Creation (33 page)

“Is Darius so serious in his desire to be our friend that he might send us troops to help us break the federation of republics?”

“I am sure that he would.” I was thrilled. Bimbisara had given us an opening. I had already figured a way of routing the elephants. They are frightened of mice! At the crucial moment, our troops would set free a thousand rodents. The elephants would stampede, and I would be satrap of Greater India. So I dreamed.

“Perhaps I shall call upon him.” Bimbisara played with his beard. “You are also supposed to visit our dear brother Pasenadi of Koshala.”

“Yes, Lord. The Great King has a message for the king of Koshala.”

“Pasenadi is a good man, but weak. My wife is his sister. She has always said that he will lose his kingdom one day because he has no interest in governing. It is sad, really. When I was a boy, Koshala was the greatest nation in the world. Now it is just a name. Between the arrogance of its nobles and the temerity of its thieves, the kingdom has dissolved. I find this tragic.” The half-smile was now a full smile. The tragedy of others has that effect on princes.

“Does King Pasenadi want your help?”

“No. He is unaware of the danger. Unaware or, perhaps, indifferent. You see, he is a Buddhist. In fact, the Buddha usually spends the rainy season at Shravasti. Then he comes to us for a month or two. As you must know, there are many Buddhist monasteries in Rajagriha. We think him most holy.”

I could not help but contrast Bimbisara with Darius. The Indian sovereign was truly fascinated by the Buddha, while Darius had no interest at all in Zoroaster.

“Who impressed you more, Lord Ambassador, Gosala or Mahavira?”

I did not ask the king how he knew that I had met the two holy men. I take essential points rather quickly. I had been spied on ever since my arrival in India.

“Each was impressive,” I said truthfully. “I found Gosala’s view somewhat bleak. If there is no way of altering one’s destiny by good actions, then why not behave as badly as possible?”

“I made the same point to him. But he seemed to think that to observe all the vows was a good thing in itself, and if you could observe them successfully, that was a sign that
you
were near the exit. He also believes that a man’s life is rather like a pond: if you add no new water, the pond will evaporate. But he rejects the notion that fate—or karma—can be altered by good or bad actions. All is predetermined. You get to the exit when it is your turn, not before. According to him, the gods and the kings of this world are nowhere near the exit.” Bimbisara looked sad. I think that he actually believed what he was saying. “I’m afraid that in my next life I shall retrogress. There are signs that I will become Mara, the god of all evil—and of this world. I pray that I shall be spared. I try to observe all the vows. I follow the four noble truths of the Buddha. But fate is fate. Worse than to be a king like me is to be a god.”

I could not, of course, disagree. But I did find the thought of being a god most tempting, and confusing. Since the gods cannot die or end until this cycle of creation ends, how is it possible for anyone to become a god that is already in existence? When I asked a Brahman this question, his answer took half a day. I have long since forgotten both halves of that day.

“I am astonished, Lord, by the sense of time your holy men have. They measure existences by the thousands.”

“More than that,” said Bimbisara. “Certain Brahmans tell us that a really bad karma can only be eliminated by thirty million million million rebirths multiplied by all the grains of sand in the bed of the Ganges River.”

“That is a long time.”

“That is a long time.” Bimbisara was grave. I could not tell whether or not he believed all this. He had a tendency to repeat one’s last statement; then change the subject. “Who is king of Babylon now?”

“Darius, Lord.”

“I did not know that. A long time ago we used to trade with Babylon. But then too many ships were lost at sea. It was not worthwhile.”

“There is the overland route, Lord.”

“Yes, and it is my heart’s desire that we will soon wear to dust the road between us. Would you like a wife?”

I was too startled to answer. The king repeated himself; then he added, “Since we hope that you will consider Rajagriha as your native place, we would be pleased if you married one of our ladies, just as I shall marry one of your king’s daughters, and he will marry one of mine.”

“I think that this is an undeserved honor,” I said. “But I would be most pleased, Lord.”

“Good. We will arrange everything. You have other wives?”

“None, Lord.”

“Good. Certain Brahmans take a foolish line about the number of wives one can have, even though our religion is lenient in this matter.” Bimbisara got to his feet. The audience was over.

