The Rise of Hastinapur Read online

  The Rise of Hastinapur

  SHARATH KOMARRAJU

  HarperCollins Publishers India

  CONTENTS

  BOOK ONE: PRIESTESS

  PROLOGUE: GANGA SPEAKS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE: AMBA SPEAKS

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN: AMBA SPEAKS

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE: AMBA SPEAKS

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  BOOK TWO: THE BLACK STONE

  PROLOGUE: GANGA SPEAKS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE: PRITHA SPEAKS

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  BOOK THREE: THE CITY OF GOLD

  PROLOGUE: GANGA SPEAKS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN: GANDHARI SPEAKS

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  BOOK ONE

  PRIESTESS

  PROLOGUE

  Ganga Speaks

  The wise men who reside at the foot of these mountains say that desire is the root of all evil. For hours every day they stand on one leg in their soiled white loincloths, and they join their hands above their heads. They wish to conquer desire, they say; desire for food, for water, for the flesh of another. Only a man who has conquered his desires has conquered all, they say, with their kind smiles in their dulcet tones.

  And yet, these men who serve the gods tour North Country and become guests of honour at various kingdoms for three months every year, when the wind from the Ice Mountain becomes so chilly it turns the skin blue at a mere touch. It is during these tours that they perform acts for the betterment of the world: acts which have, over the years, prevented the disappearance of the race of kings from Earth. In return for these acts of kindness, the kings offer their silk beds and their nubile waiting-women so that the sages do not experience the discomforts of winter.

  Up on Meru’s slopes we defer to the will of the Goddess Bhagavati, She who is present in a drop of water, in a grain of sand, in a mite of dust. If She has decreed that living beings shall be ruled by desire, that desire must be the one thing that drives their lives relentlessly forward, we do not question it. All that the Goddess has given us, we accept, we covet, we revere.

  But now I am no longer on the Meru. I am no longer Ganga, Lady of the River. I am but a woman whose skin has pale yellow patches and parched green spots. I do not speak often now, but when I do, my voice is like the cackle of a crow. Every morning, I walk up to the great white boulder that now covers the Cave of Ice, and I whisper the incantation that would have once opened it. My son, Devavrata, would have laughed at this foolishness, and he would have said that the world of Earth was nobler than the world on Meru; but perhaps this is the difference I speak of. I do not fight my desires. I give in to them.

  They say that the Great War has brought about such destruction in North Country that it has hastened the end of the epoch of Dwapara, and that the Crystal Lake has all but dried up. Indra’s explorers, however, must have found lands and lakes further up north, for they seem to have forsaken all interest in the sixteen Great Kingdoms – or what remains of them. The salt route continues to exist, shrouded in magic. The dead lake is covered in mist that only a Celestial can clear. Devavrata’s old Mystery has doubtless been enhanced, and I doubt that now even he could find his way to the lake.

  What shall happen from now is not in my hands. I know that the door to the world of Meru shall remain closed, at least until my death. What will happen thereafter is not to my concern. They teach us on Meru – though not many of us listen – that the future is but an illusion which no man can know. The past is unalterable, but at least it is real. The two worlds are different in this, too; here on Earth, men and women fixate upon their futures, and in doing so they forget to spend a little time, every now and then, reminiscing about the real, rigid – and often pleasant – memories of the past.

  They say in the new epoch (the wise men call it the age of Kali) earthmen will kill each other, that the gods will shun them, that they will descend from Meru at the end of it all to populate North Country with life of their own kind. But how quaint is the idea. North Country lays barren of life now. Brother has killed brother in the Great War. The cleansing has already happened. The Meru people have already forsaken the earthmen. And yet the wise men look ahead – as I have said, on Earth, the eye is forever on the future, the one thing it cannot see.

  But I, from sheer force of habit, must look unto the past.

  I must go back to the time before Vichitraveerya’s passing, back to the time when Devavrata, perhaps vain of his strength, won all three princesses of Kasi for his brother. Ambika and Ambalika fulfilled their destinies in their own strange ways, and bore sons that carried forward the line of the Bharatas. But what of Amba, the first princess of Kasi who should have become queen? Her tale is a long and tortuous one, but in the end it is she who had a bigger say in the fortune – and fall – of Hastinapur.

  Fortune, because she brought about the great marriage alliance of the age which merged Kuru and Panchala into one. Fall, because her child would grow up to be the warrior who killed Devavrata, the undefeatable champion of the throne of Hastinapur.

  I used to hear it being said that no warrior in North Country could drive a chariot as swiftly as Devavrata. No one could fight with a sword as skilfully as he. No one could shoot arrows as rapidly as he. He read the scriptures and understood them; he debated with Brahmins and was hailed as their equal. In politics and battle strategy he was peerless. It warmed my heart to hear such things, but I was also wary. I was wary that Devavrata’s destruction would come about from that one place men scarcely care to look: from within. He would be destroyed – as all powerful men eventually are – by the consequences of their actions, by the ache they cause through their choices.

  Amba’s tale, then, is also the first chapter in the tale of Devavrata’s ruin.

