The Weapon of the Devas

by Nanda Gopal Guruswamy

  Alagaraja calmed down. He shook his head. “I found no one, it was just sheer luck that I found you. After you sent me the message, I used the GPS on your phone to find your location.” I gave the police an anonymous tip to check out Devakratha’s place, but they were gone by the time the police got there. I managed to get you and the body out of there. Then I contacted a local doctor to patch you up. I know him well and he won’t discuss with anyone.”

  So not only had I utterly failed but I had also caused irreparable damage. Bad luck followed me everywhere since I accepted this case. I had also lost another phone, damn. Devakratha [S10] [GGN11] re-bandaged me up and I got a look around and saw that we were in Alagaraja’s workshop basement. I was trying to dress myself when Raja stopped me and said “Just what do you think you’re doing? You need atleast a week’s rest.”

  “No way. I feel fine. Got to get back home and contact someone.” I said. But Raja did not allow me to go.

  “How long has it been since you had a full night’s sleep?”

  “Four days. But that’s ok. I’m good.” I said although I felt a little dizzy and hurt all over. I wanted to go and bury myself somewhere else, I needed to be alone.

  “No. You’re not ok. Get your ass back in bed.”

  I looked at him desperately, “Look, I’ve done something terrible. If I don’t do something about it, it would mean that the little girl died for nothing.” After some more pleading, Raja buckled.

  “That’s the problem with you so-called-heroes. You’re so ready to go down fighting in a blaze of glory and sacrifice yourself that you hardly care of the consequences. You don’t care what comes next. When somebody else has to come and mop up your mess. If you’re going to do something foolish, then do it right.” He declared. He placed another small vial on the table that reminded me of the LSD.

  “This is a cocktail of amphetamines, opiates and few other chemicals. It’s a little pick-me-up that should energize you, remove the pain and keep you active. Be warned however, this is powerful stuff. The hangover’s gonna hurt like hell.”

  After my recent tryst with drugs, I was very apprehensive about injecting something else in me. But I let him. Whatever it was, it was amazing. All the pain disappeared and was replaced with a cool alertness. But it did nothing to dull the memory of that little girl. I fear that she will remain etched on my mind forever. I left Raja’s place and headed for my own on another bike that Raja gave me. My own bike was probably lying down in some ditch somewhere or stripped of its parts and sold off by thieves.

  My conscience was a hard organ that had remained stoic during my life. But now, after last night’s events, it had broken down. It screamed at me indignantly all the time never giving me a moment’s rest making me grateful for Raja’s pick-me-up. Without it I never would have made it through the next few hours. I entered my place and could see Kajur bent over the laptop reading something intently.

  I collapsed on the sofa and said “Kajur, what is the Gandiva bow?”

  He immediately turned and said “That, detective, is the right question”. He still thought of this as a game. I was in no mood for his jests.

  He continued as if reading from a book “The Gandiva Bow. Created by the Brahman. The Brahman is not to be confused with a Brahmin, the caste, or Brahma the god. The Brahman is satyam gyanam anantam brahma which is truth, knowledge and infinity. The Brahman is the ultimate essence of the material, the immaterial, the source and the ending of reality. The Brahman cannot be seen or heard, only a fraction of his true self can be understood through self-knowledge. The Brahman created the bow and gave it to Brahma the creator of Gods. Brahma did not use the Gandiva, being of a benevolent nature and a creator, not a destroyer. The bow was next wielded by Prajapati for five hundred and three years, who used it in the forgotten War of the Ajivas. The Ajivas were the Devourers of Life. And only with the Gandiva was Prajapati able to hold them back and banish them from this reality. Next the bow was held by the great Lord Indra, Lord of the skies and thunder, for five hundred and eighty years in the battle for Soma. Finally the bow to handed over to Lord Varuna, the god of Water and Oceans for safekeeping. ”

  I didn’t know that. Curious I asked, “Ajivas?”

  “Do not name them too much, mortal or you might attract their attention. And some things are better left forgotten.”

  “Ok, what happened next?”

