Ashoka the Great

by Keuning, Wytze

  Then it is the turn of the Yavanas. Philon and Zetes are brought together before him. Kancha attends the court. For a while Kunala observes both the Greeks, their muscular physiques, the splendid care of their bodies and their clothing. And suddenly a feeling of compassion rises up in him – to condemn those people to death? In spite of their imprisonment there is in their eyes something that speaks of freedom and independence. Their gaze, open and frank, faintly irritates the Kumara, though.

  ‘You are Philon, a Yavana from Bactria?’

  ‘Yes, O, King.’

  ‘Are you related to king Diodotos?’

  ‘No, Sir, I am a Hellene like him.’

  ‘Why do you, a free and independent man, incite the subjects of Maharajah Ashoka against their lawful ruler?’

  ‘This country belonged to the Macedonian, and so now to his successors.’

  ‘Let us go back a little further,’ Kunala replies calmly: ‘This country belonged to the King Poros of India, and thus now—according to you yourself—to his Indian successors.’

  ‘Alexander conquered the country, Sir.’

  ‘Chandragupta re-conquered it, after him!’

  Philon feels his defense weakening. Then his pride wins: ‘The high civilisation and development of the Greek people gives them a sacred right over barbarians.’

  For a brief moment, anger flares up in the Viceroy, yet he appears completely calm as he says: ‘Who do you call barbarians?’

  Philon looks at him, surprised. With some derision he answers: ‘They who do not respect our gods, do not understand our art, and are not Greeks.’

  Kunala looks at him quietly and waits a while. Then he says: ‘Do you not understand that you are the greatest barbarian? A barbarian is he who does not recognise the value of a human being! You acknowledge only the value of a dying-out varna, the Hellenes, who may understand your art but nothing of the grandest thought of India: the all-encompassing Spirit, from which your art germinates! Alexander wanted to conquer a world but he ravaged a world. When he died his empire fell apart like a cracked vase. And each of the barbaric chieftains grabbed a shard and proved to be a new misfortune for the countries that they had stolen, because no one was led by a higher principle. War upon war is still breaking up parts of Alexander’s empire and mankind still suffers and dies: the Greek barbarian knows no mercy, only his own glory!’

  Philon is bewildered. ‘What is a god without power? And hence a people! We have respect for the one who wrests might, not for the one who allows it to slip away!’

  ‘And you incite in the Taxila of the most powerful Emperor!’

  ‘Snatched away by the barbarian Chandragupta from the Hellene, Eudemos…’

  ‘Who had killed the beloved King Poros! My great-grandfather Chandragupta drove the hated barbarians out of this country. What is more, he won power and is thus entitled—according to you yourself—to be respected! Learn a little modesty, stranger. The Hellene envoy Deimachos of Antiochos Sotor of Syria stayed often at the court of my father, and often spoke about the Greeks who only honour heroes: Hercules, Ajax, Jason, Odysseus … or how all these fighters may be called. Did they respect also a Socrates and a Plato, a Phidas and a Pericles? Do you know the story of Niobe? She had, ever more haughtily, placed herself above the Goddess Leto, who had given birth merely to the twins Apollo and Artemis, whereas she had gifted her spouse—who possessed a mighty empire—with seven sons and seven daughters, all equally beautiful. Therefore Niobe, in her arrogance, ridiculed the proud goddess. She is punished mercilessly by the gods and her pride is broken. According to Deimachos your god Apollo killed the seven sons, while your goddess Artemis killed the seven daughters. The haughty Niobe is the symbol of you, Hellenes! Even as the gods killed Niobe’s children, so will others destroy you.’ An ominous hardness spread across Kunala’s face: ‘You dare to preach insurgence in the empire of Ashoka just because you are a proud, self-opinionated Greek, actually a Hellene, born outside his native country. Tomorrow the arrow of Apollo will strike you, without mercy.

  ‘And you are Zetes. Do you know now that the Buddha is no god, but a human being? And also that ‘weak kings’ and the sacred Maharajahs do protect their countries? And also that the Maharajah, despite the ‘honey-sweet’ peace that he commends and the pleasures he enjoys in the ‘hermetically closed-off anthapura’, does rout the arrogant Hellenes?’

