Pregnant King, The (2 page)

Vallabhi was a small but prosperous kingdom that stood between Hastina-puri and Panchala on the banks of the Kalindi, a tributary of the Yamuna. It encircled the temple of Ileshwara, established long ago by Ila.

Ila was a much revered ancestor whose descendants ruled most of the kingdoms lining the banks of the Ganga, the Yamuna and the Saraswati. That is why the vast plain watered by the three great rivers was known as Ila-vrita, the enclosure of Ila’s children.

Before Ila, man gazed skywards for directions and solutions. In rituals known as yagnas, altars were set up, fires lit, hymns chanted, and oblations of butter made to invoke the sky-gods known as Devas and compel them to grant divine favour.

After Ila, man’s gaze became more earthbound. He was no more content to wander across the earth with his cows in search of pasture land. Goddesses known as Matrikas rose from the earth in forests, beside lakes, atop mountains and inside caves, nurturing settlements around them, demanding adoration or appeasement with flowers, food and the waving of lamps. This ritual was known as puja.

‘Let us pray to everyone,’ said Ila. ‘To the Devas who live in the sky and the Matrikas who spread themselves on the earth. Let us also pray to the Kshetrapalas who watch over villages. Let us pray to the trees and to the animals and to the rocks and the rivers. Let us pray to the Pitrs, our ancestors across the river Vaitarni. Prayer earns merit. Merit makes life predictable. Keeps away accidents and surprises.’

Brahmanas, responsible for connecting man to God, divided themselves into Ritwiks who performed yagnas, Pujaris who conducted puja and Acharyas who became teachers. Kshatriyas, responsible for organizing and protecting man, patronized the rituals that had the power to change destiny and fructify desires. Vaishyas, responsible for feeding man, provided the butter, the grain, the fruits and the flowers. Shudras built altars for the sky-gods and temples for the earth-goddesses. They wove the cloth, baked the pots, drew the metals and designed the jewels.

The most magnificient of all temples built was that of Ileshwara. It was unlike any other structure known in Ila-vrita then and since. Carved out of red sandstone, its walls, gateways and pavilions were full of images of all creatures imagined and unimaginable: gods and kings, sages and nymphs, flowers and fruits, animals and serpents, demons and the strangest of monsters. ‘An expression of the mind of God,’ said the artisans. ‘Displaying all that man can fathom and more.’ Atop its pyramidal roof was a great flag that fluttered proudly in the wind.

In front of the temple stood the palace of the Turuvasu kings of Vallabhi. To the cows grazing at a distance the palace looked like waves of thatched roofs.
The mynah bird that flew over it could see the spaces created within by courtyards and bathing tanks and lotus ponds. A serpent slithering in would realize there were no clearly defined rooms in this vast structure which housed over a hundred people. There were mud walls that rose from the earth but never reached the ceiling and sheer reed curtains that hung from the roofs but never touched the floor, elaborately carved pillars, huge brass lamps that stood in the corners or in wall niches or hung from the rafters. In every room spread out on the floor were skins of tigers, leopards and deer, shot by generations of Turuvasu princes. The walls were covered with paintings of rice flour, telling tales of warring gods, flirtatious nymphs and serene sages, establishing through complex geometrical patterns the power that draws in benevolent forces and keeps out malevolent ones.

Between the palace and the temple was the city square around which radiated the city like the discus of Vishnu, the divine king of the universe. The sacrificial halls of the Brahmanas were located close to the temple. Closer to the palace were the gymnasiums of the Kshatriyas. The cattle sheds and granaries of the Vaishyas were located next to the city gates. At the far end of the city were the workshops of the Shudras.

All through the day, in every corner of the city, one could hear women singing as they tended the kitchen gardens, put the children to sleep, pounded the grain, cooked the vegetables and waited for their fathers, brothers and sons to return home.

On one side of the city was the Kalindi on which plied many boats, some with vast sails, taking traders and pilgrims up, down and across the river. On the
other side stretched the fields, the pastures, the orchards, where the city bulls were allowed to roam free. Then came the frontier marked by terrifying images of the guardian god Aiyanar, a Kshetra-pala who brandished a scimitar and rode gigantic clay horses. Beyond lay the vast forests.

Highways and pathways cut through these forests connecting Vallabhi to the other kingdoms of Ila-vrita. On these roads wandered the bards from village to village, temple to temple, singing, dancing, telling stories, entertaining all when the day’s work was done. They were the guardians of Ila-vrita’s history, the keepers of secrets and the carriers of gossip. Some were also spies in service of the kings. Others dreamers and riddle-makers.

‘Was Ila the son of Prithu?’ asked the children of Vallabhi, who chased the bards, eager to know tales of their forefathers.

Prithu, who they referred to, was the first to establish the code of culture known as varna-ashrama-dharma that gave direction to mankind and ensured harmony with nature. Pleased with this code, Vishnu gave Prithu the title of Manu, leader of the Manavas, creatures who think.

‘No,’ replied the bards.

‘Whose son was he then?’

‘Why do you presume he was a son?’ asked the bards, smiling mischievously.

The children demanded an explanation. The bards chuckled, plucked the strings of their lute and distracted them with the tales of Ileshwara by whose grace the most sterile of seeds became potent and the most barren of wombs became fertile. ‘If Ileshwara wishes,’ sang
the bards, ‘mangoes can grow on banyan trees and eunuchs can father sons.’

