I cleaned myself with only the wet cloth, staying an inch away from the water. After the bath, the servants cleaned me with towels and massaged my skin with oil. It felt like heaven after the prison cell that I had been in.
They dressed me in clean and perfumed clothing once I was dry. One of the servants reached out to tie my open hair. “Let it be.” I said to the servant, and the servant kept holding the locks of my hair, confused.
“Let my hair stay open,” I said and brushed them off.
After the bath, I was brought dinner, and I was immensely hungry for not having eaten in almost two days. I ate the morsels of rice hungrily and drank a pot of the curd brought with it.
“My Lord asks how the food is.” A servant enquired.
“It tastes like nectar.” I said.
After the dinner, they brought me to a room with a small window on the top. Columns of sunlight danced in through it. It was the first sunlight I’d seen after leaving my prison cell.
“My Lord asks you to be comfortable. He will soon come visit you himself.” The servant informed me and left. There was a bed with cotton in the corner, but I did not feel like sleeping. I had done enough of that in the prison. Instead, I sat in the rays of the sunlight that came in through the small window.
Soon there was a knock upon the door. “Do I have the permission of Arya Chanakya to enter?” The strong voice of the man called Avarak asked.
“Yes, of course you can”’ I said.
The man who was called Avarak entered the room. He wasn’t dressed in the long black robes from before and his shapely upper body was exposed. His big arms and wide shoulders Bulged as he sat down opposite me.
“I hope you are feeling well now,” he said.
“My body feels wonderful after all the service your servants have given me.” I said. “But my mind still riffles with questions.”
“Of course it must be.” Avarak said. “I am sure that our rescue came as a shock.”
“Not a shock.” I said, “A pleasant surprise. I must thank you for saving my life.”
“Thank the Order.” Avarak said. “We all serve it.”
“About the Order too.” I said. “I must ask, will you answer the questions that have filled my entire mind?”
“Of course I will.” Avarak said. “You may ask anything without any kind of reservations.”
“How did you rescue me?” I asked.
“The prisons of Patliputra are housed in a series of underground tunnels.” Avarak said. “These tunnels are so vast that no one knows where they lead. Except us, that is!”
“You are telling me that the prisons are practically built in the open?”
“Not in the open.” Avarak said. “These prisons are so confusing that people get lost in here.”
“But your people don’t?”
Avarak laughed. “We are the ancient Brahminical Order. Our founders built these tunnels.”
“And who were they precisely?” I asked.
“Patliputra is an ancient city.” Avarak said. “It was built almost five centuries ago by Maharaja Ajatshatru, our esteemed founder.”
“I’ve heard of the great Maharaja.” I said.
“Those were tumultuous times.” Avarak said, “A monk from the north was preaching his theologies here, disrupting our religion.”
“You speak of Siddhartha Gautama.” I said. “The Buddha - the enlightened one.”
“We in the Order refrain from speaking his name.” Avarak said.
“He converted Maharaja Bimbisar.” I said. “Father of Ajatshatru.”
“Yes.” Avarak said. “He spoke with Maharaja Bimbisar and convinced him to give up the old rituals, Gods and the caste system.”
“Then Bimbisar decided to convert his son too,” I said, “the young prince Ajatshatru.”
“But the young prince refused to be converted.” Avarak said. “He rose in rebellion against his father and defeated the non-believer king.”
“That much is history.” I said.
“Ajatshatru was wise.” Avarak said. “He knew Hinduism had become weak. That is why monks like the Buddha had emerged. So he set up this Order.”
“He built Patliputra, did he not?” I asked.
“Indeed he did.” Avarak said. “And underground, he built these vast tunnels to house our ancient Order. That is why this place is called Patliputra. Patal-e- Putra. Gateway to the Patal loka, which symbolizes these tunnels. For hundreds of years, this Order has been operating out of here as the sword of Hinduism.”
“How big are these tunnels?” I asked.
