Radha had been around when he had chatted with Dr. Shukla. The meeting had ended with him inviting her for dinner the next evening. During dinner, the next evening, he had told her about the start-up he and Colin had founded and had been pleasantly surprised to learn that she was a nuclear physicist working with the Department of Atomic Energy.
Vijay smiled as he recalled that evening. He had enjoyed her company. Ever since his last girlfriend at MIT, he hadn’t had time or the inclination for another relationship. But Radha had been different. Though their relationship hadn’t progressed beyond friendship, they had kept in touch. Returning to the present, he realised that he was hungry and decided to go downstairs for breakfast.
13
AD 500
Bamiyan, Afghanistan
From the moment his secret had been discovered, Pala had known that his life was in danger.
Court astronomer by profession, custodian of an ancient secret by volition, he had succeeded in concealing his true vocation for over 40 years. Until that fateful day that the book, written in stone and lost to the world for almost 800 years, was discovered while digging the foundation for a new fort. The book was whisked away to the Grand Palace and disappeared once more. As if it had never existed.
Only then had Pala realised that someone had made the connection between the stone book and a myth that was thousands of years old. He knew that he had to get the texts and the metal disk to Santhal, a monk and a member of the brotherhood, who lived in a small monastery that lay at the feet of the two giant statues of the Buddha that were being carved into the sandstone cliffs overlooking the valley. This was what had been agreed upon, when he had joined the Nine. Santhal was one of the two members who had revealed his true identity to Pala. If anything were to threaten the secrets either of them was responsible for, they were bound by oath to pass on the secrets to the other.
After leaving the palace, he had made his way through the numerous kingdoms of Western India that had risen as the mighty Gupta Empire disintegrated.
Pala came across three men, who were travelling to the same destination.
By the time he had seen through their deception and understood their motive, it was too late.
The group of four had struck out for the highlands that lay between them and the monastery. They had all agreed to continue travelling through the night and Pala now realised why.
It was a perfect night for betrayal and murder.
The moon lay hidden behind a wispy veil of clouds and no stars shone in the sky. Winter was upon them and in the bitter cold of night there would be no other travellers on the trail.
No witnesses!
Pala had tried to get away. But he was old and they were young and physically stronger. Then, he remembered hearing, at the last town, about caves that had been tunnelled into the cliffs behind the Buddhas, to service their construction. He had tried to conserve his energy, lagging behind the others at times, until they arrived at a gravel strewn gully. While his three companions had sat down to rest and wait for him to catch up he had made his break, striking out among the rocks and boulders, trying to get to the edge of the cliff where he would search for the caves.
It had worked for a while. Desolation and silence, twin sisters in the darkness, had aided him as he left the gully, and in the frosty night air the sounds of pursuit had been carried to him, enabling him to evade the others. But he knew it was just a matter of time; he would tire and his younger companions would soon realise where he was headed.
In the pale light of the veiled moon the rocks and boulders sketched shadows on each other, standing silent and grim like mourners at a funeral, as Pala furiously hunted for refuge.
Panting from his exertions, he finally found the entrance to the caves and clambered down a roughly hewn tunnel. It soon opened into a cave, barely four feet high so he had to stoop and walk. There was no light and Pala hunted around desperately, blindly, looking for a place to hide the contents of his leather satchel. His arms and elbows bled from scraping against the walls but he ignored the pain, intent on his purpose.
They might kill him, but they would never discover the secret he carried!
At one end of the rocky chamber was a smooth wall of sandstone which, he guessed, was the back of one of the Buddha statues. There seemed to be no crevices or niches in which to hide the contents of his satchel.
He heard the sounds of men scrambling down the tunnel and saw the glimmer from their horn lantern light up the cave with an eerie glow.
As the three men emerged, Pala knew he was going to die in this cave. There was fury in their faces; they had thought he would be an easy target.
One of them grinned at him. ‘You thought you could outrun us and escape?’ The leader chuckled, but the sound was devoid of humour.
