05-06-2005, 08:01 PM
From Pioneer, 6 May 2005
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->250 BC A Love Story
<b>Writer-anthropologist Shanta Sinha Bhalla takes Shana Maria Verghis time travelling back to Pataliputra, the ancientcapital of the Magadh empire under Ashoka.</b> It is a backdrop to Rain Dance, which traces love stories between a girl, a monk,an emperor and courtesan!
I belong to Bihar. I needed to feel good about Magadh, the place I grew up in. One reason my book Rain Dance published by Brijbasi was set in 250 AD. It is a love story between a high-born young woman, Chitralekha and a Buddhist monk. The parallel tale is about Ashoka and his queen Karuvaki. I didn't see much to feel nice about in modern-day Bihar so I travelled in time. I visited the ancient Nalanda University and Bodhgaya as a child and soaked up culture as I lived. I also learnt about the period of the empire's glory from my politician father. At the university, I studied psychology and anthropology. The latter led me to study cultures and the movement of people. To ancient civilisations like Mesopotamia and Babylonia and the period of Nebucadnazzer, real name 'Nabu-khu-dressar.'
You probably know the story behind his constructing the Hanging Gardens in Babylon for his Medean wife Amitya. She was homesick for the hills of her country, which contrasted with Babylon's flat land. I wanted to write that story, but ran out of research material. History knows Nebucadnazzar as a tyrant from whom one doesn't expect tenderness. Especially not someone responsible for the sack of Jerusalem. But Nebucadnazzar was a creature of his time. So <b>was Ashoka. Perhaps one could describe him as a creature ahead of his time.</b>
One of my resource books was The Wonder That Was India by AL Basham. I read it like a novel. Daily Life in Ancient Rome was another. <b>And there was Kalidasa's Mallavikagnimitram, which is so contemporary, it's unbelievable. And remember it was written 200 years after Ashoka. 57 BC. I also studied Ashoka's edicts.</b> This was back when we were going through the Babri Masjid turmoil.
<b>Some edicts called for communal harmony. And you will recall this was before Islam came to India. Before the word 'Hindu' was invented. There were sects like Vaishnavites, the materialistic Charvakyas, Jains and Buddhists. These people couldn't live in good terms with each other</b>. (It is like worshippers of Lakshmi and Ganesh fighting!) So Ashoka set up edicts. Not in shops though. In fact, there is a reference to ban of meetings of more than three people together in public places. <i>CPC Section 144!!! </i>Shopkeepers and prostitutes were included.
<b>Ashoka controlled a society and area larger than India today. It extended from Bactria to Burma.</b> And his dynasty, the Mauryans, belonged to the trader class. In fact, they were hated by Brahmins because he made no allowances for them. He had changed Kautilya's law, which allowed them privileges. For instance Brahmins, who committed murder, were punished with branding. The common man was maimed or killed. One of Ashoka's wives, Tissarakha, was Brahmin. She was known to have belonged to the Bharadwaj clan who conspired against Ashoka.
There is little information about the Emperor. My main sources were edicts and Buddhist texts. When the Brahmi script, in which edicts were written was deciphered by a British anthropologist nearly 100 years back, they discovered the name 'Piyadassi Raja Ashok'. He also took the title, 'Devanamapiya' or 'Beloved of the Gods'. The transcription became a referral for later historians like Romila Thapar.
When I worked at the University in Canada during the 70s and 80s, I did not experience racism. But one needed a reason to feel proud of one's country. There wasn't much happening then, so I took it on me to be a sort of ambassador, telling them about other things apart from poverty. When I returned, I didn't want to write on immigrant societies. Instead I focussed on my rich roots.
My mother is Bengali. She used to tell me about college in Kolkata before Independence. About English girls taunting her for being Indian. She would reply, 'When my forefathers were studying stars, yours were in the jungle.' There was a lot of fire in the belly!
And the more I read, prouder I got. <b>AL Basham's book made me proudest. He described India as "most civilised in the ancient world." There were humane laws here that existed nowhere else.</b> Even the concept of dharma did not. One visitor to the Mauryan empire was Megasthenes, the Greek traveller who wrote Indica. It has been lost forever, supposedly during the fire in Alexandria Library. He visited the palace of Pataliputra and was very impressed.
People don't change much. Ancient India still lives in villages. The costumes are now seen in our dance outfits and Buddhist monks uniforms. Even the dhoti and sacred thread are ancient. Actually ours is the most ancient, living civilisation. Today ancient and modern compete for space in people's lives.
Visiting modern Bihar is heartbreaking. Rajgiri where Buddha stared his ministry and Bimbisara held court was clean when I was younger. Now there are so many people milling around... Arthashasthra was a valuable source for my research. It talks of a society 70 years before Ashoka. I projected time a little, then got facts for the book's background.
I love reading historical novels like Mary Renault on ancient Greece, or The Winged Pharaoh on ancient Egypt. Essentially, I enjoy creating a world around vanished, everyday people.
I begin with the big, lazy Ganga. I think it runs widest in Patna during November by Bankipore Club. Now it's filthy. But as a child it was beautiful.