“No one knows that completely.” Avarak said. “They are like a maze. It is said that they are so complicated that even the people who built them could not map them. They just went on building them.”
“So Bimbisar was imprisoned here?” I asked.
“Yes, in his later years.” Avarak said. “At night, men from the Order would torture him for his sins.”
“You answered how you rescued me,” I said, “now answer why.”
“We know all about you, Arya,” Avarak said. “For some time, we have been trying to recruit you. But now you have come to us, making our work easier.”
“What do you know about me?” I asked.
“You were Guru at the academy of Taxila.” Avarak said, “Then, you fought with the Mahaguru of the academy over their admission policies. You detested the fact that the academy opened its doors only to rich Kshatriyas. The Mahaguru told you that no one else deserved to be in there. You told him you would prove him wrong. You left the academy and gathered a band of your own students. Most of them orphans, poor kids who didn’t even knew their own parents. You gathered them into an ashram in the style of the old Vedic gurukuls of the Rishis and made a lot of effort to train them. Soon your students had surpassed even the brightest at the academy. The Mahaguru came to you and asked you and your band of students to come back to the academy. You agreed, but only after the Mahaguru had apologized.”
“You know a lot.” I smiled. Though not all. “Now let me guess about you. About who you are.”
“What do you mean?” Avarak asked.
“The ancient Brahminical Order, huh?” I said. “And yet you are a Kshatriya. I can tell that by the way you carry yourself.”
“The Order is in danger these days,” Avarak said. “Dhanananda is keen on rooting it out. Important members have been seized and killed. We Kshatriyas are all that’s left.”
“Not just Kshatriyas.” I said. “Noble ones. Your pronunciations are too correct. Your tone, too overbearing. You were a nobleman, weren’t you?”
“You, Arya, are very observant.” Avarak said. “I am a Raja. Raja Avarak.”
“Or rather you were a Raja,” I said, “before the Nandas drove you out of your Rajya.”
“I am Avarak, Raja of the ancient kingdom of Avanti.” Avarak said. “Straight from the dynasty of the legendary Rajas of Avanti, before the Nandas took our kingdom from us and put their own man on the throne.”
“How come you are in the Order?” I asked.
“I was dumped in the same prisons that you were by Dhanananda.” Avarak said. “The Order rescued me just like it rescued you.”
“Doesn’t Dhanananda notice the absence of the prisoners?” I asked.
“No.” Avarak said. “After we rescue the prisoners, we replace them with dummies. Dhanananda tortures the prisoners so much that soon all of them look the same, lifeless!”
“I must say, I am very impressed by your Order.” I said.
“And the Order is impressed by you too. “ Avarak said. “That is why we rescued you. You had the guts to threaten Dhanananda to his face. There is no way we could have let a man like you die.”
“That can’t be all.” I said.
“The way you threatened him,” Avarak said, “we were sure you had the support of some kind of a power. Or perhaps you knew some secret.”
“I came from the northwest,” I said, “which at this moment is being
overrun by the Greeks.”
“I know.” Avarak said.
“Why doesn’t your Order revolt against the Nandas?” I asked.
“The army is a big deterrent.” Avarak said. “His army is much too powerful. What we need is some kind of an outside power to attack Dhanananda and his army. Then we can revolt against him.”
“And you thought I know how to bring that about?” I asked.
“Yes.” Avarak said. “Do you?”
“I do.” I said.
“How?” Avarak asked.
“What would you do after you know?”
“We’d induct you into the Order,” Avarak said.
“Good.” I said, standing up. “Induct me.”
I was cloaked in hoods too, like the rest of them. The room had been converted into a ritual room. Strange shapes were drawn all over the place.
Everybody stood in a circle around me and chanted. Their chants felt eerie and resonating. I felt unsettled.
I gazed ahead where a man stood with a crucible filled with some kind of a red liquid in his hands. Avarak comforted me from the side.