  Zetes flinches at his own words. Did Eumenes betray them? In Taxila they claimed that Maharajah Ashoka is Shiva, the incarnation of a god, so he knows everything that happens in his vast empire. Foolishness!

  ‘I have to deny, high Kumara, to have exposed this to publicity.’

  ‘You are cunning; on such guests we keep an eye, Zetes. You have tried to convince the Taxilans that the Punjab actually belongs to Diodotos!’

  ‘I do not deny this, since it is my conviction. The Greeks have the vigour and the skills!’

  ‘Seven of each, like Niobe! We have two: wisdom and power! So, you are working here in the interests of a foreign ruler?’

  Kancha is startled for a moment. Zetes, irritated, rises up.

  ‘I am convinced that the power of the Mauryas will vanish in a few years, because our kings do not fear missions and mendicant monks, but they do fear armies, fierce warriors and elephants.’

  ‘So, I saw it correctly: An empire of peace and prosperity, without bloodshed, is not tolerated by the Hellene barbarians. I shall show you that I am in no way different from my father. Insurgents and foreign intruders, the Hellenes too, we will annihilate, if they do not in their cowardliness take flight, like your friends Kreon and Siton.’

  Zetes keeps silent, astounded and aghast. How does the Kumara know all these things!

  ‘Take the men back to their prison and let them wait till it pleases me to sentence them.’

  Kunala follows them with his eyes. In his heart there is sadness: Killing because of the delusion of a Diodotos! He, the mighty one of the West, had allowed himself to be driven by fury against these two powerless ones. Only Kancha understands her sensitive husband. Together they return over the Hathial.

  ‘What do I have to do, Kancha,’ he finally bursts out when they enter the rooms of the Rani.

  The air is light and cool, fragrant with flowers and refined perfumes. An Arab incense-burner spreads its sweet scent. Kancha seats herself on one of the couches covered with colourful rugs of East Iran, on which dark-red flower-motifs burn against a soft-blue background. Kunala sinks wearily down on a seat covered with a tiger-skin with beautiful markings. Kancha looks absent-mindedly at the exquisite vases and bowls of the finest pottery and artfully-cut gemstone. Then she strikes the bronze gong which sounds clearly through the silent hall, and orders a servant to take some mangoes from an amethyst bowl, to be squeezed. Asa pours the juice in two silver cups. She bows, and offers the refreshing drink. Kunala takes a deep sip. He gets up and looks for a long time through the window, the outside kept small to keep out the heat and widening on the inside to let light come in. He focuses his eyes on the ever-rising mountains in the distance, which merges imperceptibly into the high massifs of Kashmir. It is amazing that people blessed with such rich and beautiful nature always tend towards strife and not to peace! Is it because of those hero-worshippers, the Hellenes? Or, is it a need of this western people for excitement and variation in their ordinary daily lives?

  ‘Well, Kancha … ‘Resolve not to wage a war but to avert it and do not kill people’, is my father’s most solemn order … and Buddha’s precept!’

  ‘That he can only have meant as a general principle, he never hesitated himself to direct his chakras towards those who obstructed his goals.’

  ‘Since then … he has taken refuge in the Buddha.’

  ‘But he remained the Maharajah, therefore he has to punish, where disobedience of the laws places the people or the country in danger.’

  Kunala reflects for a while. ‘So you think I have to kill.’

  ‘It is also,’ she continues
, ‘a matter of safety for my husband. Were you to save their lives then you might give rise to suspicions in the Maharajah that you might be looking for collaboration with the Bactrians.’

  He places his arms around her shoulders. ‘It is fear that makes you say that, my Kancha.’

  ‘No monarch knows himself to be completely safe from a strong-willed, capable son. Bindusara did not either. So, ask your father what he thinks about it.’

  ‘He said: ‘I do not order you to do anything, I am merely curious about what you decide.’ I will get the same response now, too. I know my father!’

  ‘Then act according to your own convictions. Your heart has dictated your judgement to you.’