As we walked through the scented silver air to the verandah, I did feel for an instant that Rajagriha was my native city.

I WAS MARRIED AT THE END OF THE week of the horse sacrifice. Both ceremonies took place late in winter, a lovely brief season that corresponds to early summer in Ecbatana.

Unlike my marriage, the horse sacrifice was less than a success. After a year of roaming, the stallion had managed to avoid the republican federation as well as Koshala. It was rumored that at one point the desperate Varshakara had tried to chase the horse onto a ferryboat which would have taken it across the Ganges into the Licchavian republic. But at the last moment the horse had shied, and never crossed the Ganges.

With an almost human perversity, the stallion kept entirely to the kingdom of Magadha during its year of wandering. This was a bad omen for Bimbisara. On the other hand, the horse was not captured by an enemy, and that was a good omen. At year’s end the horse was brought back to Rajagriha to be sacrificed after a festival of three days.

The horse sacrifice is as strange a business as I have ever come across. The origin of the rite is obscure. All the Brahmans agree that it is Aryan in origin for the simple reason that the horse was unknown in this part of the world until the pale-skinned clansmen arrived from the north. But the Brahmans agree on nothing else. Much of the ceremony is conducted in a language so old that even the priests who recite the sacred hymns have no idea what the words they are chanting mean. In this they resemble the Magians who follow the Lie. But the leading Brahmans at court did question me closely about those Persian sacrifices that resemble theirs; and I was able to tell them that in Persia the horse is still sacrificed to the sun god by those who follow the Lie. Beyond that, I know as little of the origins of our sacrifices as they do of theirs.

For an Indian ruler the horse sacrifice is all-important. For one thing, it represents a renewal of his kingship. For another, if he is able to enlarge the kingdom that he inherited, he will be known as a high king, or maha-rajah, a rank that certain ambitious Indians would like to pretend is equal to that of the Great King. Tactfully, I would tell them that a maharajah more resembles the pharaoh in Egypt or the king of Babel, titles that Darius bore.

The horse sacrifice took place in a fairground just inside the city wall. A four-story golden tower had been built at the center of a field. Three hundred flagpoles had been so placed as to form a square in front of the tower. As the day was windless, bright banners hung limply from the poles.

While the drugged and docile stallion was being tied to one of the poles, Brahmans attached an animal or fowl to each of the other poles. Horses, cows, geese, monkeys, even gasping porpoises were all to be sacrificed that day. Meanwhile, musicians played. Jugglers and acrobats performed. What seemed to be all of Rajagriha was in the fairground.

I stood at the door to the tower, surrounded by the court. The royal family were inside the tower, preparing themselves for the ritual.

At exactly noon, the king and his five wives came out of the tower. They all wore white. There was not a sound in the fairground, except for the noises of the tethered beasts and fowl, except for the almost human choking of the dolphins.

The high priest himself led the stallion from the flagpole to the king. Then Bimbisara and the wives walked around the animal. One wife oiled the animal’s flanks while another put a garland about its neck. Nearby a group of Brahmans acted out some sort of play, a kind of mock marriage, with numerous obscene gestures. I could not understand the language.

The mood in the fairground was curiously solemn. Usually, Indian crowds are noisy and cheerful. But today they felt the magic, I suppose, of an event that seldom happens more than once in the reign of a king despite the ancient tradition that the first earthly king who celebrates one hundred horse sacrifices will overthrow the god Indra and take his place in the sky.

I do not suppose that there is anything quite so boring as an immensely long ceremony conducted in a foreign language, and dedicated to a god or gods that one does not acknowledge.

But toward the end of the mock play, the ceremony became most intriguing. The horse was led back to the point where it had been tethered. The high priest then covered its face with a cloth. Slowly, he smothered the beast. With a crash the stallion fell to the dust and for some minutes the legs twitched in the death agony. Then the old queen walked over to the body. The crowd was now very still. Carefully she lay down beside the corpse. The high priest then covered the old queen and the horse with a silken sheet.

When they were hidden from view he said, in a loud, clear voice, “In heaven you are covered, both. And may the fertile stallion, the seed-deliverer, place the seed within.”