“You shall recite after me.” He said. I nodded.
“Say your name. “ Avarak said.
“I, Arya Chanakya.”
“Vow to abide by.”
“Vow to abide by.”
“These words which I am about to speak.”
I kept reciting as Avarak spoke, “That I shall take upon myself the prime responsibilities for the conservation of our Arya race, and its age-old religion. I shall strive to maintain the caste system of us Aryas. Those who strive to disrupt these age-old principles shall be my sworn enemies. I shall fight against them with all my strength and that will be the only aim of my life.”
The man standing opposite me took a step ahead and offered me the crucible. I took it. I looked in it. The red liquid glowed.
“Drink it up.” Avarak whispered in my ear, “it’s only wine.”
I gulped down the liquid at one go. It tasted very sour. The man took the empty crucible and handed me a knife.
Avarak spoke again, “And if I were to turn against these principles, let my blood turn into flames and consume me from within.” He motioned me to draw blood.
I drew blood from my fingers. It fell into the yagna kund in front of him and burnt. The smoke was now causing my eyes to become weary.
All around me, the pace of the chanting was increasing.
“I vow to stand again heretics of all kind and use whichever force necessary to destroy them.” Avarak led again. I followed.
“Whenever the established order of society is disturbed, I vow to rise to make things right again. Chaos is my enemy. The trinities of Brahma Vishnu Mahesh are my Gods. I vow to fight for what is correct and hereby I am inducted into this Order for life.”
Then Avarak took an iron poker from the yagna and pressed it on my arm. A mark of the swastika was burnt onto my bare skin. I did not utter a sound.
“You have now spoken the words which the great Maharaja Ajatshatru once spoke.” Avarak said. “You are now a brother of the ancient Brahminical Order.”
He hugged me and I hugged him back. The chanting stopped. The men of the Order came and hugged me one by one.
“Your hair is left open.” Avarak said, once they were gone. “Shall I tie it back for you?”
“No.” I said. “Just let it be open.”
In my eyes, I was sure that Avarak could see the reflection of the burning yagna kund.
“Was it the Order that recruited Devdatta?” I asked, as Avarak showed me around the headquarters of the Order.
“Indeed.” Avarak said. “Prince Ajatshatru recruited Devdatta himself. He knew that only one of the monk’s own students could defeat him.”
“There is this story of an assassination attempt on the Buddha.” I said.
“It was financed by Ajatshatru and facilitated by Devdatta,” Avarak said. “But unfortunately, it failed. When the assassins went to kill Buddha, Buddha spoke with them and convinced them not to kill him. Furthermore, he convinced them to join his Sanghas.”
“Then Devdatta tried to kill him himself?”
“Yes he did.” Avarak said. “He hurled a boulder at him and tried to make it look like an accident.”
“But Buddha did not die, did he?” I said.
“Not so easily.” Avarak said. “He saw Devdatta and saved himself. From then on, he knew Devdatta was a traitor.”
“So there was no choice left but to try and kill him himself?” I said.
“So Devdatta crept into Buddha’s hut at one night, but Buddha had kept guards.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“All the attempts to kill the Buddha had failed. So Maharaja Ajatshatru tried a new strategy. He made Devdatta break the Buddha’s Sangha and declare himself as a new enlightened being.” Avarak said. “Several monks followed him. Ajatshatru made him lay hard conditions on those monks. His aim was to make them all return to Hinduism in the end, tired of the hard life of the Sanghas.”
“I have heard that Devdatta showed remorse in the end.” I said.
“Who doesn’t show remorse in the end?” Avarak said, “Hundred years since, the Buddhists are still getting stronger. Our Hindu ideals are getting weaker. And that is why we have a Vaishya king on the throne of Patliputra.”
“Don’t blame everything on the Nandas.” I said. “We ourselves are equally responsible for this.”
