartik now had a small dagger tucked into the waistband of his antariya.

  ‘Why are they armed?’ she wondered. ‘Are we in any danger?’

  Madhura was perched next to her brother as Kartik drove through the streets of Vidisha. ‘So our king met Queen Mahadevi here . . .’ she looked around curiously.

  ‘Yes, and he took her to Ujjaini on the back of an elephant. Now the queen has built a monastery at a nearby hill called Vidishagiri and the stupa is also nearly ready.’

  ‘We saw the relic box at the vihara at Pataliputra which will be buried in the stupa.’ Madhura mimicked the deep baritone chanting of the monks, ‘Buddhanam sharanam . . .’ making Kartik laugh.

  Just then Tilaka rode up with another man on a horse and said, ‘This man has brought a message from the Prior of the Vidisha monastery; we are to stay at the palace guest house.’

  ‘At the palace? Not the monastery?’ Kartik frowned, ‘But His Majesty had ordered me to stay at the vihara.’

  The other man said, ‘Sir the Prior will meet you at the guest house later tonight and explain everything. Please wait for him.’ And he rode away.

  Queen Mahadevi spent a lot of time in Vidisha, so the king had built her a palace. Now it was empty, except for some servants and guards, and they opened a couple of rooms in the guest house for them. Dhanu got busy feeding the bullocks but the others could take a well-deserved rest. They were the guests of the king and everything was taken care of. They were led to the pond to bathe, new sets of clothes were brought and their clothes taken away by the maids for washing. Then a meal of many dishes was prepared and beds made for them to rest.

  ‘Imagine someone else cooking for you!’ Ganga laughed happily. It felt so good to be staying in a room again instead of being on the move all the time, Madhura thought. And oh! After weeks of eating simply cooked vegetables and rice, the spicy food was wonderful.

  As they ate, Kartik and Tilaka were still brooding over the change in their plans. ‘I don’t like this,’ Kartik said worriedly. ‘His Majesty
said I was to stay in the vihara and check all their accounts. He is not happy at the way money is being spent at the building of the stupa and the monks have not sent proper accounts.’

  ‘Tell the Prior your orders when he comes to meet us and we can shift to the vihara tomorrow.’

  ‘Why is the Prior being so secretive? Coming to meet us at night . . . Something is not right, Tilaka, and I don’t care what he says. I am going to look at all their accounts. If money has been stolen the king has to know.’

  That night only Tilaka and Kartik were still awake when two shadowy figures entered the palace and came walking towards them. The Prior was in the saffron robes of a monk, but the other man carried a spear and was in the uniform of a soldier. The Prior entered their room while the soldier stood at the door.

  ‘A bhikshu with an armed guard?’ Tilaka whispered in surprise. ‘What is happening here?’

  Kartik raised a lamp to look at the monk closely, ‘Prior Bhadraka?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes . . . that is me.’ They stared at the round, bald-headed face of a plump, middle-aged man who was looking rather nervous and unhappy. It was very clear that the Prior did not like being at this place so late at night.

  Kartik handed him a packet, ‘His Majesty has sent a letter for you. Sir, why have you come here? I was ordered by His Majesty to meet you at the vihara . . .’

  ‘Because Kartik, my life is in danger!’

  Tilaka stared at the monk. ‘Danger? Who would attack a monk, sir?’

  ‘My assistant Bhikshu Sudhira was attacked last week and injured badly. He is still not able to talk. He was the monk I had assigned with the job of checking the accounts and he told me he was worried by what he had found. That is why I sent a message to His Majesty because both Sudhira and I feel the problem lies in Ujjaini.’

  ‘At Ujjaini?’ Kartik frowned. ‘But the stupa is being built here at Vidisha!’

  ‘Because the money sent from Pataliputra is kept at Ujjaini, not here. We don’t have safe rooms to keep such large sums of money; neither do we have so many soldiers to guard it. We are monks and our work is to pray and to serve the poor, not count gold! The Buddha said monks are not to touch gold or silver.’

  ‘So where is the money kept?’

  ‘In the vaults at the governor’s palace at Ujjaini. You know the governor is Prince Kunala, and even he is worried. Last week when Sudhira checked, four bags of gold coins were missing, though the records show they are still in the vault.’

  ‘What is Prince Kunala doing about it?’

  ‘He has got the army commander checking into it and he asked Sudhira to return to Vidisha. On his way back Sudhira was attacked and the papers that he was carrying were stolen from him.’

  ‘What papers?’

  ‘He says he found some torn pieces of palm leaf with some writing on them that were lying near the place where the bags of coins were kept in the treasury. He put it in his bag and forgot about it. Later, men attacked him on the road, searched his bag and took away some of the pieces of palm leaf.’

  Tilaka leaned forward, ‘Can he remember what was written on the palm leaf?’

  ‘He is too injured to talk much. He says it was a message in code . . .’

  ‘CODE?’ Kartik and Tilaka stared at each other.

  ‘Sudhira must have managed to hide some of the leaves because I found these clutched in his hand.’ He gave them a small packet. ‘Maybe you can crack the code. But Tilaka, who is behind this? Who is so stupid as to steal from the king? You have to stop these men! They are dangerous and they even attacked an unarmed monk.’ The Prior got up. ‘Tell His Majesty that he has to get Prince Kunala to catch the thieves. The answer lies in Ujjaini, not at our monastery in Vidisha.’ He hurried out and soon the two men had vanished into the gloom.

  Tilaka and Kartik sat staring at each other, their minds racing.

