The conqueror, p.12
The Conqueror, page 12
The princess looked behind her and saw that her mother had not bowed.
‘I can have your head for that, you know?’
The queen replied in a firm voice. ‘I am the queen of Srivijaya. I bow before no one.’
There was an embarrassed silence before Balan spoke up.
‘She is completely mad, my lord. Completely! Been blathering about being queen since we took her.’
The official looked at her keenly.
‘Well in that case she needn’t bow. If the Gods have removed favour from her intellect, what more can I do?’
The official piped up from the ground. ‘You are a most benevolent minister, Dharanindra!’
‘I will buy the young one,’ he said abruptly. ‘And the other one with her. The court needs attendants urgently. The “queen” I leave to you. How much?’
Balan quoted a price and was delighted to hear that the minister did not wish to bargain.
‘My lord, please! I cannot leave my mother alone. Please let me take her with me. She’s gone mad. I need to look after her,’ said the princess desperately, hot tears burning her eyes.
‘I have no need for mad women. Lord knows there are enough of them in the court.’
The men around them grinned and nodded.
‘Please, my lord,’ said the princess and bent to grab the minister’s feet.
The minister kicked her away as his attendants lifted her and Sumitra up and pulled them away.
The princess began screaming until a heavy cudgel hit her on the head.
9
I had expected that your emperor wouldn’t send me back so quickly. What I hadn’t expected was this sightseeing picnic of the Chola lands, with his son, no less. At the moment, though, it provided an almost God-sent opportunity – perhaps my first real stroke of luck since I entered your kingdom. I decided that I would use this time to become friendly with Rajendradeva. Perhaps there were seeds of dissatisfaction in his mind that could be made to flower. He was second in line to the throne. Surely there were some ambitions of overthrowing the emperor, killing his brothers and taking the crown for himself? There had to be. Every kingdom in the world, without exception, had brothers killing each other or their father for the crown.
Your face darkens. Poor Ganapathy. You came here hoping for a straightforward description of last evening’s events but instead have a full-blown regicide conspiracy on your hands. This is above your pay grade, you’re probably thinking. Wait, there’s no need to call the inquisitors or torturers. Not yet anyway. The truth does not need to be extracted from me. It comes at its own pace.
Rajendradeva was not flamboyant. Like most middle siblings, he preferred to be hidden away from the attention, comfortable with ceding it to the eldest and the youngest. He was more of a bureaucrat, comfortable with overseeing the construction of canals in the cities than with their destruction.
And he bored me nearly to death.
He had inherited the quality of earnestness from his father. And he relentlessly plied me with details about every little thing in your empire. Everything, in his worldview, was made of intricate little cogs, and he delighted in deconstructing the world to the smallest one; to my horror, he also insisted on telling me every little detail.
It took us four days to travel to Thanjavur, travelling as we were at a leisurely pace. But it felt like four years. There was little to do but talk. Or, in my case, listen to his ceaseless droning about the state of the land, the quality of the crops, and the system of justice. We travelled in a royal horse carriage through lush farmlands that were growing tall with paddy and then through rocky hillsides washed with red dust and no trees in sight.
For the most part, your administration is similar to ours. At least that’s what I understood when I actually listened to his rambles. The kingdom was a parcel of principalities that was under the king but mostly self-governing. Nearly twenty-five years ago, Rajendra’s father, Rajaraja, had initiated a land survey and assessment project that organized the land into individual, self-sustaining principalities called valanandu s. Each principality was divided into smaller provinces and villages that administered themselves. So far so good. But the most intriguing part of it all was the system of elections in your villages.
Rajendradeva called it the kuduvolai . The village would gather to elect thirty members to administer them. Any person could apply to office, but there were restrictions involved. The person had to be between thirty-five and seventy years of age and possess taxable land, among other things. Murderers and thieves were disqualified. On election day, all those who wished to participate would write their names on palm leaf tickets and put them in a pot. A small boy, one of the youngest from the village, would pick up the leaves from the pot, and all those who the boy had selected would be elected. This way all elections were up to chance, and anyone could be elected. Risky, in my opinion, since you want your best men in places of maximum influence, but then it gave no one the opportunity to feel snubbed or slighted, and also preserved the peace. Perhaps a greater advantage.
Like us, Rajendra, too, I observed, was advised by a council of ministers. The revenue officials were the most important, as they were in ours, and their positions were highly coveted but rarely relinquished since offices were hereditary. The main treasury of your empire, I found out, was in Kumbakonam, and land revenue was the biggest source of finance. A third of the produce in the land was routinely taxed, and collection was rather brutally enforced, I was told. No one could escape taxes. There are taxes on everything in this kingdom. Professional taxes, road taxes, mining and forestry taxes, even marriage taxes. The Arab merchants would often complain that the Cholas tax everything – even an ant that settles in an anthill on your lands would be subject to rent if that were possible.
Forgive me for this deviation; my kingdom is one of merchants and any sound of monetary exchange is sweet to our ears.
