Ashoka the Great

by Keuning, Wytze

  ‘What is, ‘doing good, avoiding evil and keeping the mind pure’? It is like a leaf ripped from a tree and floating in the air, vulnerable to the wind, O, Maharajah. Man wants to recognise a higher being, who orders him, and whom he heeds, whom he can venerate and beseech to in his time of need: a god who is present! Not a holy man who has attained Nirvana, gone into ‘nothingness’, just as a flame that expires when the oil is used up. Do you think that the ordinary man will be honest and good and control his thoughts and passions for that? Would he control, for a ‘nirvana’, all what is within his nature, which drives all his thoughts, his passions, pleasures, life-thirst? He, who thinks that, does not know the citizen of India, O, Maharajah.’

  ‘But you want a god of outward appearance fossilised into an unchangeable form. That is not what the Buddha wants! The Upanishads came to the Atman through meditation. The Brahmins have fossilised the Atman into the god Brahma. That is precisely what the Buddha does not want! On all what cannot be expressed in words anymore and which is beyond thoughts, on what in meditation disappears into inaccessible realms, the more one rises into the higher states of meditation, the Buddha keeps silent. He wishes to be a teacher, to show to mankind, to millions of my subjects, a path that will lift them out of the jungle of suffering!’

  ‘A more vigorous belief is required to resist the will to live. Inner strength is often too weak for that. The ‘man’ Buddha will not be able to bind the Indians, O, Maharajah. He is merely a teacher, moved by compassion, who disappeared into Nirvana, the ‘nothingness’!’

  ‘And what about you and I and the thousands who honour his teachings?’

  ‘But you yourself, O, Maharajah, had to uproot the heretics. You have displaced your son, put Mogaliputtatissa in his place. Had the Buddha proclaimed: ‘I am Brahma’, he would have won all over the world. Now he needs the support of the most powerful Emperor of the world. There is no temple of wood whose foundation is not undermined by white ants. Why not establish a temple of granite that keeps its treasure safe forever? What will be the fate of the Sangha when you die, O, Maharajah?’

  ‘My son thinks as I do.’

  ‘And his son, O, mighty Maharajah?’

  ‘When he will reign, the people and he will have grown to be one in conviction and dedication for the teachings of the Buddha.’

  ‘Because I do not believe in that I want people to perceive the Buddha as God, as I do; an almighty God, from the Tushita heaven, an All-being, as Atman, say the Upanishads. Is that ‘outward appearance’? He has revealed his will to the world, notwithstanding the coincidental Maharajah who happens to be in power! If you do not want that, noble Maharajah, master of the Sangha, then the Sangha is at the mercy of the ruler in power … be his name Kunala or … Jalauka!’

  ‘I do not want it because the Buddha has given the sara, the essence of all religions, for us to reflect upon. What worth has compassion if it be upon orders from your God! The inner awareness of mankind must change. That there exists an unborn, an unfolding into all manifestations of creation, is a belief that I wish to respect but it is not meant for contemplation, because it is an unsolvable problem. The Buddha renounces this! The Buddha beheld under the Bodhi-tree what is the loftiest in a man. One who will experience this, lives it, and becomes one with it, enters Nirvana. The Tathagata showed us the way and we are to follow it out of free will, moved by compassion, and not out of fear of your punishing God. What you want the Buddha does not and I will not tolerate it in the Sangha. It is heresy, pure Brahmin dogma! That is why I forbid your stay in the Ashokarama and every vihara in my realm, Shantanika. I believe in your good faith, but not in your Buddhism. So, take off your yellow robe.’

  ‘Forgive me, noble Maharajah, that I do not place trust in the Buddhism of your successors. I cannot do this, not as long as there is no power that saves them from apostasy, and as long as that power does not reside in the soul of the people as the eternal, divine Buddha, who assumed the mortal being of a man and became the Buddha.’

  ‘But Buddha the God, and the bhikshu the priest, that is a fabrication.’

  Ashoka makes a sign; for him, the conversation has ended. Yet, doubt remains, twofold: Is it possible to maintain the purity of Buddha’s teachings despite the ever-present Shantanikas? Will the throne of Pataliputra have to be its support forever? Without the power of an army, without war? And what if, on some unholy day, a heretic were to usurp the throne of the Mauryas? And what if a powerful people, in a distant land, who do not accept the teachings of Buddha, invade India, without a power at hand to stop them? No, no more war! Establish the Teachings and spread it all over the world! Then humanity will never have to seek recourse to bloodshed and carnage which does not assuage but sharpens the appetite for even more bloodshed.

