Creation (38 page)

“He doesn’t know. How could he? The old queen won’t tell him, because she’s afraid of my father. I can’t think why. After all, she’s his mother.”

“But the chamberlain would tell him.”

“No one knows what the chamberlain tells anyone in secret.” Ambalika suddenly looked twice her age. “But he does hate the republics.”

“So he has told me.”

“Yes, everyone knows what he
says
.”
She was ambiguous. At the time, I wondered that if there should be a sixty-fifth art, would it be diplomacy or conspiracy?

We were interrupted by the arrival of Ambalika’s grandfather Prince Jeta. As this was the third day, he brought us gifts and we entertained him in the main room of the house. Despite the elegance of the furniture and the hangings, it was impossible to disguise the fact that the house would soon collapse from termites and rot. As always, my father-in-law had done well on the transaction.

When Ambalika made as if to withdraw, Prince Jeta motioned for her to stay. “After all, how often does a man get to meet one of his granddaughters?”

Ambalika remained.

Prince Jeta turned to me. “You have been invited, officially, to the court of King Pasenadi.” Prince Jeta spoke with none of the urgency that I knew he felt. “The king himself would like to receive you before the rains begin.”

“He does me honor.” I made the usual speech, adding, “Unfortunately, I must wait until the first consignment of iron leaves for Persia.”

“That will be at the beginning of next month, Lord Ambassador.” Prince Jeta smiled and I was careful not to acknowledge the slightest distress that he should know of the highly secret arrangements made between Varshakara and me. We had set a price for the iron and we had agreed that the iron be exchanged for gold at Taxila. All in all, I was well pleased with my first commercial treaty. I was not pleased that Prince Jeta knew about it.

“Since your caravan will go through Shravasti, I had hoped that you might accompany it.”

“We’ll be well guarded, too,” said Ambalika, suddenly interested. “You know, there are bands of thieves from one end of Koshala to the other—river pirates, too. Even so, I long to see Shravasti. The old queen tells me that there is no more beautiful city in the world.”

“I agree with her,” said Prince Jeta. “Of course,” he turned to me, “I’ve only seen the land between the two rivers, as we call our little world.”

“Naturally, I shall try to make the trip,” I began.

“Oh, say yes!” Ambalika had a child’s sense of urgency. Everything must be now. Lais has much the same quality.

Prince Jeta smiled at his granddaughter. “Your husband will also want to meet the Buddha, about whom you’ve heard such terrible things in the women’s quarters.”

“That’s not true, Prince Jeta. Many of our ladies admire the Lord Buddha.” Ambalika was suddenly a tactful royal princess.

“Do you?”

“I don’t really know. I can’t say that I like the idea of being blown out like a candle. I think that Mahavira is much more interesting.”

“Have you seen and heard Mahavira?” Prince Jeta was curious.

Ambalika nodded. “When I was about six, the lady-in-waiting took me to the Jaina convent, which is not far from your house on the river road. Mahavira was sitting in the dirt in front of the convent. I’ve never seen such a crowd!”

“What did he say that you remember?” Prince Jeta seemed genuinely interested in his granddaughter. Because she was my wife?

“Well, I liked his description of the creation of the world. You know, how everything is really a part of this giant man, and that we’re somewhere around his waist. Of course, Mahavira’s geography is not what we’ve been taught at school, but I did like all those different circles of oceans. There is one of milk and one of clarified butter and one of sugar cane. Oh ...” She had a habit of interrupting herself. “I particularly liked his description of the first cycle of creation, when everyone was six miles high and we were all twins and each twin brother would marry his sister twin, as they do in Persia today, and there was no work for anyone to do because there were ten trees on which grew everything you would ever want. One tree had leaves that became pots and pans. Another tree grew every kind of food, already cooked. I liked that tree the best. I was a greedy child, I’m afraid. Then there was a tree that grew clothes and another that grew palaces, though I don’t see how you could pluck a palace like a banana. But perhaps when the palace was ripe, it would come to rest on the ground, which was made of sugar, while the water was wine ...” Ambalika interrupted herself again. “But I’m not being serious. I’m only telling you what I remember. He was very old, I thought. I also remember how pleased I was that he was properly dressed, and not sky-clad.”