It took me a moment to grasp what was happening. After the rites of Ishtar at Babylon, I thought that nothing could startle or shock me. But this did. Under the silken covering, the old queen was expected to place within her the member of the dead stallion.

The ritual dialogue was obscure and obscene. It began with a blood-chilling cry from the old queen. “Oh, Mother Mother Mother! Nobody will take me! The poor nag sleeps. Me, this wonderful little creature, all dressed in the leaves and bark of the pampila tree.”

The high priest shouted, “I shall incite the procreator. You must incite him too.”

The old queen spoke to the dead stallion: “Come, lay the seed deep into the womb of one who has opened her thighs to you. Oh, symbol of virility, set in motion the organ that is to women the maker of life, which darts in and out of them, swiftly, in darkness, the secret lover.”

There was much writhing beneath the coverlet. Then the old queen howled, “Oh Mother Mother Mother, no one is taking me!”

This was followed by obscene byplay between the high priest and a lady. He pointed to her sex. “That poor little hen is so agitated, and hungry. Look how it wants to be fed.”

The lady pointed to the priest’s sex. “There it wriggles, almost as large as your tongue. Be silent, priest.”

All the while, the old queen never stopped her howling of “Mother Mother Mother, no one is taking me!”

The high priest exchanged cryptic obscenities with each of the king’s wives. The king himself said not a word. Finally, whatever was done was done. Presumably the old queen had somehow stuffed the stallion’s member into her vagina. The coverlet was taken away. The wives of the king sang in unison a hymn to a flying celestial horse. When basins were brought to them, they bathed their faces and hands in a ritual way and chanted a hymn to water. Then all the animals, fowl and fish were slaughtered, and fires were lit.

The old queen sat in a chair beside the dead stallion and watched as four Brahmans efficiently quartered the beast. The high priest then cooked the bones himself. As the marrow sizzled, King Bimbisara inhaled the steam. Thus was he purged of sin. Then sixteen priests each cooked a portion of the horse, and when this was done, there was a great shout from the people. Bimbisara was now universal monarch.

I have heard of all sorts of fertility cults in the wild places of Lydia and Thrace, but the horse sacrifice is the oddest by far and, according to the Brahmans, the oldest. It is thought that the ceremony began as a means of ensuring fertility for the king and his wives. But no one will ever know for certain because no one alive understands all of the hymns that the Brahmans have been memorizing and singing for the past two thousand years. I do know that the ceremony is terrifying to behold. It is as if we had all of us suddenly reverted to a time before time.

Dancing and feasting went on all night. At dawn the royal family retired to their golden tower. Like most of those who had attended the sacrifice, I slept in an open field.

The next day I was told that I was to marry the daughter of Prince Ajatashatru. This was a great honor, as I was constantly reminded. For one thing, as a surrogate for the Great King, I was accepted as being of the warrior class. But since I was not the Great King, I could not marry a daughter of King Bimbisara. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently worthy to take for a wife one of Ajatashatru’s twenty-three daughters.

At first I feared that some ancient Vedic law would be produced, obliging me to purchase my wife from her family. But the ancient Vedic law proved to be quite the reverse. I was paid, very handsomely, for accepting as wife the twelve-year-old Ambalika, who had not yet, I was lied to by her loving father, menstruated. Indians consider this a most important detail on the excellent ground that since their women are allowed such freedom, any nubile girl is not apt to remain a virgin for very long in that climate and at that court.

Although the first negotiations were carried out most formally between Varshakara, representing the royal family, and Caraka, representing me, the final agreement was arrived at, most amiably, even charmingly, by Ajatashatru and me in the Five Hills Gambling Hall, the largest of the capital’s numerous gambling establishments.

Indians are passionate game-players. They are also reckless gamblers. Fortunes are lost on a throw of the dice or at the guessing-the-numbers game. Under King Bimbisara all gambling halls were strictly supervised by the state. Five percent of the stakes went for the maintenance of the hall. Since no gambler is allowed to use his own dice, the state also makes a nice profit from the rental of dice. Because the hall itself never loses heavily—are the dice loaded? games secretly rigged? or does the law of averages favor the hall?—the revenue to the king is so enormous that the actual amount he receives is one of the best kept secrets in Magadha. Certainly, my embassy never penetrated it.