  ‘Tinka, bring the Kashmir-shawl and the red silk coat for the gracious Maharani. Then my muslin dress and pink scarf.’

  ‘I serve the Maharani, not you.’ Tishya angrily grabs at Tinka’s wrist.

  ‘You will obey me, or I shall punish you,’ she snaps at Tinka. ‘If you disobey, the Maharani will become angry. I must help her dress and accompany her to the park.’ She shoves Tinka’s arm away in anger. ‘Hurry!’

  Asandhimitra has heard the conversation. ‘Be kind and good to the slaves and servants, Tishya,’ she says plainly. ‘That is the will of the Maharajah. You are quick to anger. Control yourself in joy and anger. That is befitting of the higher varnas.’

  Tishya bows. ‘Forgive me, high Agramahisi.’

  ‘It is alright now! Take your blue scarf, not your pink.’

  Tishya smiles. ‘You indulge my vanity, gracious Maharani.’

  A few moments later, the two women make their way to the park and the pavilion near the large pond, with Tishya walking a pace behind her mistress. Sharad4 has ended Varsha5. A few silver clouds float in the blue heavens and veil Surya’s rays. The floral splendour of Ashvina6 winds around trees and shrubs. The jasmine shrubs bend their branches laden with ivory blossoms towards the pond, as if in vanity mirroring themselves in the pond’s surface. Ashoka-trees and Bandhujivas7 blush in the dazzling light and scatter recklessly the red dust from their blossoms over path and plant. Dark-red Nalikas8 dream softly between the round, light-green leaves, floating over crystalline waters as if gazing, love-struck, at the frail lilies along the edges, which charmingly unveil themselves and in all splendour draw up out their crowns in graceful lines.

  ‘Ashvina is the bride. Who shall be the bridegroom, Tishya?’

  ‘The holy Maharajah. He is the bridegroom of all beauty!’

  Asandhi gives out a laugh. ‘My vain beauty has lost its glow a long time ago!’ May he be the bridegroom of the most beautiful lady who veils her dark bosom in heavenly blue.’

  Tishya blushes. She is fully aware that the unseemly Maharajah often settles his glittering gaze upon her. But she, a bride to the Maharajah! She is as much of a Kshatriya as Karuvaki, as Padmavathi. Asandhimitra does not notice the haughty look in the eyes of her serving maid – Rani Tishya Rakshita!

  ‘A servant maid, O, Maharani!’

  Asandhimitra gently teases: ‘Then you would not reject the possibility!’

  ‘Would a mango, intended to be consumed, spurn being returned to the earth and there to grow into a strong tree, the loftiest accomplishment for a mango?’

  ‘The most beautiful fruit,’ the Agramahisi laughs.

  ‘And the one we like to eat the best!’ mocks Tishya lightly.

  They enter the pavilion. A few slaves gently wave the chamaras to impart some coolness and to chase away mosquitoes. Asandhimitra lies on a long seat covered with a beautiful rug from Iran and Tishya sits down at the queen’s feet.

  ‘The Maharajah will come soon. He loves Ashvina’s beauty and Kartika’s9 fruit. Whatever flowers ripen and bear splendid fruit, enchants the Maharajah. And the immense empire is still too small for his great heart.’

  ‘Then why does the Maharajah not send his armies out!’

  Th
e remark alarms Asandhimitra. Then she laughs softly. ‘You are a Kshatriya, my Tishya, young and rash. That is exactly where his greatness lies: to win over through compassion and love, what he could conquer by force.’

  ‘Your varna is wise and wants peace; mine is proud and wants to fight.’

  ‘But the Buddha says: ‘everyone is a Brahmin, who honours truth and justice.’’

  ‘Your thoughts have been ripened to beauty through centuries of deliberation, high Agramahisi; mine are connected to the chilly caprices of nature. That is why I am lost without your warmth, your mellowness of spirit, O, Maharani.’

  ‘There now, I once again recognise my loyal friend who seeks the eight-fold path of the Buddha.’