  “Then a great king performed many yagnas and fed enormous amounts of ghee into the sacrificial fire that the deity he was praying to, Agni, became sick. He could only cure himself by consuming the deep and dark forest, Khandava. But there in the Khandava forest lived the lord of serpents, Takshaka, whose friend was Lord Indra. So whenever Agni tried to burn the forest, Lord Indra would send heavy rains to prevent the forest from burning. After tiring himself, Lord Agni requested the help of Arjuna and Lord Krishna. Since this was no simple task, Arjuna requested for proper weapons to fulfil this request. It was then that Lord Agni called upon Lord Varuna, the keeper of the bow and asked for it to be given to Arjuna. Arjuna used the Gandiva and created a huge protective sheet of arrows that allowed no water to fall through. Lord Agni thus consumed the forest of Khandava. Arjuna then carried the bow into the Kurukshetra war and caused a massacre such as never before. After the war, Arjuna had no need of the bow and surrendered it into the Ganges, from where it is believed that it was returned to the celestial armoury of Lord Varuna.”

  “The Gandiva was best in the hands of Arjuna. They both were as one. Every time the Gandiva bowstring was twanged, it made a sound of thunder putting fear into the hearts of its enemies. The Gandiva comes with two inexhaustible quivers, so the wielder would also have an endless supply of arrows. No other mortal can wield the Gandiva ever again.” Here he looked at me meaningfully. “So a half-mortal, or a half-asura, to be specific, can use the Gandiva?”

  “Yes,” he said in a hushed whisper.

  “Is there a way to defend against it?”

  “Only the greatest warriors of the Kurukshetra could. Foremost among them were Parashurama, Dronacharya, his son Ashwathamma, Bheeshma, Duryodhana and of course the invincible Karna. But the secret has died with them.”

  Not yet, I thought. I didn’t say of my encounter with Karna to anyone. For one, I wasn’t sure if it was real and I did not want people to think that I had damaged my brain with secret weapons, immortal warriors, and sorcerers who were quick to anger and all that. It was a pickle alright. I tried contacting some of the Elders and Guardians, but I couldn’t reach any one of them. Some of the priests I spoke to were understanding but unable to help. They confirmed that all their strengths were focused on keeping the Asuras from entering Bhuloka, or the Earth. The only I reason that I had been left was because of instructions from Elder Madhava requesting that I stay back to handle his Thugee matter. There was no one available for help or guidance, I was alone.

  I needed to eat something, but every other moment I wasn’t working, my mind kept rewinding back to the scene in the gully and the face of a little girl. So I gritted my teeth and continued to work, when something occurred to me. I had taken a piece of paper from the Dev’s desk. I had forgotten about it, I now checked my clothes and found a crumpled piece of paper in my back pocket. It also had a little patch of blood on it. I was disappointed. I had expected something good. Instead all I could see what was a picture and not a good one at that. It was a wonky set of squared, triangles, and polygons all overlapping over each other forming some sort of mathematical diagram. I had no idea what it meant but strangely it reminded me of something silly. The similarities were there, it looked like a Kolam. A kolam is a self-repeating colourful pattern drawn by women with rice powder just in front of their homes every morning.

  I scanned it and did an image search on the internet and came up with a word. Fractals. Some complex form of mathematics most of which sounded like gibberish. There were some links and scientific papers about fractals and Indian temples, that for the life of me, maybe literally,
I couldn’t understand. Basically fractals are non-regular patterns, like the shapes trees, rivers, clouds and mountains. A very simple fractal is to draw two triangles next to each other and draw a triangle on top of that so that the top triangle is resting on the tips of the bottom triangles. Now you have a basic shape. Draw that same basic shape next to it. You can join the two basic shapes with another on top of that. And then repeat. Simplicity leads to complexity. And there were lots of papers showing that Indian temples demonstrated this use of fractals to signify the different levels of consciousness and such stuff. Fascinating but nothing that could help me. After a couple of hours of this, I got a headache.

  I decided to get help, Kajur didn’t know what the fractal was and Raja said he knew only a little about fractals but he did suggest that I go down to the local university and meet a contact of his, who might know about this subject. It was worth a shot so I went for a visit to the local university to meet a professor.