  ‘That came out of self-defence, trishna … but now comes my manas, my reasonableness, my … compassion. Strong young men, maybe driven by the false dogmas of Diodotos, are waiting to hear their sentence. Were I to kill them, then I harm my soul. Were I to save them, then I harm my country. If I let my father decide then I am forsaking my duty. Do I decide myself, then the responsibility will be mine, and will weigh heavily upon me. I feel myself wavering too much, my Kancha, when the lives of others are at stake.’

  Kanchanamala, who still feels more akin to the Brahman way of thought of her parental home than to the Buddhism of her spouse, attempts to understand him. At last she says: ‘Maybe, your judgement was too hasty. Talk again with the Hellenes, maybe your views will change.’

  A messenger then comes to say that the horse-brigade which was sent after the fugitives Kreon and Siton, has caught up with them.

  ‘Now there are four … whom we have to kill for the sake of revenge, for justice, practical motives, or save them out of compassion … or because my conscience does not permit me!

  21

  UNCERTAINTY

  iscreetly, the four heavily shackled Greeks, are brought the next evening to the new auditorium of the Kumara. High lamps, shiningly polished, spread a soft yellowish light. Kunala and Kancha take their place on large seats of carved ebony, inlaid with ivory and gold embellishment. Both seats are covered with a tiger skin as a symbol of their dignity. For the four Greeks, simple seats are arranged, and their shackles are removed. Kunala has reflected for a long time about his judgement. Now that the two other Greeks have been taken prisoners as well, he has the opportunity to consider everything quietly once more. He wants to stay calm. No ‘court’ this time: He will speak with the Hellenes to understand them better, the way his father conducted his own administration by questioning and jurisdiction.

  The Hellenes think they have seen the sun for the last time. Their sentence is about to be carried out! The heavy arrows of the Indian archers await them! To their amazement, they are taken over the Hathial to the palace of the Kumara. Their amazement grows even more when they are brought under a strong guard of soldiers to the new auditorium of the Viceroy. As always, behind Kunala stands the robust figure of Tulya, undaunted and motionless. Large glistening brass lamps, burning at several places with aromatic oils, fill the hall with a warm flickering light. It plays upon the wide sculptured frieze, painted in strong colours that Eumenes had installed in the four walls of the hall. Four slender pillars from Chuny hold up the high roof. They are carved out of light-red stone, polished and honed to an astounding luster, reflecting a strange glow. Around them fall festoons of charming climbers with colourful flowers and birds of precious metal. At their base are couches spread out, elegantly covered with dark and bright-red carpets from Iran. Vases and bowls of gold, silver, bronze, gemstones or clay, baked in the softest of colours, are positioned in the niches. Statues of foreign origin stand on delicately cut stools.

  The four men, always sensitive to art, look around, moved, as though they had expected a less beautiful ambience. Gradually, a smile appears on Philon’s face.

  Kunala, who has kept a sharp eye on the Hellenes, notices it. ‘You smile, Philon, at this most serious moment. I understand it is your proud heart that provokes the smile.’

  ‘Pride? We Greeks think too soberly and truthfully, O, Kumara, to allow ourselves to be led by pride,’ he retorts sharply. ‘It is not pride that leads us to the truth.’

  ‘How do that sobriety and truthfulness manifest themselves? Do not sobriety and truthfulness also imply: the recognition of one’s faults and the good qualities of others? Perhaps, you now understand that this is the reason why I have allowed you to be brought here once more. According to you it is only one people, the Greeks, who are superior to all the others.’

  ‘That they are, Kumara!’ Philon straightens himself.

  ‘One of our great poets once said:

  ‘Enchantment of radiant beauty

  Lends its voice in decisions of the council

  Of the highest powers!’