The streets and squares of Vallabhi were always crowded with men who sought to be fathers and women who sought to be mothers. They poured in each month, men on full moon days and women on new moon nights, men dressed in white, women in red, men with garlands of white dhatura flowers and women with garlands of red jabakusuma flowers. Each one returned without exception a year later, with daughters on the eighth day of the waning moon or with sons on the eighth night of the waxing moon.

It was this power of Ileshwara that had drawn Drupada, king of Panchala, to Vallabhi, forty-five years before the war at Kuru-kshetra. He wanted children who would destroy the Kuru clan.

The Kuru princes of Hastina-puri, which included the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra, known as the Kauravas, and the five sons of Pandu known as the Pandavas, lived under the same roof then. They had, without provocation, swooped into Panchala like hawks, taken Drupada and his six sons hostage and released them only when Drupada had agreed to relinquish control over one half of his kingdom in favour of their teacher, Drona.

A furious and humiliated Drupada had sworn, ‘I will father a son who will kill Drona, the teacher who demanded from the Kurus one half of Panchala as his
tuition fee. My son will also kill Bhisma, grand-uncle of the Kuru princes, who gave Drona employment and allowed this to happen. And I want a daughter too who will marry into the Kuru clan and divide their lands as they divided mine.’

‘So many children!’ his wife, Soudamini, had exclaimed then. ‘You will surely need the help of Vallabhi’s Ileshwara for this.’

It was a new moon night when they arrived.

The then king of Vallabhi, Pruthalashva, Yuvanashva’s grandfather, received them at the gates. He found it hard to believe that the man on the golden chariot with an ivory parasol over his head was a king. Drupada had dark circles round his eyes, unkempt hair, unwashed clothes and foul breath. Mercifully, beside him stood Soudamini, his youngest wife, wearing gold anklets and waving a yak-tail fly whisk, both much prized symbols of royalty. ‘Come to my palace, treat my house as your home,’ Pruthalashva had said in keeping with the laws of hospitality.

‘May I go to the temple first?’ an impatient Drupada had requested.

‘That is not possible,’ Pruthalashva had said. ‘It is new moon. Only women will be allowed to enter the shrine tonight.’

‘I need but a glimpse,’ Drupada had pleaded.

‘Even if you enter the temple tonight, you would not see Ileshwara. You will see Ileshwari.’

‘What do you mean?’ Drupada had asked.

Pruthalashva had then revealed the secret rites of Ileshwara of which the kings of Vallabhi had been guardians for generations.

‘On new moon nights the deity in the temple is an
enchantress displaying fourteen symbols of womanhood. Red sari, unbound hair, bangles, nose-rings, pots, parrots, sugarcane. As the moon starts to wax, each symbol of womanhood is replaced by a symbol of manhood, one each day. On the first day, the unbound hair is replaced by a curled moustache. The next day the red sari gives way to a white dhoti. Then the pot is removed and the bow put in its place. Gradually, the parrot becomes the peacock, the sugarcane becomes the spear, turmeric becomes ash, so that on the full moon, when only men enter the temple, the deity is an ascetic displaying fourteen symbols of manhood. Ileshwara makes men fathers. Ileshwari makes women mothers.’

Drupada had agreed to wait in the palace while his wife visited the shrine.

Pruthalashva’s queen had draped Soudamini in a red sari and had unbound her hair. After taking a dip in the temple pond, she had entered the shrine dripping wet with a garland of jabakusuma flowers in her hands. Inside the temple, Soudamini had seen the beautiful face of Ileshwari. Her face was covered with turmeric. Her earrings were shaped like dolphins. She had a diamond on her nose-ring, emeralds on her ear-rings and rubies on her toe-rings. She was adorned with armlets, bracelets and anklets. Chains of gold coins round her neck made her resplendent. In her hand, she held a pot of water and a sugarcane rich in sap. Her large unblinking silver eyes gave Soudamini assurance, love, and the promise of motherhood.

When she emerged from the temple, Pruthalashva’s queen had asked her, ‘Why is your husband so impatient for a child? Does he not have six sons already?’

‘They are all dead,’ she had sobbed. ‘Killed.’

‘By the Kurus?’

‘No. By their own father. They fought beside my husband when the Kuru princes challenged him to battle. But they were no match for Drona’s students. My husband said they were useless. Disappointments. They could not stop the division of their father’s property. So he slit their throats like a farmer who destroys diseased crops. Their mothers were discarded. I am the new field, his youngest queen, still a virgin. I am supposed to give him a better crop, children of worth, who will kill his enemies and restore his pride.’

Meanwhile, across the city square, Drupada sat alone in a courtyard within the palace. As he waited for his wife to return, the memory of Drona’s words had resurfaced to sting him like lashes of a whip. ‘We were once the best of friends, Drupada. Inseparable. You promised me then that you would share all your wealth with me should I ever need it. I came to you for just one cow because I realized I was so poor that my son could not distinguish milk from rice water. Instead of helping me, you humiliated me. Said that friendship exists only between equals. That I was a beggar and hence could claim only alms not friendship. I swore that day that I would be your equal. And now, thanks to my students, I am. We are masters of two halves of the same kingdom. Once I could not give my son a bowl of milk. Today, I gift him a kingdom full of cows. Remember, Drupada, henceforth your rule extends only south of the Ganga. To the north is the kingdom of my son, Ashwatthama.’