The enactments of Buddha’s life go past Kunala’s sightless eyes; heavenly abodes, white elephants, upon which souls of by gone days, happy in Buddha, ride through blissful havens of gods and apsaras: a coruscation of flowers, gold and gems, one beautiful moment of enticement of svarga3 for everyone who looks at it. He does not notice it. This is not for him! The gates of the soul to the outer world are shut, only his hidden Self is alive.
‘You see, my son, this is the purifying feast. The performance of the Vessantara-jataka is coming up.’ The Maharajah describes. Kancha praises the work of the artists.
‘Are you not glad, Kunala, that we saved the lives of these artists so they could carry out this noble work?’ she says happily. ‘Our Indian art will gain, in the splendour of what the All-Spirit unfolded in the distant land of the Yavanas. In this way the spirit of the Buddha will spread its light wherever there are people. Philon, Zetes, Eumenes, they will refine our art, purify our feast.’
‘Hush, Kancha’… She and Ashoka suddenly notice that Kunala has unconsciously adopted the padmasana posture4, his hands in the mudra5 of meditation, the body held erect. After some time he appears to awaken. He turns towards the Rani and says: ‘Kancha, after much practice, I have succeeded in shutting the doors of the senses for a while. Everything fell from me, all worldly desires, all doubt concerning the path. It was as if I arrived from the dangerous mahavana into the safe jungle-hermitage. All the worldly fell away from me. That is the utmost bliss, Kancha!’
Philon sees how she looks at him, alarmed; she turns pale, and then a sudden, fervent flush passes across her emotionally touched features. Deep in her proud Brahmin-heart she feels offended. Kunala has turned away from her. Her support to him has become an illusion. Only his own salvation! Her love is scorned! Does she hate him now? Ah, no … tearful compassion!
The Maharajah, too, looks at her, disquieted. Immediately he feels what she is experiencing, her pain. And a deep sympathy touches his heart. It is over. His son has become the son of the Buddha, just like Sanghi and Mahindra. Along with Kancha’s love for Kunala, his faith in the future of India and the Mauryas also dies.
The procession moves forward. Now the Maharajah and Kancha remain silent. With touched hearts, the people of Pataliputra gaze at the magical sights. In reverent silence they observe the lofty visions of the holy world of which the Maharajah speaks in his lipis. In the evening, after the sun has long since set, the torches are lit and thousands of lights placed along the roads, and once again the visions roll past their eyes, and fantasy conjures up in the carefully chosen performances an enchanting reality. Ashoka, Kancha and Philon look on. For them the purifying festival is a means that will lead to the path of the Buddha. Kunala no longer wished to go along, and Ashoka did not urge him anymore. Kancha feels the harrowing disappointment of the old Maharajah, whose features express unmistakable exhaustion, despite the glow of his noble wisdom.
Some days later Ashoka asks the Yuvarani to accompany him on a boat ride on the lotus pond in the park. The oarsmen softly row the vessel over the still surface. They sit on the high bench in the rear. The luxuriant plants of the well-tended park stand quietly around the banks of the pond, as if they wish to lovingly embrace the two broken people, between whom has grown a mutual trust that is so pure and genuine that it is a consolation to both in their great pain. Kancha waits.
‘You see, Kancha, I still tried to save Kunala for my peoples. But it is not possible; he will not become Maharajah.’
For some moments he is unable to go on. Then he straightens his figure, now bent by the years. ‘It was always a comfort to me to think that you would be Agramahisi. Now I see but one possibility to help my peoples. Or, should I say with sadness in my heart to save them, Kancha. Two grandsons are still worthy of this highest honour, Sampadi, your son and Dasaratha, Charumati’s son. I dare not decide which of the two should rule my great empire. My guru, Kullika, long ago wanted me to take the West of my Father’s empire and Sumana the East, in order to prevent a fierce fratricidal battle. I refused because I did not want to leave Magadha to Sumana. Now I believe, it would be better to divide my great empire.’
‘And the threats from outside, my Father?’
‘If the new Maharajahs possess sufficient mental fortitude! The West is most vulnerable to danger—Iran, Scythia, Bactria, even China. Sampadi exhibits the most energy; he will have to rule the West.’
‘He is still so young.’