  The desire for beauty is the moving spirit of the Greek people. It pushes us to the cultivation of the body, to martial arts in which beauty is exhibited at its best; to art, compared with which the art of other peoples seems foolish; to science, which makes others only childlike and imperfect. You ask, O, Kumara, why I smiled. Well… your pillars which show a faulty proportion of length and width, bear at their top a symbol of their task: Greek capitals from Corinth, with leaves of acanthus. The friezes along the walls are of Greek workmanship. To him who knows the bas-reliefs of the temple of Athens they look however lifeless and weak. In your niches you have placed, O, Kumara, artifacts – jugs, jars and plates. I can show you immediately the Hellenic vases. That one over there is an amphora of Attica. The colour of the clay has turned out well with the red lead. The painter has made them black with lustrous paint but has left the figures unfilled, giving it with delicate black lines life and movement, adding expressiveness to the musculature and countenance. They are images of gods. This lekythos is actually a decoration for a grave, a white panel closed on top and below by black lacquer. Over the white section, soft-coloured images of gods are depicted, the dying summer, which is brought to the Olympus by winged messengers. Over there stands a cask of Sparta, a barrel of wine, with stylistic figures of Greek flanges on the neck and its base.’

  All rise to their feet. Tulya follows the Kumara a pace length behind. Philon is so carried away by his enthusiasm over Greek art that all listen with great interest. He tells of his two years in Greece, especially the time he spent in Athens, feasting on such splendourous beauty that his whole life has been filled with it.

  ‘This figurine is a good copy of Artemis, the Athenian goddess of the hunt. It is striking, not only for its naturalness and the beauty of her form, the magnificent pleats in the chiton and breechcloth, but especially for the clear movement of all her muscles. Can you see her walk? It is so natural, as though she is alive and her grip on the arrow is so perfect in posture that only the greatest of Greek sculptors could have created such a work of art. Beauty is the living force of our people, which surges towards perfect physical development, to the flowering of art, to struggle and victory, to happiness!’

  They return to their places.

  ‘But what beauty are you talking about, Philon? The tangible beauty? The physical beauty? Deimachos, the Hellene envoy at the court of Pataliputra, praised the Greek gods and goddesses against those of other peoples, but from the tales he told, one of the listeners concluded that they were a population of gods of adultery, incest, patricide and fratricide, avenging gods. Thus you Greeks, too, have to be. Gods are modelled on people. Your gods are people, glorified in beauty; your veneration is a veneration of the human being himself! That is barbaric. The beauty of your forms, your art, may be higher than that of other peoples but it is barbaric. In Taxila you could have experienced what India calls beautiful if you had not been caught up in your own arrogance. Our gods are beauty itself. Our Brahman, Atman, All-spirit, is not the beauty of the human being. On the contrary, every human being of whatever sect has something of the beauty of the All-spirit within, because all life, all-spirit is an unfolding of the Atman. Our belief is founded on what every human being recogn
ises as the good, the divine, the beautiful: the steadfast line in the jumble of this divided world, the reasonable, the compassion, the kindness in the human being. Your belief is founded on the sensuous, the physical happiness of the individual. Ours—the way the Buddha taught—wishes for the happiness of all people, all beings, and offers the possibility of realising the highest—not the netherworld, but heaven—for all. You create your objects of art for a few privileged or wealthy ones, and slave or artisan live only for their benefit, their pleasure and joy. The Buddha preaches the salvation for the whole world and his weapon is the all-encompassing compassion. At yours, one preaches life; death means a downfall into the netherworld and your weapon is blood feud and murder.’

  ‘Zoroaster praises the battle against the evil powers!’ Sithon opines.

  ‘That means you have given the lie to your words. All four of you have preached war against the mighty Emperor, who desires not evil but compassion to be elevated in accordance with his leading principle!’

  ‘Why then do you call upon the Hellenic art for help?’ Philon asks.

  ‘Because we value your skills but our insight is loftier than Greek ethics. You know the sculptor Eumenes: He is fascinated by the beautiful thoughts of the Buddha, by the work of the sacred Maharajah.’

  ‘Eumenes is unfaithful to the Hellenic tribe!’

  ‘Eumenes is more faithful to the Hellenic spirit than you are. That is, to the beauty, that carries within it the symbols of eternity, beauty which does not lie in the fleeting, transient beliefs of your transient tribe but in the teachings of the Buddha which will live eternally in a thousand tribes.’

  ‘But when our greatest artists, O, Kumara, accomplish in their art the highest depiction of human beauty and call it God, is that not as much a symbol of eternity?’ Kreon asks.