“True.” Avarak said. “We have let a Vaishya rise to a throne and now he is running the Rajya like he would run his business.”
“A true Kshatriya would never have acted in this way.” I said.
“That is our mission, Chanakya.” Avarak said. “To bring the Vaishya Nandas down and install a proper Kshatriya in his place.”
“The northwest is already in grave danger from the Greeks.” I said. “Maybe the Greeks will attack Magadha next. If that happens, you shall have to change your mission from replacement of Vaishya with Kshatriyas to the replacement of foreigners with Aryas.”
“It’s not just our mission anymore.” Avarak said, “It is your mission now too. You too are a part of the Order now, brother.”
“And still, you are not telling me everything.” I said. “You are keeping secrets of the Order from me.”
Avarak looked impressed. “As I have said before, you are very observant, Arya!”
I smiled, “Then you should not wait any longer to tell me.”
We were back in the tunnels, in the darkness. There was moisture in the air. Avarak was holding a lit torch which illuminated the passageway.
“How do your men not get lost in these tunnels?” I asked, gazing into the darkness, “all of these corridors look the same to me.”
“We follow a simple formula that has been taught in the Order for since long.” Avarak said. He led Chanakya to a wall. On it, he could see symbols.
“Think of these tunnels as a maze.” Avarak said. “If at any point, you are lost, you touch your hand to any wall of your choosing and keep walking without taking your hand off.”
“I wonder how it works.” I said, thoughtfully.
“It gets us out.” Avarak said. “A maze is made up of two walls. If we follow either wall, we must reach the entrance.”
“It’s quite correct.” I said, scratching my head. “But it won’t guarantee that you will travel to all parts of the maze.”
“That is why we too are not familiar with all parts of this tunnel system,” Avarak said.
“So not even you have been able to map this thing,” I commented.
“No one,” Avarak said.
“So this thing could go anywhere?”
“Yes.” Avarak agreed. “We know that the prisons are at one end and our hideouts at the other. But this maze has ends even we do not know of.”
“So it may be possible that….?”
“I know what you are thinking about.” Avarak smiled. “In fact, there is also a legend about
it. That these tunnels also lead to a secret passageway that leads outside the city walls.”
“A hidden passageway!” I exclaimed.
“But we haven’t found it yet.” Avarak said. “We even tried looking from the other side. But Patliputra is so big, it could be anywhere.”
“Such a passage, if it exists, would be of great importance when the city is besieged,” I said.
“But it is so hard to find, that even we have begun to doubt its existence,” Avarak said.
I touched the walls. They were rough and solid.
“Let’s go back to the surface.” I said.
“I won’t waste any more of your time.” I said, once we were at the surface. “I now have a clear idea of what the Order is all about. It is time that I return to Taxila and work towards achieving its mission.”
“I understand.’ Avarak said. “I will arrange for you to leave the city. I will even give you a horse.”
“There is one more thing I wish to ask of you.” I finally said, “It is of a more sinister nature.”
“I’m all ears,” Avarak said.
Asoka
Avanti, 271 BC
Asoka led his army along the mountain pass that led to Avanti. It was a small pass with rocky cliffs towering on both its sides. The men moved slowly, as there was a danger of landslides, of stones falling down from the sides. The path was so narrow that only one horse could pass at a time. Asoka stood on a rock to see each of his men pass, one by one.
They had left Vidishanagri two days ago and walked along the Narmada River on the side of their left hand. It had been very hard to say goodbye to Devi while leaving the city.
“So you will not come with us?” He had asked her.
“Well, your main concern was my safety in the forest,” she said. “Now you can be sure that I’ll be safe in the city.”
There was no argument against that! Asoka thought. She was much too sharp.
“Not only that,” he had said, trying to find another convincing reason, “now there is no good Vaidya in my army.”
“Oh, you can hire one.” She had given him her sweetest smile. “Vidishanagri has them by plentiful.”
The Prince of Patliputra Page 18