Pala never saw the blow coming.
As he turned to face the man, something sharp and hard struck him on the side of his head. In the cold air of the cavern he felt something sticky and hot flow down his cheek. It was his blood, he realised, as his head exploded with sudden pain.
Pala sagged to the ground.
His last thought, before the darkness enfolded him, was that he had failed in his mission.
One of the men knelt down and rummaged through the contents of the dead man’s satchel. It contained books of bark, bound together in the manner that was prevalent in northern India. He handed the books to their leader who leafed through them helplessly. None of the three men could read much more than their own names.
He threw the texts down in the dirt in anger and stamped on them, unmindful of the destruction he was causing.
His voice was hoarse with rage. ‘We went to all this trouble for these strips of bark? The way he kept the satchel close to him as if he was guarding it with his life, I thought there would be something more precious in there.’
‘Here, what’s this?’ The man peering into Pala’s bag pulled out a metallic object. It was in the shape of a circle, made of solid metal. He handed it to his leader. The metal was black but definitely not tarnished silver. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. One side of the circular slab was blank and smooth with a matted black finish. The other side had circular grooves with markings and inscriptions that he couldn’t read.
He did not see any value in it and flung the disk at Pala’s corpse.
‘Curse the son of a dog!’ he spat. ‘We have nothing to show for our efforts.’
‘What do we do with the corpse?’
‘Leave it here. This cave isn’t in use any more. We’ll go back up and roll a boulder over the opening. No one will ever know.’
The three men made their way back up the tunnel, to the surface, and searched for the largest boulder. They finally had a huge one plugging the entrance, burying Pala’s body and the contents of his satchel with him.
Little did they know that they had just buried the truth about one of the greatest ancient secrets of the world; a truth that would lie buried with Pala for the next 1,500 years.
14
Present Day
Day 6
Jaungarh Fort
The little group was assembled in the study again. They were all eager to find out about Vijay’s discovery. Warm sunlight flooded into the study through the huge bay windows.
Vijay narrated his dream to them. ‘What struck me was the fact that the king in the dream carved nine rocks. I realised that I was dreaming about Asoka and his edicts. When we read the verse yesterday, we naturally assumed that it referred to the Nine Unknown Men, describing them. But uncle, in his third mail, urges me to follow the edicts of Asoka, saying they will lead me on a voyage of discovery. It occurred to me that perhaps the verse referred not to the Nine themselves but to the nine edicts of Asoka.’
‘So what we should be looking for are nine locations where Asoka placed his edicts.’ Colin took up his train of thought.
‘You got it,’ Vijay grinned. ‘Finally the years of knowing me have rubbed off on you. You’re
getting smart, my friend.’
‘So I guess you also know which nine edicts the verse refers to, O Wise One?’ Colin retorted.
Vijay held up a sheaf of papers from the desk. ‘That’s what I’ve been working on, while you were sleeping.’ He sorted the papers. ‘There are several locations where the edicts were found; some on rocks, some on pillars. I’ve been researching the net and have downloaded some information on the edicts and analysed it.’
He put the papers on the table. ‘I’ve summarised information about each site where the edicts were found. I wasn’t sure how exactly we were to associate the locations with the lines in the verse, so I’ve tried to cover everything—location, script, variations. Not all locations had all the edicts. Some had only the major edicts and others only the minor ones. There were 14 major rock edicts and three minor ones. I’ve listed them all. There were also seven major pillar edicts and two minor ones. But there were also variations between different locations. For example, the one in Dhauli omits any reference to the Kalinga war. Scholars believe this was probably because Dhauli was in Kalinga and Asoka didn’t want to offend his conquered subjects.’
Colin’s forehead furrowed. ‘So we have to go through this list and try and match the clues in the verse to the locations?
‘It’s not that tough. I even managed to get us off to a start by deciphering the ninth line of the verse. The ninth speaks in two tongues.’ Vijay quoted from the verse. ‘I thought it must be the one at Kandahar, where there was a bilingual edict in Aramaic and Greek. Two tongues.’