  It was a complete bust. The professor was an old man who looked like he should have retired a decade ago. As soon as he saw the fractal he launched into a completely bland lecture and droned on and on about chaos theory, someone called Mandelbrot and equations long enough that should have taken up every letter of the alphabet. And what was worse was that he was using chalk on a blackboard that made an irritating scratching noise that made me want to shove that piece of chalk down his throat to shut him up. But I didn’t. Fountain of self-control, that’s me. I left locking the door behind me.

  No more had I left the building that I smelt freshly made parathas. I surrendered and went to the college cafeteria and ordered some. I started showing my frustration on them by ripping them into little pieces before eating them. The other college students looked at me but no one said a word. Couldn’t blame them, they probably saw a weirdly dressed older guy muttering darkly at himself and glaring at his food. But after having about a half a dozen of them, I was feeling a bit better. I was studying the fractal pattern myself and was trying to discern something when I heard a female voice. “Hey, that’s cool. Did you make it yourself? ”

  I turned around and saw a smart girl on the table next to me with those geek glasses that seemed to be in fashion. She was dressed part western and part desi that showed off her complexion in an attractive way. “Huh?” I grunted.

  “That fractal. Did you make it yourself? It’s nice. Can I study it? Are you going to be there to watch? Are you a teacher here?” She fired those questions rapidly and looked at me eagerly for an answer. I was a little taken back, but recovered.

  “You can study it, if you let me know what it is and what you know about this image.”

  She looked at me sceptically and said, “Hmm, you did create the fractal based on the upcoming astronomical event, didn’t you?”

  “Uhh, yeah. Obviously. I was just testing to see if you knew it”. I said looking a little dodgy, I didn’t know anything about any astronomical event. But she hardly noticed, she was studying the image, I passed it to her, and she changed tables to sit next to me. “Just give a running commentary, you know, just to see what you know.” I said

  “Ok, let’s see. So you obviously know about the upcoming astronomical event tonight or should I say tomorrow, because it’s at 3.00 a.m. in the night.” She laughed. I nodded for her to continue.

  “It’s supposed to be an event that occurs once every three thousand years. The stars will align themselves in a very specific way that is important to Indian astronomy. Somehow this astronomical formation was very important to the ancient Indians and was recorded in the old texts.” She took a pen and started marking dots on the image. “So these dots are the stars, and this fractal pattern is created by joining the dots with lines in a specific pattern using a formula. Although this is a work of pure genius, how did you design them? Are you a teacher?”

  “No, my name is Shiva. I’m a student,” and I didn’t design it. I seemed to recall the old professor saying that fractals are not only patterns that occur in nature, they also occur in space. And that there are several fractals based on cosmic events.

  “And you?” I said. Luckily she wasn’t suspicious and continued to blabber on.

  “I’m Meena. I’m a PhD student here, in Indian history. I already completed a couple of degrees in math and astronomy. My thesis for math was regarding fractals. And my thesis for Indian history is somewhat similar to this. I am writing about how temples designed using vedic scriptures are different. On how astronomical formations were used as designs for temples. You’re not writing about the same thing, are you?” She looked worried.

  “No, no. Just a pet project. I have no intention of using this. Just something to amuse me. Why? Are you afraid I’m gonna steal your notes?” I said, with what has hopefully a winning smile. My face was a mess from yesterday and I’ve never been good-looking anyway. What was a bit worrying was that this unassuming lady had stumbled on the transport portals. Could be dangerous for her.

  She rolled her eyes “In Indian history? Nobody seems to care anymore, you could turn in the exact same thesis and it wouldn’t matter. Anyway I have a backup thesis which I’m not telling you,” she said smiling.

  “But you know, there’s something about this fractal. Like almost I’ve seen it somewhere, just can’t remember where.”

  “Try” I said with a frozen smile. My heart was beating, I didn’t know why but I knew I was on the right track.

  “Hmm.” Her face was crinkled as she thought hard.