Along our journey, we came to a village, and Rajendradeva, in his enthusiasm, invited me over to meet its council for a better understanding of how justice was conducted in your lands. I had no choice in the matter so I accompanied him reluctantly. We entered the village premises but there was no one there to greet us. A throng of people were gathered in the village square around a group of middle-aged men who were having a discussion. A young man stood amidst them with his head bowed.
Our retinue was greeted warmly by the middle-aged men who, I learned, were the village council members. They were adjudicating a case related to the young man. As soon as they learned that Rajendradeva was among them, the village council members offered to let Rajendradeva give his verdict on this case.
It seemed as though this young man had murdered a senior official in the village, while trying to elope with his daughter; we had arrived at the point where he was to be sentenced. Rajendradeva considered the story, heard the pleas of both the young man’s family and the murdered official’s relatives and made his decision quickly. He spoke calmly, but his tone suggested that there would be no room for debate on his judgement. Another inheritance from his father. The only thing missing was the rumble in his voice.
I don’t remember what he said exactly. But the punishment that was meted out to the young man was that he would have to maintain a lamp in the local temple for the rest of his life. He was young, said the prince, and he could still change his ways. He would, however, no longer be able to marry his lover. Both of them would have to look for new partners. I’m not sure if the judgment satisfied both parties, but they accepted it without complaint and everyone dispersed.
When we had left the village, I asked Rajendradeva why his sentence had been so light. How was lighting a lamp in the temple any form of penitence? We would have had the man trampled by elephants. He told me that here only treason, or rajadroham , was punishable by death while most other crimes, even murder, had less drastic punishments. Moreover, maintaining a brass lamp in the temple was no small feat, he assured me. While the boy had belonged to a wealthy family himself and would be able to bear the costs, he would have to visit the temple and light the lamp every day, a considerable investment of time and effort, and also a source of constant shame. Everyone at the temple would see him lighting the lamp and remember his crime for the rest of his life.
Apparently, it was a popular form of justice in Chola lands. I was not entirely convinced by the argument, but as I knew from ruling a kingdom myself, justice was rarely absolute. Sometimes compromises had to be made, and someone’s justice was invariably incomplete.
But I had little time to pursue the justice of others at that moment. I had a kingdom to get back to.
‘So if rajadroham is punishable by death, does that mean no one would dare plot against the king?’ I asked innocently, as I watched his expression closely. His features remained unmoved.
‘No, no one has. Yet,’ he said curtly.
The carriage rumbled on towards Thanjavur. I wasn’t sure, but maybe I had got the answer I had been looking for.
10
When we arrived at Thanjavur, Rajendradeva insisted on first visiting the temple. I had assumed that it would be a large structure, but it turned out to be larger than anything I had seen before.
You’ve seen the Brihadeeswara temple yourself, haven’t you, Ganapathy? It is, without a doubt, the most magnificent structure I have seen in your part of the world, and perhaps even mine. The tallest point, I heard, was well over 200 feet from the ground and the complex was spread across several thousand feet. Innumerable people inhabited its grounds, and Rajendradeva told me that over a thousand people were employed for its maintenance. I could gush about its beauty, but we have not the time. Besides, you know what it looks like.
Temples, I learned, were the centre of life here. People would come here and pass the day listening to the minstrels sing or watching the devadasi s or temple dancers dance. They would get food at the temple and learn about what was happening in the kingdom. Emperor Rajaraja had even inscribed his achievements on the walls of the complex of the temple and provided minute details of the gifts he had given to the temple. Everything from flowers and jewellery to bronze statues that had been gifted by the king had been featured in the inscriptions. The measurements of each idol were also written in the stone.
I asked Rajendradeva the need for such rigorous documentation.
‘So that everyone remembers,’ came the reply.
Rajaraja’s fingerprints were still all over the land. He lived in this temple and in the daily lives of the people. I had no envy for Rajendra’s position. Maybe he had realized early on that the only way he could step out of his father’s shadow would be with the conquest of other lands. Perhaps that was why he had expanded his kingdom beyond Rajaraja’s dominion. And then, when he had made enough of a name for himself, he had decided to build a whole new city to further cement his reputation as an emperor in his own right.
I remarked casually to Rajendradeva that it would be a difficult job following up on Thanjavur and Gangaikonda Cholapuram for whoever became the next king.
He nodded when I said this, almost contemplating it himself.
‘I believe there’s more to an empire than a few cities. Its strength lies in its farms and villages. Grandfather knew that, and organized the land assessment accordingly. No one in the world has done the kind of complex yield measurements that we have. Father, I suppose, knows it too, though he is currently obsessed – well, I shouldn’t say obsessed – occupied with building his city of victory he said.’
‘You’re absolutely right. Most of your people live in the villages. It stands to reason that they should be lavished as much attention as the cities. What do your brothers think?’
He thought about this for a moment.
‘Virajendra wants war. Rajadhiraja wants glory. Both ultimately are important in creating the legend of a king. More, perhaps, than canals and roads,’ he said with a shrug.
‘So if you became king, you would not wage war but spend the treasury on public works?’
‘I don’t think about becoming king. If I ascend the throne, I will do what I believe is right,’ he said coldly, signalling that he did not want to take the conversation further.