‘But he has to go now, already, as the Viceroy to Ujjain, and prove that he is worthy of his kingdom. Or, becomes worthy of it.’ Kancha looks at him, slightly astounded. ‘Of course, he cannot go alone. But let him mature, Kancha, from within, just as I did long ago. Guide him with love, kindness and firmness. Kunala yearns for a life in Buddha, is seeking out the Ashokarama. I expect that he will soon give up his present life, to exchange it for the holy walk. Accompany Sampadi to Ujjain. Be Uparani6 there, until you feel Sampadi is capable of this great task.’
‘Father! And you?’
‘I have lost much, Kancha. Now I must also painfully relinquish you and Sampadi, separated from all, who are beloved to me, Kancha. I make no more claims for myself in this life, which does not only bring pain but also leads us to liberation, ultimate bliss. I will guide Dasaratha and prepare myself for my end. Dasaratha is sympathetic and good-hearted. Sampadi may one day have to defend his empire. Perhaps, the peoples and the kings will grow in wisdom.’
‘How will I be able to? Alone …’
‘Choose experienced ministers in Ujjain. And should you not take Philon with you! He will be of great support and comfort with his worldly wisdom and broad-mindedness, and have a great influence on the art of Malwa and Sanchi.’
Kancha weeps, and Ashoka knows why.
‘You have borne the greatest sorrow of your life bravely, my Kancha. You are like Asandhi, and will find fulfilment in your noble task. Sampadi will require and appreciate your support and your wisdom.’
A year later, the Maharajah accompanies Kancha, Sampadi and Philon to Gaya. The latter two ride on horseback. Ashoka and Kancha ride the elephants. Day after day, they discussed many things and she, influenced by the great Maharajah, now regards her task as a great blessing. In her offended pride she feels she is useless in Kunala’s life, and then grew closer to the Maharajah, who sought her out in his loneliness, too. So, she was inducted into the wheels of governance in Ashoka’s mighty empire, and she soon understood that only a great mind such as his is capable of overseeing what powers are at work in his immense realm. She understands also how a mistake on his side, like that of Tishya Rakshita, was possible. Kunala lacks the mental fortitude of his father. The strong Ashoka would never have accepted a verdict so cruel. She has deep compassion for her husband but she feels helpless, maybe even weak-willed now, to do anything more for him, partly because Buddhism, which for him means salvation, does not fulfil her that much. To her the world she has witnessed is the stage for Shiva’s cosmic dance. A slave is he who follows trishna unresisting; but he too is a slave who denies it. Freedom rests in the harmonious interweaving of both: the Shiva of Life and Shiva of Death.
The farewell weighs heavily on both. Working together with this great man was beautiful. But now she must guide Sampadi. Fortunately, Philon is coming along, the Greek who hails from the other side of the Sarasvati!
The Maharajah now turns back and the small party proceeds along the Ashoka Road towards Vidisha. Sampadi and the leader of the caravan ride ahead on horseback. Kancha has asked Philon to sit by her side on Vida, the first and largest of the elephants that Ashoka has provided for her journey to the West. On the second, Diti rides with her young son, following her mistress to their new home. The sun is bright overhead, and an oppressive heat hangs over the Ashoka Road, hemmed in by the high trees of the mahavana. Now and then, when descending or ascending a hill, the undulating land that extends from the Vindhyas as far as the Ganga and the Son, spreads before their eyes. The entrance to the jungle
is blocked by the tangled masses of shrubs and climbers that criss-cross the jungle in all directions. Kancha and Philon discuss their task in Ujjain and because both are open to each other’s ideas, their conversation is pleasant and lively. However, it is interrupted every now and then, because Vida is restless, unwilling, sometimes so much so that the mahout has used the hook a few times. The animal walks more quickly now than the other elephants and, as the heat increases, becomes even more restive. The mahout earnestly advises the Rani a few times to ride another animal but Kancha thinks that a bath in the next river will calm and refresh Vida. Suddenly, Vida raises his trunk high in the air and trumpets loudly. Kancha wants to dismount from the howda but the animal dashes off at a crazed shuffle, and the mahout is no longer in control. He loses his balance and tumbles off into the dust. Kancha and Philon are left to the mercy of the maddened beast. The howda lurches dangerously from side-to-side and the Rani is in danger of being thrown out. Philon reaches out a rescuing hand to her and she grabs it.
‘Allow me to hold you, high Rani!’
‘Please, my Philon!’
