Govinda (The Aryavarta Chronicles) (49 page)

The military history of India, from the AllEmpires.com historical information website, Sushama Londhe’s page on war in Ancient
India (
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/War_in_Ancient_India.htm
), S.A. Paramahans’s ‘A Glance at Military Techniques in Ramayana and Mahabharata’ (1989,
Indian Journal of History of Science
, 24–3, 156–160) and The Sarasvati Web (
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/sarasvati
) also deserve reference.

GENEALOGIES

In constructing genealogies, I have relied on the texts of the Mahabharata and Harivamsa mentioned above, as well as the Srimad
Bhagavatham. My tables were supplemented and cross-checked against two sources: Desiraju Hanumanta Rao’s genealogical tables
of the Yadu and related dynasties (
www.mahabharata-resources.org
) and the tables in Irawati Karve’s
Yuganta
. Vettam Mani’s classic
Puranic Encyclopaedia
(Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas, 1975) has filled many gaps and provided essential details.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF TIME

My approach to Time has been a mix of the literal and the symbolic. Myth suggests that lifespans were much longer in the previous
yugas, lasting perhaps up to three or four hundred years in the Dwaparayuga – the era of the Mahabharata. However, these figures
take on a different meaning if we apply the notion of ashrama or stages of life. K.N.S. Patnaik (
The Mahabharata Chronology
, Pune: Annual Research J. of the Institute for Rewriting Indian History, 1990) compares how childhood (
baalyam
) lasted forty years in the times of the Mahabharata, whereas it lasts approximately 15 years in the current age of Kali.
Similarly, youth or
youvanam
lasted till the age of 120 years in the past, as compared to about 45 years in today’s age. We are, in essence, dealing with
a different basis of measurement of time and age.

Time, in the
Chronicles
, is therefore scaled down to contextualize the main actors as the middle-aged individuals they were, relative to the period
of the epic. As a result, the age of the characters is given in contemporary terms.

Interestingly, ancient units of measurements ran by seasonal and sidereal time, along with the common solar. The possibility,
therefore, of a year as we know constituting a shorter period of time, cannot be discounted. Subash Kak (‘On the Chronological
Framework for Indian Culture’,
Indian Council of Philosophical Research
, 2000,
pp. 1
–
24
) mentions how one of the bases for variation in the dating of the events of the Mahabharata may be the calendar
system used (more precisely, the number of stellar constellations in a given cycle).

LANGUAGE

My work would have been near-impossible but for these amazing dictionaries and glossaries, accessed primarily through the
Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries website (
http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de
). Included in this database are the
well-known Monier-Williams, Apte and MacDonnell dictionaries, as well as Kale’s work on Sanskrit grammar. I also used the
simpler but wonderful Spoken Sanskrit Dictionary (
http://spokensanskrit.de
) and relied on the Sanskrit Heritage Site (
http://sanskrit.inria.fr/sanskrit.html
)
for grammar reference.

Shobana: Mother and closet feminist. She taught me to love our rich legacy of spirituality and scripture and to defy the irrational
in it.

Sumita Chattopadhyay: Teacher and lover of literature. The mirror that showed me long ago the writer I now am.

Jai: Husband, beloved, best friend and consummate believer in gender equality. If writing be a labour of love, then his is
the love that gives meaning to what I write. Without him there would be no words.

Boozo and Zana: My dearest (fur) kids. They showed me the meaning of unconditional affection and compassion, qualities that
make epic heroes of us all.

Alvin: Mentor, guide and kindred writer. He taught me the most important lesson in writing – that the stories we tell are
our own.

Jayapriya and Priya: Awesome agents and committed friends. They believed in me long before I believed in myself.

Shashi Warrier: For taking the time to read in entirety an aspiring author’s awkward first draft and for kind encouragement.

Poulomi: Invested editor, fellow wordsmith. Her passion and vision for the world of Aryavarta moved me to bring it alive in
ways I had not dreamt of.

Thanks also to my extended family and close friends, especially my parents-in-law, for their patience and courage in the face
of adversity. There are few things more trying in the everyday world than putting up with an obsessed and cranky writer who
is, partly, resident of another universe.

Thanks to Chandrika, whose diligence has greatly subsidized my domestic irresponsibility.

My thanks also to the entire team at Hachette India for investing so much in this book, and to Gunjan Ahlawat and Kunal Kundu
for the cover.

And last but not the least, my father, A.R. Udayasankar: For my world of words, books and philosophy; for Amar Chitra Katha
and Subramania Bharati in equal measure when I was five; for Dumas, Kipling and Adi Shankara at eight; and the Gita, the Upanishads,
Hesse and Plato at thirteen. The list goes on. He could not have left me a greater legacy.

Krishna Udayasankar is a graduate of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, and holds a PhD in Strategic
Management from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where she presently works as a Lecturer.

Govinda
is Krishna’s first published novel. She is currently working on the second and third books of
The Aryavarta Chronicles
and a collection of prose-poems entitled
Objects of Affection
.

A resident of sunny Singapore, when she’s not busy writing and teaching, Krishna loves to watch Rajinikanth movies first-day,
first-show, complete with applause and whistles, and to go on long drives with her husband, Jai, and two Siberian Huskies,
Boozo and Zana.

www.aryavartachronicles.com

The Aryavarta Chronicles

GOVINDA

Aryavarta – the ancient Realm of the Noble.

For generations, the Firstborn dynasty of scholar-sages, descendants of Vasishta Varuni and protectors of the Divine Order
on earth, has dominated here. For just as long, the Angirasa family of Firewrights, weapon-makers to the kings and master
inventors, has defied them. In the aftermath of the centuries-long conflict between the two orders, the once-united empire
of Aryavarta lies splintered, a shadow of its former glorious self.

Now, the last Secret Keeper of the Firewrights is dead, killed by a violent hand, and the battle for supreme power in the
empire is about to begin.

As mighty powers hurtle towards a bloody conflict, Govinda Shauri, cowherd-turned-prince and now Commander of the armies of
Dwaraka, must use all his cunning to counter deception and treachery if he is to protect his people and those whom he loves.

But who holds the key to the fantastic and startling knowledge of the Firewrights, which in the wrong hands will bring doom
upon the empire? And does Govinda have it in him to confront the dark secrets of his past and discover the true meaning of
being Arya, of being noble?