  ONE

  When she was ushered into the waiting room, Amba saw that the floor carpets were of the wrong colour. Seating herself on the edge of the blue-cushioned teak chair under the central lamp, she nodded at the attendant waving the fan to go a little faster. The autumn had been pleasant this year; pleasant enough to allow her to sleep on the palanquin the previous night – but somehow, in this forbidding country she found a layer of fine dust on every surface. That morning, when they had first arrived at the border of Saubala after skirting along the edge of Khandava, her head palanquin bearer had asked her to cover her nose and mouth with a cotton cloth dipped in cold water.

  Her breath had caught in her throat in spite of the precaution, and even now, surrounded by washed silks and sparkling brass vessels, her eyes pinched. ‘Once I begin living here,’ she thought, ‘I will make sure this place is cleaned with soap water at least three times a day.’ She undid the clasp of her gold arm-bands and laid them aside, signalling to the servant in the corner of the room to come take them away. She removed her coronet and laid it on her thigh – one that Mother Satyavati had given her on the eve of her d
eparture. ‘Until you are wedded to someone else,’ she had said, ‘you are the queen of Hastinapur. And it is important that you look like one.’

  Amba slid off her ivory hairclips one by one, placing them in a row beside her on the seat. She shook her head to loosen her hair and let it fall in a heap over her shoulder and upper back. As she first became aware of the faint whiff of jasmine and sandal coming from the incense sticks the attendant had lighted on her arrival, and as the catch in her throat eased somewhat, she felt grains of sand in her hair brush against the back of her neck, and grimaced. ‘Make arrangements for my bath,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  Sand and dust, everywhere. When Salva was courting her in Kasi she had once asked her courtiers to tell her about his kingdom. They had said it was situated on the banks of River Saraswati, which flowed for half the year and remained dry for the other half. It had once been a large kingdom, Saubala, back when the Saraswati was one of the Great Rivers, when its current was strong even through the summer. But now that fertile land had become a desert. Wedged in between a mountain and an endless sea of sand, Saubala was no more than a vassal state.

  She had heard about all that, but now that she realized just how it was, she wondered if she would ever get used to it. One must make small sacrificesfor one’s love, she told herself. Surely Salva would find her different to the maidens of his own land. Would he not learn to like her ways too? Was that not what love was about?

  She leaned back on her hands and looked up at the ceiling, yellow and bare. The walls were adorned with paintings of camels and horses. The men of Saubala, she had heard, were great riders. Indeed, on the day she turned fifteen, Salva had taken her riding on the vast northern plains of Kasi on a white stallion. He had ridden, alone, all the way from Saubala to Kasi through four nights to be by her side on her birthday. That was the day she had let him hold her hand, and that night he had kissed her on the cheek in the blue light of the new moon.

  Ladies at the court of Kasi would not dare say anything to Amba’s face, but she knew there had been rumours about Salva’s intentions. How dare the king of a vassal state be so presumptuous as to show affection so openly to the first princess of a Great Kingdom, they asked. In the eyes of people who could not see beyond the material, all motives were black, all gestures were fake. Salva, they said, wanted her only because she was the princess of Kasi, the kingdom that, after Hastinapur, boasted the most fertile lands in all of North Country. Even her father, who had permitted all of Salva’s advances toward her, had asked her once: ‘If you were not the princess of Kasi, my dear, would he still wish to be wedded to you?’

  And she had said, ‘He would, father.’

  She had, however, never asked Salva that question. How could she? It would amount to her doubting his love. When he had been nothing but kind, generous, thoughtful and compassionate throughout the time she had known her, how could she slap him in the face like that? There were things in love that ought not to be spoken about.

  Even now she wished that Salva had defeated Devavrata in battle and won her. But Devavrata hailed from Hastinapur, where princes were taught first to handle a sword and a spear before they were given toy wooden horses to play with. And they called him the finest warrior of the land. Salva had his gifts, but valour and skill in battle were not among them. Amba had known that during their courtship too, and it had not mattered to her.

  It did not matter to her now, either, except – it would have been nicer, that was all.

  It would have meant that she would not have had to beg Devavrata and Mother Satyavati to let her go. It would have meant not having to listen to Mother Satyavati expressing doubts about Salva’s love. She pictured herself on the bank of the Ganga at Kasi, where Devavrata and her suitors fought one another. If only Salva had won, she and he would have stood on his chariot, side by side, and pointing at the vanquished Devavrata with the tip of his bow Salva would have said: ‘I only desire Amba. You can take Ambika and Ambalika with you, Son of Ganga.’

  Yes, indeed, that would have been nice.

  She clapped her hands once, and a vessel of water was brought for her. She drank a thimbleful, then another. Water in this country had a queer, salty taste to it. She sighed to herself. Her skin was used to the fresh-water springs of Kasi; did she have to bathe in saltwater too? She hoped that her skin would not blotch.

  An attendant came to her, bowing low. ‘Your bath is ready, my lady,’ he said.