The others nodded, seeing the logic in his deduction.
‘Maybe it won’t be that difficult to find the others,’ Radha said slowly, ‘We may not have to study all locations in detail in order to find the ones that match the verse. I think the first line of the verse—the Nine have gone forth to the edges of the Empire—provides us with a direction. If the verse had referred to the Nine themselves we could have interpreted this, quite literally, as the members of the brotherhood travelling to the borders of the Empire. But since we now think the verse refers to locations, we should be looking for nine sites on the borders of Asoka’s empire.’
‘Great thought.’ Vijay walked back to the desk and started typing on the laptop. ‘Let me find a good map that depicts the full extent of Asoka’s empire.’
Colin was studying the list of locations while Vijay searched for the map. Suddenly he looked up.
‘I think I’ve found another one. The third location is Maski. The verse says, The third speaks the name of the Emperor. Maski is the only edict to mention Asoka by name.’
Shukla nodded approvingly. ‘Good work.’
Colin beamed and went back to the list of locations.
The printer hummed. Vijay plucked the sheet and carried it back to the group.
‘Here’s a good map. It shows the location of his edicts. Asoka’s empire covered most of present-day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Kandahar is in Afghanistan, the western extremity of Asoka’s empire. Maski, while not on the edge of the empire, is close to the southern border. It could be a likely candidate.’
Colin scowled at him with mock indignation. ‘I find something and you try and dig a hole under it. Can’t you just accept and get used to my intellectual superiority?’
‘Okay, Mr. Wow,’ Vijay retorted. ‘Let’s see your superior intellect come up with a few more locations.’
Despite their light-hearted banter, there was excitement in the air. The group pored over the papers, occasionally glancing at the map, trying to find the links between the sites marked on the map and the clues in the verse.
Radha found the next one. ‘The first one is Girnar. The edict that looks different from the others, as the inscriptions are all separately engraved and separated by horizontal lines. The first, in appearance, is different from the rest.’
‘I’ve got two,’ Shukla announced after a while. ‘The seventh one is Sarnath. And the fifth is Shahbazgarhi.’
‘I don’t get the connection,’ Colin confessed. Vijay shrugged in agreement.
‘The seventh pays homage to the Wheel of Truth,’ Shukla quoted. ‘The Buddha gave his first sermon at the Deer Park in Sarnath; he preached the concept of the Wheel of Dharma or the Wheel of Truth, also known as the Wheel of Law, to his five disciples. He glanced at the paper he held. ‘According to this, the seventh edict stands at Sarnath, carved into a highly polished sandstone pillar.’
Colin and Vijay nodded, impressed by Shukla’s knowledge.
‘The edicts at Shahbazgarhi,’ Shukla continued, ‘are inscribed on two rocks, one on the slope of the hill and the other in the valley. Shahbazgarhi is in present-day Pakistan. The verse says...The fifth writes with a hand that is different from the rest...this particular edict is the only one that is written in the Kharosthi script which is read from right to left. Earlier, this script was known as Indo-Bactrian and Ariano-Pali and is derived from Aramaic. All the other edicts are written in the Brahmi script. So, the hand that is different from the rest is the script.’
He saw the expression on Colin’s and Vijay’s faces and smiled, shrugging self-deprecatingly. ‘You shouldn’t be surprised. I studied ancient Indian languages.’
‘I’ve got another one, I think,’ Colin spoke up after a while. ‘The eighth line says...The eighth does not have all that the others do but is special for he also has that which the others do not...’ He looked up, beaming, delighted. ‘It’s the one at...,’ he peered at the sheet of paper, ‘Dhauli, is that how you pronounce it?’
Vijay nodded, but looked like he didn’t understand. Colin couldn’t resist a barb. ‘Okay, I’ll explain. Make way for my grey cells, my friend.’