That night our marriage was agreeably consummated. I was pleased. She was pleased. Presumably the Vedic gods were pleased, for nine months later my first son was born.

Not long after the wedding, at the height of the dry season, I was granted a private audience with King Bimbisara. He received me in a small room that looked out upon dry, dusty gardens, loud with swarming locusts.

Bimbisara was to the point. He was always very much the warrior king if not quite the universal monarch. Incidentally, until I went to Cathay I thought that the idea of a universal monarch was peculiarly Aryan, witness our own Great King. But in Cathay I was told that, once upon a time, a single monarch had ruled all the Middle Kingdom—their name for Cathay—in perfect harmony with heaven and that one day he will come again and he will be known as the son of heaven. As there is only one deity, there must be only one universal monarch. In actual fact, of course, there are as many false gods in the sky and on earth as there are kings and princes in the world. Yet it is clear to me that all mankind hungers for oneness. The Cathayans are in no way related to the Aryans, but they think as we do. Plainly, the Wise Lord has inspired them.

I asked Bimbisara for permission to go with the caravan to Shravasti.

“You are free to go, my son.” Bimbisara treated me as a member of his own family, which indeed I was according to Vedic law.

“I am curious to meet the Buddha.” Obviously, I made no reference to King Pasenadi’s urgent invitation.

“I would give up my kingdom to follow the Buddha,” said Bimbisara. “But I am not allowed.”

“The universal monarch may do as he pleases.” At a king’s court, one is never entirely sincere.

Bimbisara tugged at his violet beard. “There is no universal monarch,” he smiled. “As you know. And if there was one, he would probably be Darius. I say this only in private, of course. Your Darius is lord of a great many lands. But he is not lord, as he claims, of
all
the lands. As you can see ...”

“As I can see, Lord King.”

“As you can see.” He repeated vaguely. “If the Buddha should ask you about the horse-sacrifice, say that I was obliged to pay homage to the Aryan gods.”

“Will he disapprove?”

“He never disapproves. He never approves. But, in principle, he holds all life sacred. Therefore, animal sacrifice is always wrong, just as war is always wrong.”

“But you are a warrior and a king and an Aryan. You must sacrifice animals to your gods and kill your enemies in war and wrongdoers in peace.”

“And to the extent that I am all these things, I may not know enlightenment in this incarnation.” There were real tears in the king’s eyes, as opposed to those free-flowing fluids that were forever gushing from his son’s eyes. “I have often hoped that one day I might be able to put away all this.” He touched the jeweled turban that he wore. “Then, once I am nothing, I can follow the Buddha’s eightfold way.”

“Why don’t you?” I was genuinely curious.

“I am weak.” With everyone else, Bimbisara was guarded, cautious, cryptic. With me, he was often startlingly candid. I suppose that because I was so entirely outside his world, he felt that he could speak freely to me—of nonpolitical matters. Although I was married to his granddaughter, I was still the Great King’s ambassador: one day my embassy would end.

Out of delicacy, no one at court ever referred to my eventual departure. Nevertheless, the return to Persia was always on my mind and, at our last meeting, it was also on Bimbisara’s mind. For all he knew, I might decide to continue with the caravan back to Persia. For all I knew, I might very well do just that. My mission had been accomplished. Trade between Persia and Magadha had been established; and there was no reason for it not to continue successfully as long as the one had gold and the other iron.

But at the time of my audience with Bimbisara, I was undecided. I certainly did not intend to abandon Ambalika. On the other hand, I did not know how she might feel at the thought of leaving India. I also dreaded what Ajatashatru might say and do if I told him that I was going home. I would be drowned in tears, if not the Ganges.

“I am weak,” Bimbisara repeated, drying his eyes with his shawl. “I still have work to do here. I am trying to set up a sangha of all the village chiefs. I meet them individually, of course. Now I want them to come together at least once a year and tell me their problems.”

“You will make Magadha a republic.” I smiled, to show that I was joking. I confess that I was somewhat disturbed that he should want to discuss internal politics with a foreigner.