He wraps his muscular left arm around her, holds on tight with his right, and manages to save Kancha from a dangerous fall. Vida bolts and as if even in his madness he still knows the way, turns off onto a side road, an elephant path in the jungle. Philon realises in dismay that the danger is only increasing. Vida, in his raging speed, crashes through heavy branches as if they are fragile threads. The Greek notices suddenly that a branch of an arm’s thickness is obstructing the way. The howda is trapped, but Philon, who has been hit on his head by a branch, holds on to another one with his right hand. While Vida moves on, the branch bends to the ground under the weight of the two people.
‘My Rani … I must let you fall!’
‘Do not worry!’
He releases her carefully and she rolls onto the path, but gets up nimbly and looks anxiously up at her friend, who swings above at the end of the branch.
‘Move to the side a little, high Rani … I will let go!’
He falls down and loses consciousness. Kancha sees only now that his head is hurt. She sits down, takes his head in her lap, just as Savitri did with Satyavant, flits through her mind. Worried, she waits, not knowing what to do, she gently strokes him. Then a gripping fear overcomes her: Will he die as Satyavat did in the woods? Yama?
‘Philon, Philon!’ she cries anxiously.
Finally, he opens his eyes, and smiles when he sees that she has been saved.
‘Oh, fine … Kancha.’ Embarrassed, he does his best to stand up. ‘Forgive me, high Rani. I could not do anything but hold on to you.’
Kancha blushes. ‘Please call me Kancha again! I felt wondrously safe in your strong arms, my … friend!’ Softly, her hand glides once again over his head wound. ‘Do you have pain? Lie down, I will alert the others!’ And with the agility of a child of the mahavana, she scurries back to the Ashoka Road. There she sees the riders approaching, who had not even seen what had happened. Diti has warned them. Together, they hurry to the place where Philon is lying. He is carefully brought back to the road, where a camp is hastily set up, and because of Kancha’s good care, the Greek recovers quickly. Vida has disappeared into the jungle. The next day the journey is resumed. Kancha and Philon take their place on another elephant and the horsemen now follow them. Kancha shows great concern for the injured one.
‘The Mleccha thanks you, Kancha, for your good care,’ he smiles.
‘Mleccha! My Father is a sage in the mahavana, my Philon. And I lived several years close to the holy Maharajah. To those two we are all human beings. And you … are my rescuer and my best friend!’
Philon reaches his hand out to her. ‘I would like to bow down in the manner of your country and kiss the hem of your dress, Kancha, but in my country we take our friends’ hands.’
Kancha grips his tightly and their eyes sparkle in acknowledgment.
‘We refrain from touching for a long time, my Philon …’
One of the horsemen has returned speedily to Pataliputra. When he informs the Maharajah about the incident, Ashoka smiles and whispers quietly: ‘Good, my Kancha, you found a younger friend in place of the old Maharajah!’
Dasaratha has come from Nepal to the capital. He is young and calm and like his mother Charumati, a follower of Ashoka’s Dharma, obedient, sympathetic and predisposed to all that is good.
The Maharajah rides with him to the Khalatika-hills7, north of Gaya, where a few famous underground chaityas have been donated by him to the Ajivikas, the sect of his mother, Subhadrangi. It has taken several years for the stone masons to carve out the caves from the obstinate stone. Afterwards, the artists of Chuny smoothed, sanded and polished the walls, which also required a number of years. Finally, they were ready: three caves. An Ajivika priest leads Ashoka and Dasaratha inside. The Maharajah looks at the work for a long time. He cannot say what moves him more. It is not the size8, perhaps the glow of the polished walls and ceiling, the serene peace of the simple dignity of these shimmering caves. They evoke a feeling of longing to meditate, to cast off all that life has accumulated as a heavy, growing burden upon the shoulders; of oblivion into subconscious beauty: as if here, under the burden of the heavy weight of the hill, has rolled off the burden of the soul. Dasaratha remains silent, because Grandfather is so deep in thought.
‘Read what it says, Dasaratha.’ Ashoka says finally.
‘His Graceful Majesty the Maharajah, twelve years after his anointment, donated this Nigrodha cave to the Ajivikas.’
‘They are beautiful and offer serenity, Dasaratha.’
‘Wonderful, my Grandfather. When I become Maharajah, I also want to have caves carved out, just as beautiful as these.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you do it!’ and he wraps his arms around Ashoka.