I was silent for a few moments, and then began asking him about some new farming system that had been devised in your land, and he was happy to explain the whole thing in great detail. I didn’t really listen to it, you see. Rajendradeva had given me some new information to deconstruct.
Virajendra was clearly unhappy at being made to travel to distant lands and conquer them, as I had learned earlier. Rajendradeva was clearly unhappy at the disinterest shown to his land development projects. It seemed neither of the two princes was certain of his position as heir to the throne. Perhaps the sons had come to terms with the fact that Rajadhiraja would be the next king. He was, after all, the eldest. It would be interesting to see what was going on in Rajadhiraja’s mind, I thought at the time.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long.
We spent a day at the temple and, in the evening, made our way back to a royal guesthouse where a messenger was waiting with a missive. There had been a skirmish near Vengi at the northern borders; the Chalukya army were marching towards the city, and Rajadhiraja had been asked to take a regiment of the royal guard there and put them down decisively. Rajendradeva, meanwhile, had been asked to travel to Kumbakonam to take over some treasury matter Rajadhiraja had been dealing with.
‘Father says you can join me at Kumbakonam or you can join Rajadhiraja and see our army at war, if you so please,’ he said without much ceremony. It did not seem to matter to him either way.
I told Rajendradeva that I would like to accompany Rajadhiraja.
He nodded, and replied in his earnest manner, ‘He leaves tomorrow two hours before dawn. You must get some sleep.’
Her head hurt when she awoke. It was placed on Sumitra’s lap and Sumitra was stroking her forehead gently.
‘Sumitra,’ croaked the princess.
‘Don’t speak my princess.’
‘Mother…’
‘We’re in the Palace of Kahuripan. We’re now servants to the Raja Airlangga. Please rest for now, my lady.’
The princess closed her eyes and began to cry even as a voice croaked from behind, ‘Shut up! Let us sleep.’
Sumitra held the princess close and gently rocked her back to sleep.
The next morning before dawn, a bucket of water was emptied on both their heads.
‘Wake up you lazy animals.’
A stout, matronly figure holding a bucket appeared before them.
‘Get out of your dirty clothes and into uniform!’ she shouted, and threw two white threadbare robes at them. Sumitra and the princess stood up and began to undress, throwing away their dirty clothes and put on their new ones.
‘You only have one pair for the year. Keep it clean. And don’t ask me for more,’ she barked.
The princess soon found out that no one knew the older woman’s real name – everyone just called her Mama. She was the matron in charge of housekeeping for the palace. Rumour had it that her husband was a General in the Kahuripan army and, inspired by his example, she ran the girls like her own personal army.
The princess and Sumitra had to wake up every day before dawn and clean the royal hall. They were given a square piece of cloth with which they, along with the other girls, had to dust the pillars and the walls of the room. This done, they had to sweep the floors with brooms until it was time for the court to assemble.
The girls would eat breakfast and then put in a shift in the kitchen where the royal chefs would get them to cut and clean vegetables and chop meat for the cooks. They would then serve the royal household lunch and wait until they had finished eating to clear the banquet hall. Then they would clean the royal hall again and prepare the bedchambers of the Raja. Only once the Raja had fallen asleep did their day end.
The princess was miserable. She was useless at assisting with the cooking and had cut her fingers and bled over food more times than she could count. She was no good at dusting or cleaning. The other girls would laugh at her and call her ‘Lady Thumbs’. Sumitra, for her part, tried to help her as much as she could and stayed close to the princess.
A month passed in hard labour. Harder than anything the princess had seen. She would burst into tears at least once a day, and was either consoled by Sumitra, or slapped into silence by the matron. After a month, the matron had had enough. She told the princess in no uncertain terms that if her work did not improve immediately, she would be sold to a brothel, or back to the slave traders, whichever paid more money. And the slave traders would have no use for a slave who did not know how to cook or clean. One more mistake, she told the princess, and you’re out.
That mistake came sooner than the princess had anticipated.
The princess was cleaning a vase in the royal hall, a large porcelain one from China. She had resolved to be doubly careful at all her tasks. There was no way she could emulate the briskness of Sumitra and the other girls when it came to doing housework. But if she was careful, at least she wouldn’t commit so many mistakes, and perhaps then the matron would not notice her lack of speed. The princess tilted the vase carefully towards her chest to wipe its underside but it was heavier than she expected it to be. As she fumbled, the vase rolled down from its pedestal and fell to the ground with a crash. The princess froze. There was no one else in the hall except for Sumitra who beckoned her to leave the room quickly. The kingdom of Kahuripan could cut off her hands for this. The princess ran up a staircase and into the Raja’s room and made an act of cleaning the furniture there. Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she began to imagine the consequences if she was found out.
A palm leaf manuscript lay on the desk. She looked at it, and began to read it without thinking. It was a story written in epic form. A kakawin about the Hindu prince Arjuna.
‘Yes?’ a voice enquired from behind her. She turned around, startled, and saw the Raja. She immediately leapt to the ground and prostrated.