But Bimbisara was simply thinking aloud. “The village chiefs are the secret of our prosperity. Control them, and you flourish. Oppress them, and you perish. I am the first king of Magadha who has known, personally, every chief. That is why I am universal monarch. No, I am not making a republic.” He had heard me, after all. “I despise those states where every man with property thinks himself a king. It is unnatural. There can be only one king in any country, as there can be only one sun in the sky or one general at the head of an army. Tell Pasenadi that our affection for him is constant.”

“Yes, Lord King.” Bimbisara seemed now ready to get to a point, which I was having some difficulty in anticipating.

“Tell him that his sister flourishes. Tell him that she has performed the horse sacrifice. Tell him to disregard those who wish to ... make trouble between us. They will not succeed, as long as I live.”

I looked up at him expectantly. One may stare back at an Indian king. In fact, he would be offended and alarmed if you did not gaze at him directly—but humbly.

“Go to the Buddha. Prostrate yourself before the golden one. Tell him that in the thirty-seven years that have passed since we first met, I have practiced six times a month the eightfold morality. Tell him that only recently have I begun to comprehend the truth of what he once said to me: ‘That the only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.’ Tell him that I have made a private vow that in one year’s time I shall abandon earthly things and follow him.”

No one will ever know whether or not King Bimbisara was serious about giving up the world. I believe that he
thought
he was, which in religious matters counts for slightly more than nothing.

Ajatashatru said farewell to me in the chancellery of his father’s palace. For a lover of pleasure, he spent a good deal of his time dealing with the king’s privy council and the chief councilor.

At Magadha, the chief councilor does the actual work of administering the country, aided by some thirty councilors, many of them hereditary and most of them incompetent. As palace chamberlain, Varshakara was in charge not only of the court but of the secret police. Needless to say, he was more powerful than the chancellor, and he would have been more powerful than the king had Bimbisara not chosen to rule in close alliance with the village headmen who not only looked upon the sovereign as a friend at a very corrupt and intricate court, but, in his name, they collected taxes, deducted their share and sent on the rest to the treasury. The king was seldom cheated.

As at Susa, various councilors administer different functions of the state. Traditionally, in every reign, the high priest is close to the king. But the Buddhist Bimbisara seldom consulted the official custodian of the Vedic gods whose single moment of glory had been the recent celebration of the horse sacrifice. From amongst the privy council, the king appoints a minister for war and peace and a high judge, who presides over the country’s magistrates and hears in his court those cases that do not directly go to the king; he also appoints a treasurer and a chief tax collector. These last two officials are of great importance and, traditionally, they die rich. But under Bimbisara, they were kept on a short leash. He had got around them by his alliance with the village chiefs.

There are a host of sub-ministers who are known as superintendents. Since all raw metals belong to the king, the iron mines are administered by a superintendent who demanded from me no more than a patriotic five percent of the export value of his master’s iron, which I paid. Since all forests belong to the king, the elephants, tigers, exotic birds, wood for building and firewood come under a single superintendent. In fact, almost every profitable aspect of Indian life is regulated by the state. There are even superintendents in charge of gambling, of the sale of distilled liquors, of the houses of prostitution. All in all, the system does not work too badly. If a monarch is vigilant, he can, if he chooses, make things happen rapidly. Otherwise, the day-to-day administration of the state is a slow business, which I regard as a good thing. What you do not do can never be entirely wrong. This, Democritus, is a political and not a religious observation.

The thirty members of the privy council sat on low divans in a high-vaulted room on the ground floor of the palace. In a sense, this room corresponds to the second room of our chancellery. As I entered, Ajatashatru rose. As I bowed low—to a father-in-law as well as to a prince—he came toward me, took me in his arms. “You will not abandon us, my dear! Oh, please say you won’t!” For once the eyes were not full of tears. They were as bright and shiny as a tiger’s when he stares straight at you from a tree’s low branch.

I made a graceful, prepared speech. Then Ajatashatru drew me to the far end of the long room. He lowered his voice, as people do in palaces all over the world. “Dearest one, tell King Pasenadi that his nephew cares for him as if he were his own son.”