‘Maybe, then there will be other, greater works that wait to be built.’
Dasaratha thinks. ‘I want to be like you!’
Why is it that his descendants are so inclined to blindly follow him, while what he really wants is that they should develop their own self? He has viewed his own insight as right and therefore he wanted to reveal it in images and stone. Does his example work in such a way, that they do not grow towards independence? He himself has never compelled anyone towards Buddhism. There where is only good, is Nirvana, the realm of eternal peace and bliss. But ‘life’ recognises evil as an element of the world! The good is the joy of life, evil the necessity, the trishna that acknowledges nothing but the ‘I’, the individual, in his struggle for life. But that in turn will evoke, eternally, the power of self-denial, compassion, the reasonableness in man, and thus create the harmony that perpetually guards life in its pursuit for the highest.
27
WHAT BECOMES, PERISHES
ne day as subjects from different parts of his empire jostle around in the audience hall, Satyavat announces Shantanika. Ashoka frowns. He is tired. Nevertheless, when he recalls how frankly Shantanika spoke, maybe he has repented. He says: ‘Let Shantanika visit me tonight, Satyavat.’ And the Maharajah continues to give audience to his subjects. Most concern petty grievances against the small injustices inevitably thrown up by the great measures, or serious complaints against government officials, requests for services regarding the construction of viharas or chaityas, the installation or improvement of irrigation channels. These are the things with which the people bother the Maharajah, day in day out, because they need his drive. It tires him nowadays to keep watch over all these interests.
Afterwards he walks to the large pond. Alone, estranged from everything that was dear to him, but seeking strength for what his holy will demands of him in his work and thoughts.
Shantanika comes by in the evening.
‘Has Shantanika turned to the true Buddha?’
‘Indeed, I have years ago, O, Maharajah, but according to my own insight, which is certainly not the same as yours. If I could, I would establish a separate Buddhist sect.
’
‘So, you have not changed your heretical views?’
‘I am not aware of any heresy, O, Maharajah. Since I was excluded from the Sangha—which I fully acknowledged your right to do— I have trudged along the great roads of India, to experience how Buddhism fares in your great empire, to see whether it will unite people. There is much enthusiasm for your Dharma.’
‘And will it one day hold sway over the world, turn the inner vision?’
Shantanika smiles: ‘If you remain the Maharajah forever and maintain your strength.’
‘And if my successors possess merely my good intentions?’
‘If your successors possess not only your holy fire, but also your power, your mental fortitude and your capacities, O, Maharajah …’ Ashoka looks annoyed. ‘You assess the people, yet there is one you do not know: Yourself. You think that the All-Spirit has chosen you to direct the people towards the Buddha. You have lost that conviction since Kunala’s fate.’
‘Indeed, that did weaken me. Weaken, Shantanika! Why did he fall?’
‘The world runs its own course in spite of you. Kunala went down physically. Who will guarantee that one day an Emperor like Nanda, or a father-killer like Ajatashatru, will not usurp the throne! That not a Maharajah will rule who will erase your edicts from the rocks or lose himself in the doctrine of the Buddha, forgetting his land and his people, or one who will more and more strengthen his army and use it like Alexander, the Macedonian?’
‘You are right, Shantanika. At the close of my life I must confess that neither a great nor a small army will secure the survival of my empire.’
‘So is it, O, Maharajah! What you have desired is from you, and falls with you. The Sangha—the community—is dependent on you, but it should be dependent on the eternal, unborn God, the Buddha! Fate did not wish Kunala. What lies hidden in the karma of the next Maharajah, disaster or blessing? It will not depend on you, O, Maharajah! The ‘becoming’ has to grow from the sum total of the all-Will which dwells in the entire humanity. Fate is not whimsical; it is merely an unknown force, the result of all movement in matter and spirit. Karma is the necessary justice of the All-Spirit, in relation to man’s free will. You, O, Maharajah, work with superhuman strength to the improvement of that karma. With superhuman strength you rule a world empire. But when that double-superhuman strength is no longer there, what then, O, Maharajah? Who then will continue your work? There is but one Buddha in one kalpa1, only one Maharajah like you in one kalpa. Kunala felt that. Dasaratha will experience it, too; hence their strong dependence on your will.’
Ashoka the Great Page 109