  Tishya’s finely shaped lips curl into the sweetest of smiles. The Maharani believes she can awaken in Tishya the softer feelings of Buddhism, but Tishya herself knows better. After being abducted as a young girl from the great house on top of the mountain and torn from her father and brother, who chose death rather than submission to the Maharajah, she was lovingly received by the Maharani, who taught her Buddha’s compassion. Yet, within her lived the spirit of the unrestrained and imperious Kshatriya. She envies the Maharani, not for her mildness, but for her high rank, which allows her to be mild. She is not impressed that Asandhimitra permits her inferiors great freedom but that she has the power to raise her, Tishya, from a servitor to that of a friend of the gracious Maharani. To be powerful! Behind the smile on her beautiful face, behind her watchfulness, she is able to conceal her fierce desire of the mahavana. She loathes her servitude, but created an outward appearance of attending to her mistress submissively and is dutiful to the Maharani who grew affectionately attached to this beautiful, clever child.

  When Surya has climbed to the apex of the heaven the Maharajah leaves the palace and hurries to the pond. Tishya rises up and proceeds to a smaller pavilion on the other side. Ashoka sits down silently beside the Agramahisi, his thoughts still on the work of the morning. When he turns to her, most often it is about those issues on which his human feelings cannot come to terms with practical considerations.

  ‘What preoccupies my Maharajah so?’ she finally asks.

  ‘My son, Asandhi. I have been confident that he will succeed me one day. But now, for the first time, I sense a danger threatening him. I myself would have laughed at such a thing in the past. I often tempted dangers and anticipated them everywhere. Kunala is not aware of them; that is why they are more threatening to him. I am worried. Where Kunala is concerned, I am inclined to sweep danger away for him.’

  ‘Weak in your love?’

  ‘I am not certain if it is weakness. Kunala is so much interwoven with my life’s work, I will not permit any loose thread for that. One of the new monks reveres the Buddha as the all-powerful God and attempted, with his ideas, to make inroads with the bhikshus. According to him, the pure teachings should be based on Buddha’s divinity so they will become a divine command, acquire greater solidity and thus a more loyal following. I consider him a heretic, because I believe this goes against the Teachings. The moral power of these Teachings is so great that no man can remain insensitive to them. But as always, doubt returns to my heart. Each successive Maharajah will have to acquire the same conviction as I have. Kunala will be as I am. Will his son be so as well? Kunala is weaker of mind than I am, meeker! And his son?’

  ‘My Maharajah will never be able to discern the way of his descendants. Your power has come into being and so it will pass away. Have faith in the greatness of the Buddha, which inspires you, and perhaps will also inspire your offspring.’

  ‘Has the Buddha himself not come into being and will he not …’

  ‘Yes, the Buddha himself! But not his Teachings! Those are eternal, they are the sara of all religions; they come from the All-Spirit.’

  Ashoka ponders for a moment. ‘Do you see, Asandhi: the eternal doubt! Buddha has become and perished, just as you and I will perish.’

  Asandhi laughs. ‘Would you have it otherwise?’

  ‘When Kunala passes away, will all that I have built, fall apart? Will then Buddha’s edifice, his Teachings, also fall apart? Is Santanika right? Is my will sufficient: to perpetuate Buddha’s Teachings in the Council of Thousand of Pataliputra; preserving Buddha’s relics in the many stupas; my Dharma, on rocks and pillars … Is there but one law: ‘what becomes, perishes’?’

  ‘You have more sons.’

  ‘None to whom I could entrust India.’

  ‘How will you gain more certainty?’

  ‘By Dharma, that will be engraved onto stone as an eternal reminder of what is right. Each Maharajah will then be well chosen because the spirit of the people will direct it.’

  ‘By Dharma, as it exists in the hearts of the people, for which your edicts will only serve to stimulate. Your hope is to make the whole world ready for that spirit. But the defencelessness of Buddhism may also be its downfall. With your strong army you sustain your power. Is it wise to place all your hope on your one son? Take Tishyarakshita into your harem.’

  ‘Your servant, Tishyarakshita?’

  ‘I love her and she shall be a good Rani.’

  ‘You want to bind a blossoming young virgin to a man who has forgotten his youth, who can no longer charm such a young Rani?’

  ‘She worships you and is my dearest friend.’

  Ashoka walks to the small pavilion.

  ‘Would it be good fortune for Tishya to be a Rani in the anthapura?’

  Tishya rises, proffering fully her beautiful figure. Then she kneels and bows deeply, in that way hiding her deepening blush that darkens her sultry features.

  ‘Who would not deem herself fortunate to be your Rani, gracious Maharajah?’

  ‘You will be sacrificing your youth for a shadow of good fortune, child. My life is my love … for my peoples.’