  ‘So why has the queen of Hastinapur journeyed through the night to visit a vassal state?’ asked Salva, after they had both sat down. He had taken the chair opposite her, ignoring her gesture that motioned him to her side. When he sat he looked no more than a raw young man of seventeen. Like all riders, he was strong in the thighs and calves. His hips were supple and sturdy, so that when he stood he had the appearance of a resolute mountain, but now that she was sitting face to face with him, he looked like any of the stable boys she had seen in the castle. She knew he wore shoulder pads under his robe to broaden his stature.

  Amba gave him her hands, but he stayed unmoved. His long fingers were wrapped around the balls of his knees, and in his gaze she found no love, no concern; only mild curiosity, and, perhaps, a respectful distance. ‘I am not the queen of Hastinapur, Lord,’ she said, drawing her hands back a little. ‘I am your Amba. Do you not recognize me?’

  ‘The day Devavrata won you and your sisters in the battle on the riverbank, all of you became Hastinapur’s queens, my lady – Your Majesty.’

  ‘But Devavrata did not want to keep me there against my will. He gave me leave to come here, my love. To your arms.’ She peered into his stone-black eyes to guess what he was thinking. ‘You do love me, do you not?’

  His eyes softened, and Amba’s heart leapt. In that one moment she saw the old Salva, the king who had wooed her at her father’s house with lotuses and love songs. He was concealing his true feelings for her, she thought. But why? What was the need when she was here, ready to fly into his arms at a mere nod?

  ‘Love is not the question here, my princess,’ he said, and after waving the attendants out of the room, took her hand in his to pat it. ‘You do know how much I love you. Today, ever since I saw you in court, I could not think of anything else. My courtiers would have me speak of how to store Saraswati’s water, but all I thought of was how to send them away so that I could run up here and sit with you.’ He ran his fingertips on her knuckles. ‘You do know I love you, do you not?’

  ‘I do,’ said Amba, ‘but why do you say that love is not the question? If we love each other and want to be with each other, what else matters?’

  ‘Everything, my dear! Oh, if only Devavrata had not come to the groom-choosing and that you had garlanded me. Would it not have been a happier state of affairs then? But now…’

  ‘Nothing has changed now,’ said Amba. ‘Believe me, nothing has changed.’

  ‘Has it not? Did Devavrata not win you in a fair fight against all the kings of the land? Did he not take you as prize for Hastinapur’s throne, to be wedded to High King Vichitraveerya?’

  ‘He has, yes, but it was he who has sent me here, my lord! Even Mother Satyavati – she blessed me that I should make you a good wife and your kingdom a good queen.’

  Salva did not stop caressing her hand, and she noticed that her own fingers were small and thin next to his. His voice dropped to a low whisper, and he said, ‘Amba.’ She should have liked it because it was the first time that evening he had said her name, but the tone in which he said it – she felt her eyes smart, and she blinked rapidly, hoping no tears would drop.

  ‘Amba,’ he said again. ‘You’re such a dear little girl. You are too innocent to understand the ways of the world, my dear. Do you really think that Devavrata sent you here just so that he can see you happy?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, raising her head to him. ‘He said he would not keep a maiden in Hastinapur against her will.’

  ‘And he would not, I give him tha
t. But you do belong to Hastinapur. Why would Devavrata give you away to me, without wishing something in return?’

  She tensed. ‘What did he ask you for?’

  Salva broke into a sad smile. ‘Your riding companions brought with them a parchment. After you were shown to your quarters this afternoon, they read to me Devavrata’s message.’

  ‘Bride price?’

  Salva nodded. ‘As you perhaps know, ours is a small city. The Saraswati feeds us but for six months of the year. Plants do not grow on our sandy lands. But we do have the mountains behind us, and on top of them we have set up quarries. Devavrata wants our mines for six months, until midsummer next year.’

  Amba recalled bits of conversation between Devavrata and Satyavati, something about weapons and how the kingdom of Panchala was forging them by the thousands out of their rocky lands. If marble, granite and sandstone could be taken from Saubala, could Hastinapur not match Panchala in weapon-making, at least for the next six months?

  ‘That is too dear a price, my lady,’ Salva was saying, as though from somewhere far away. She could only feel his fingers wrapped tight around her hand. ‘This is the wrong half of the year for us to be giving up our mines. If we do not trade our stone with Kunti and Shurasena, they will not give us food and water. My people will starve.’

  ‘Then do not give him the stone he wants,’ said Amba.

  ‘And suffer the consequences?’

  ‘What are the consequences?’

  ‘Well,’ said Salva, ‘nothing immediate. But it is not well for a kingdom of my size to cheat Hastinapur of what is rightfully hers.’

  ‘Rightfully hers?’ Amba said, her voice rising. ‘Are you saying that I rightfully belong to Hastinapur?’ Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice quavered. ‘I am a person, not a thing.’

  ‘A person … who was won fairly by the champion of Hastinapur in an open fight to be wedded to his brother.’

  ‘A person!’ she said resolutely. ‘I do not belong to any one kingdom. I belong to the king of Kasi, who bore and bred me, and I belong to you, the one whom I chose to love, to marry.’