  “Ohh, I know. In the library. Hold on,” she jumped up and headed out.

  “Hey, hang on.” I said and followed the brainiac. She headed for the library and I got lost looking for her in those giant corridors of books. She found me.

  “Ah, there you are. Look.” She showed me a book and in it was a picture of a fractal that was almost the same as mine. But this one was more complicated and had many lines going in and out of it.

  “What is it?” I asked

  She waved a hand. “Just some mythological nonsense. There is supposed to be a temple build using this fractal pattern as a rough blueprint. Funny thing is, no one could have noticed this astronomical event three thousand years ago. So you know how the author covers that? He actually alleges that this temple was built by a mythological being. Someone called Mayasur.”

  My pulse quickened. Mayasura, things were falling into place. Mayasura was a great Asura king. More importantly, he was an architect, he was the builder of Tripura, meaning three-cities. The three cities were made of iron, silver and gold and were located on earth, in the sky and in heaven, respectively. And more than that, the only person who escaped the carnage when the Khandava forest was burned down by Lord Agni. His life had been spared by Arjuna and Lord Krishna.

  In return, Mayasura had built the Mayasabha for the Pandavas. The Mayasabha was the largest and most beautiful hall of its age, palace of a thousand wonders, where the floors were so clear and smooth that none could be sure what was underneath. And it just so happened that he also left a pool that couldn’t be differentiated from the reflective floor into which Duryodhana, the Kaurava prince, fell into making a fool of himself.

  I knew what was coming next. So I asked Meena “This temple … by any chance would it be a temple for Lord Varuna, the god of Oceans?”

  “How did you know?” She said looking surprised. “Did you read the book? But no, this is a very old and rare book.” She was looking at the book cover and continued thinking aloud. But I had tuned out. I did it. The location of the yagna was in this temple for sure. It would probably be abandoned or something by now. Devakratha would be summoning the Gandiva’s bow in Lord Varuna’s temple. With the little piece of armour, Devakratha had the essence of Arjuna, he could use it to call out to Gandiva and the bow would respond to Arjuna’s essence. Once it appeared, Devakratha would claim it. There would be no one to stop him.

  Except little old me. I turned and asked “Where is this temple?”

  She looked up and said “H
elloo? Havent you been listening? This is a mythological work. Not reality. There is no mention of a location here.”

  “No, there has to be a location. Look harder, is there any mention of any place.” I said that a little forcefully.

  “I’ve studied the book. There’s nothing about a location.” She was a bit suspicious now

  She finally asked “You know what, I want to see your ID card.” She held her hand out.

  “Yeah. I’m not a student.” I said.

  “What? But you said …”

  “I lied.” I said shrugging. I took the book, found the page with the fractal pattern and tore it out.

  Her scream of outrage echoed in those dusty halls. She followed me as I put the torn page into my pocket and headed out.

  “Put that back! How dare you defile that old book?” She continued berating me all the way through campus and into the parking lot.

  I got on my bike, “Would you rather I defile you?” I said with a sweet smile.

  She held onto my bike and tried to stop me from leaving. I was gently prying her hand away from the handle when a shot rang out and the bullet hit a nearby pole with a loud metallic sound. If Meena hadn’t been struggling with me, my head would’ve probably exploded like a melon. Someone was shooting at us! I instantly ducked and pulled the stunned Meena with me and used my bike as cover to scurry over to a safe spot. There was a half wall close by that was a perfect cover. We reached there without any shots getting fired. I peeped over the wall I was sitting under and a couple of shots dug into the wall, just below my head. I ducked back down in a hurry.

  By the sound of it, it was some sort of rifle. Unfortunately, I had nearly no knowledge of guns, having had no opportunity to use them. On top of everything else, I was getting shot at in a parking lot. Since the parking lot was huge and a bit isolated, the shots wouldn’t have alerted anyone else. Meena was covering her mouth with her hand and trying not to scream. I didn’t even have my jacket to protect me. My patience had reached its peak. Someone was going to suffer for this. I thought quickly and made a plan. It wasn’t great but it just might work.