Radha smiled. The good-humoured exchange between the two friends and the insults that they traded frequently only revealed the depth of the friendship. ‘The carving at Dhauli,’ Colin resumed, ‘doesn’t contain edicts 11 to 13, so doesn’t have all that the others do; but it also has two other edicts that the others do not have.’
‘Lucky guess,’ Vijay muttered. ‘And now he’ll go on about it for the next 10 years.’
‘I think I know what the second one is,’ Shukla offered. ‘I should have got it much sooner, since I’ve read about it before. The second one is supposed to gaze over the sea, waiting for a ship to come in.’
‘It’s a port,’ Colin interjected.
‘Yes,’ Shukla smiled at his excitement. ‘In Ptolemy’s time there was an ancient sea port called Soupara, which was a commercial centre. Its ancient name was Supparaka. Today, according to this map and your research, it is known as Sopara.’
Vijay beamed with delight. ‘We’ve got seven now. Just two more to go.’
‘I’ve got another one,’ Colin grinned. ‘The sixth one...The sixth is greater by one than the other upright ones...the upright ones are the pillar edicts. All the pillars have six edicts, except one. Topra has seven edicts. It is greater by one than the other pillar edicts.’
Vijay looked at him. ‘Seems logical.’
‘Grey cells again,’ Colin beamed. ‘I’m awesome. What would you do without me? What...’
‘There’s one left,’ Vijay interrupted him, smiling. ‘The fourth is seventeen...what could that refer to?’
Radha frowned. Something in the printed notes had struck her but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Silence descended on the group. What could this line of the verse mean? It certainly couldn’t refer to the age of the edict.
Suddenly, Radha looked around, flushed with excitement.
‘Yerragudi.’
Questioning looks were directed at her.
‘Yerragudi is a small town in Andhra Pradesh,’ she explained. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much significance attached to it since there isn’t too much in the notes but it has both the major and minor rock edicts.’
Blank faces gazed at her.
‘Don’t you get it? There were 14 major rock edicts and three minor ones; 17 in all. Yerragudi had all 17.’
>
Vijay shook his head. ‘Unbelievable. The locations of all the edicts were cleverly disguised.’ He turned to his notes. ‘So the locations, in the order they are mentioned in the verse, are: Girnar, Sopara, Maski, Yerragudi, Shahbazgarhi, Topra, Sarnath, Dhauli and Kandahar.’
‘What are we supposed to do with them?’ Radha wondered. ‘This still doesn’t lead us anywhere.’
‘In all the books I’ve read,’ Colin said thoughtfully, ‘when people decipher clues like these, they normally visit each location and find additional clues. Perhaps if we visit all nine locations we will find nine more clues that will lead us to something else and so on, until we find the secret of the Nine?’
‘You read a lot of rubbish,’ Vijay grinned at him, then his face grew serious. ‘But you may be right.’
‘Me and my big mouth,’ Colin groaned. ‘Now we’ll go traipsing round the countryside looking for clues under every rock we find. Look, I’d love to see more of India but if we have to go to the edges of Asoka’s empire, that’s not quite my idea of a tour itinerary. And Kandahar is in Afghanistan. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me there. Haven’t you guys heard? The Taliban shoot Americans on sight. Sorry guys, but I don’t want to end up as target practice for some trigger happy militants.’
Shukla shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s very unlikely that there are clues at every location. The Nine went to great lengths to conceal the location of their secret. They would have ensured that the trail of clues was indestructible, like this metal disk. Any clues left on rocks or pillars in the locations where the edicts are located may have been erased by the ravages of time. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the Nine would have made such an effort and then leave clues that could be obliterated by time and the elements.’
‘What then?’ Vijay frowned at the map of Asoka’s empire. He had marked out, with red ink, the nine locations identified in the verse.
‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ Radha remarked. ‘Girnar, Sopara, Maski and Yerragudi are in a straight line. And Shahbazgarhi, Topra, Sarnath and Dhauli form another straight line that is almost parallel to the first line of edicts.’
The Mahabharata Secret Page 9