  ‘There is a traitor in the staff of Prince Kunala,’ Kartik said, ‘someone who is planning to ruin the building of the stupa because it is so important to the king.’

  ‘You know, there are many noblemen who did not like His Majesty becoming a follower of the Buddha. They do not like the way he is spending money building viharas and stupas . . .’

  ‘But our king also gives to temples!’ Kartik protested. ‘He lets people follow any religion they want.’

  ‘This is serious, Kartik; this could lead to problems within the royal family. Some of the queens did not like Prince Kunala being made the governor at Ujjaini and they could blame him for the theft.’

  ‘Why would anyone steal so much gold? Do you think someone is planning a rebellion against the king?’

  ‘The answer lies in Ujjaini. We must leave tomorrow.’

  ‘We should hurry! I also have to meet a spy there.’

  5

  A Prince Rides Past

  Kartik stared at the scattered pieces of the palm leaf pages and exclaimed in horror, ‘They are in pieces, Tilaka! How can we read them? It is quite impossible!’

  Madhura had seen palm leaf books, but what they had before them were just torn, broken and shredded pieces with bits of writing on them. Usually a palm leaf book had these neatly cut leaves that had been dried and smoothened out. On the leaves, the words were written in neat rows using black ink made from a mix of oil and the soot of lamps. On some pages there were pictures drawn in many colours. The pages were tied together by a thick thread drawn through two holes punched into one side.

  Then two pieces of wood were placed on the top and bottom to protect the delicate pages, tied together with a string, and the whole packet wrapped in a red cloth. A palm leaf book was a precious thing, because it took months of work as all the writing and the drawings had to be done by hand. Now what they had in front of them were the pages all crumpled and broken, stained with dust. Madhura also spotted some dark spots that made her wonder if it was the blood of poor Bhikshu Sudhira.

  Tilaka put the torn pages back into the cloth bag and said, ‘I’ll have to take this back to Pataliputra to the royal calligraphy studio. There they write and illustrate all the books for the king and they will know how to repair these pages. Then perhaps we’ll be able to read them.’

  Kartik stared at him, ‘You’re going back to Pataliputra, now?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll talk to Sudhira and then go back and report everything to His Majesty. This is getting too serious for us to handle on our own, and we never knew such a disaster would happen. We were going to Ujjaini to meet a spy, not to investigate a theft. We need written orders from the king about what we should do next. I can’t start looking for the thief without proper orders from His Majesty.’

  ‘And what do I do while you are gone?’

  ‘After we have met Sudhira you go on to Ujjaini as planned. Meet the spy who is coming from the Shaka kingdom because right now the Shakas are our biggest enemy and always trying to attack. We need all the reports we can get. Also, I suggest you meet Prince Kunala and tell him about what has happened to Sudhira.’

  ‘Meet the prince?’ Kartik scratched his chin. ‘I’ll have to find a way to meet him alone. There is a traitor in his palace and I cannot risk the man finding out that I have met him. And that won’t be easy you know.’

  Tilaka grinned, ‘You’re clever, Kartik. You’ll find a way.’

  Later that day they went to the hill called Vidishagiri that stood on the highway between Vidisha and Ujjaini.

  Queen Mahadevi had built a monastery on the hill and now the king was building a stupa here. They left the cart at the bottom of the hill and walked up the narrow path. As they reached the top, Madhura looked delighted by the wonderful view. ‘What a beautiful place,’ she thought, ‘to build a monastery!’

  From the top of the hill she could see far into the distance. On her right, the highway curved away and snaked along between the green fields and groves of trees. Behind her stood the monastery made of wood and brick, and next to it, workers were busy giving finishing touches to the new stupa.

  Kart
ik and Tilaka went into the monastery to meet Bhikshu Sudhira, while Madhura and her mother sat under a tree enjoying the peaceful place. The birds were chirping among the leaves above them, somewhere nearby a monk was chanting a mantra while ringing a bell, and the fragrance of incense floated in the air.

  Madhura looked up, ‘What a lovely tree! Do you think I can climb it, Amma?’

  ‘No, you can’t!’ Ganga glared at her. ‘Why are you always so restless?’

  ‘I like this place,’ Madhura gave a happy sigh. ‘Amma, do you think I could also worship the Buddha like the princess?’

  ‘You can worship anyone you like,’ a deep, male voice replied, and she turned around to see a smiling young monk standing behind her. ‘This is the kingdom of His Majesty Ashoka and here everyone is free to pray to any god or teacher they like.’

  ‘I can?’ Madhura asked delighted. ‘My mother and brother worship Vishnu but I like the viharas; they are such peaceful places, and I love listening to the chanting of the monks.’

  ‘Come with me child,’ the monk waved a hand. ‘My name is Bhikshu Aditya. Let me take you to our chaitya prayer hall.’

  Madhura and her mother walked with him to the prayer hall which was like the one they had seen at Pataliputra, just a little smaller. Then guided by Aditya they laid flowers at the altar which had a circular stone carved with the feet of Lord Buddha. They lit sticks of incense and bowed in prayer. Madhura prayed that her mother and brother stay safe and happy.

  ‘My daughter and I work at the palace, Bhikshu,’ her mother said. ‘I work in the chambers of Queen Mahadevi and Madhura is a companion of Princess Sanghamitra.’

  ‘That is wonderful!’ Bhikshu Aditya smiled. ‘Then you know something about our religion. This monastery was built by Her Majesty Queen Mahadevi, and now we are hoping that Prince or rather . . . Bhikshu Mahendra . . . will join our vihara.’