  ‘What can love mean for a wife of the holy Maharajah? Is not the life of the Agramahisi elevated far above all that a woman can expect from life?’

  ‘You love the Maharani?’

  ‘As much as a sister, or as a mother, gracious Maharajah! She has given my life back when in my youth all that was beautiful to me was taken away from me. She must be so good because she is your Maharani.’

  Ashoka smiles. ‘Then try to become like her, Tishya.’

  ‘I will never be able to succeed, I can merely strive, Lord.’

  ‘That is enough, Tishya. Go to her. She will be happy.’

  A section of the Rani’s quarters is set aside for Tishya. Ashoka realises that it is difficult for her to face up to the servants in the anthapura. For this reason, he is not sparing. She is allowed to arrange her rooms and choose her dresses to her own taste. The choice of servants, however, still requires approval by Satyavat and Rohini. The happiness of the beautiful Kshatriya charms the Emperor.

  11

  THE WHEEL OF THE TEACHINGS

  fter the rains, Kartika ripens the fruit of many blossoms. Tirha’s rice fields glimmer with a golden glow in the shimmering sunlight. Everything is being readied for the harvest of the paddy. There is joy in the dazzling life of Sharad. The offering fires burn now here, then there, inviting the gods not only to eat but also to protect the harvests.

  In the late afternoon Kunala sits with Santanu on the verandah. The brahmacharins are searching the mahavana for wood for the offering fires or tending the guru’s livestock in the pastures. The pungent fragrance of the smoke from the small altar fills the air and drives the mosquitoes away. Kanchana walks to and fro. Her beauty blossoms in even more lovely colours and sprightly activity. Her smile radiates at Kunala when their eyes meet. Meditatively his gaze wanders over the luxuriant leaves, blossoms and fruit … that will to live even in the tiniest jungle spider, the frailest flower, without the slightest care of the hurts that it inflicts. But also Buddha’s spirit pervades the world. Is trishna and the spirit of the Buddha, one? Is that the Atman? Or, is Buddha’s spirit the regulator of the imperturbable trishna that
functions through every living being? Take trishna away, will Buddha’s spirit then still exist? Or, is then all that remains, Nirvana? Are the two not actually one because of their very polarity? What is the truth concealed in a world so much woven into maya? The world-creator! ‘He knows … Or, does he not know either?’

  Hush. Does he not hear the breaking of branches in the distance? Then it is as if an earthquake is causing the ground to shake. It does not stop; it is approaching! Is it the work of men who are plaguing the jungle? The crashing continues, and swells; the cracking more persistent and sharper. Santanu also becomes more observant. Suddenly he leaps up.

  ‘Elephants! There is no elephant path here. Being driven?’

  When the noise of the cracking and breaking of stout branches approaches, Santanu rushes into the house: ‘Flee, Yuvaraja! On horse or elephant! I will warn the others,’ he calls to Kunala. The Prince does not answer but hurries to the camp, getting a few horses and elephants readied. Riding quickly back to the house, he sees in the distance how a massive elephant suddenly thrusts its head through the branches at the forest’s edge, its enraged eyes directed at Santanu’s house. The Yuvaraja has Santanu and Amba mount the imperial elephant as swiftly as possible. He then calls loudly: ‘Kancha, Kancha!’

  Startled, Kancha appears at the window and with fear looks out to the forest from where more and more wild elephants emerge, hesitating a moment before the wide open space. They then approach with raised or swinging trunks, menacing, and with tremendous trumpeting. Kunala has his largest war elephant come right up to the front of the door, climbs on the roof and helps Kancha out through the window and into the howda. All are safe and Kappa gives the order to leave hastily. The elephant leading the stampede, a massive bull, has just drawn close to them. He raises his trunk and swings it sharply, but the mahouts in the rear turn, and with their sharp elephant hooks land a few painful blows on the attacker. Then, as though aware he has not succeeded, the irate animal starts attacking man’s constructions in the woods. Aroused, the other elephants follow. From a distance the inhabitants of the house watch as the house is smashed, trampled and kicked. Everything splinters and breaks. Fearfully someone cries out: ‘Father Santanu! Father! Forgiveness, father Santanu!’ It is Katcha, hanging from a window in mortal fear of his life. A huge elephant stretches its trunk out to him while all around him, planks and beams, crack under the assault of the furious herd. Kunala orders a halt. Kappa shrugs his shoulders.