I knew Pataliputra was on the river, and villas of nobles were on its banks. So I visualised a graceful society in harmony, with undercurrents of push and pull.
Basically all people are political. Ashoka was different things to different people. A murderer to some, but I saw him as far-sighted, and powerful despite espousing Buddhism. He also belonged to the Axis Age which created Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Christ. To conclude, I visited ruins of Pataliputra palace not long ago. All that remains are 100 pillars preserved behind glass.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->250 BC A Love Story
<b>Writer-anthropologist Shanta Sinha Bhalla takes Shana Maria Verghis time travelling back to Pataliputra, the ancientcapital of the Magadh empire under Ashoka.</b> It is a backdrop to Rain Dance, which traces love stories between a girl, a monk,an emperor and courtesan!
I belong to Bihar. I needed to feel good about Magadh, the place I grew up in. One reason my book Rain Dance published by Brijbasi was set in 250 AD. It is a love story between a high-born young woman, Chitralekha and a Buddhist monk. The parallel tale is about Ashoka and his queen Karuvaki. I didn't see much to feel nice about in modern-day Bihar so I travelled in time. I visited the ancient Nalanda University and Bodhgaya as a child and soaked up culture as I lived. I also learnt about the period of the empire's glory from my politician father. At the university, I studied psychology and anthropology. The latter led me to study cultures and the movement of people. To ancient civilisations like Mesopotamia and Babylonia and the period of Nebucadnazzer, real name 'Nabu-khu-dressar.'
You probably know the story behind his constructing the Hanging Gardens in Babylon for his Medean wife Amitya. She was homesick for the hills of her country, which contrasted with Babylon's flat land. I wanted to write that story, but ran out of research material. History knows Nebucadnazzar as a tyrant from whom one doesn't expect tenderness. Especially not someone responsible for the sack of Jerusalem. But Nebucadnazzar was a creature of his time. So <b>was Ashoka. Perhaps one could describe him as a creature ahead of his time.</b>
One of my resource books was The Wonder That Was India by AL Basham. I read it like a novel. Daily Life in Ancient Rome was another. <b>And there was Kalidasa's Mallavikagnimitram, which is so contemporary, it's unbelievable. And remember it was written 200 years after Ashoka. 57 BC. I also studied Ashoka's edicts.</b> This was back when we were going through the Babri Masjid turmoil.
<b>Some edicts called for communal harmony. And you will recall this was before Islam came to India. Before the word 'Hindu' was invented. There were sects like Vaishnavites, the materialistic Charvakyas, Jains and Buddhists. These people couldn't live in good terms with each other</b>. (It is like worshippers of Lakshmi and Ganesh fighting!) So Ashoka set up edicts. Not in shops though. In fact, there is a reference to ban of meetings of more than three people together in public places. <i>CPC Section 144!!! </i>Shopkeepers and prostitutes were included.
<b>Ashoka controlled a society and area larger than India today. It extended from Bactria to Burma.</b> And his dynasty, the Mauryans, belonged to the trader class. In fact, they were hated by Brahmins because he made no allowances for them. He had changed Kautilya's law, which allowed them privileges. For instance Brahmins, who committed murder, were punished with branding. The common man was maimed or killed. One of Ashoka's wives, Tissarakha, was Brahmin. She was known to have belonged to the Bharadwaj clan who conspired against Ashoka.
There is little information about the Emperor. My main sources were edicts and Buddhist texts. When the Brahmi script, in which edicts were written was deciphered by a British anthropologist nearly 100 years back, they discovered the name 'Piyadassi Raja Ashok'. He also took the title, 'Devanamapiya' or 'Beloved of the Gods'. The transcription became a referral for later historians like Romila Thapar.
When I worked at the University in Canada during the 70s and 80s, I did not experience racism. But one needed a reason to feel proud of one's country. There wasn't much happening then, so I took it on me to be a sort of ambassador, telling them about other things apart from poverty. When I returned, I didn't want to write on immigrant societies. Instead I focussed on my rich roots.
My mother is Bengali. She used to tell me about college in Kolkata before Independence. About English girls taunting her for being Indian. She would reply, 'When my forefathers were studying stars, yours were in the jungle.' There was a lot of fire in the belly!
And the more I read, prouder I got. <b>AL Basham's book made me proudest. He described India as "most civilised in the ancient world." There were humane laws here that existed nowhere else.</b> Even the concept of dharma did not. One visitor to the Mauryan empire was Megasthenes, the Greek traveller who wrote Indica. It has been lost forever, supposedly during the fire in Alexandria Library. He visited the palace of Pataliputra and was very impressed.
People don't change much. Ancient India still lives in villages. The costumes are now seen in our dance outfits and Buddhist monks uniforms. Even the dhoti and sacred thread are ancient. Actually ours is the most ancient, living civilisation. Today ancient and modern compete for space in people's lives.
Visiting modern Bihar is heartbreaking. Rajgiri where Buddha stared his ministry and Bimbisara held court was clean when I was younger. Now there are so many people milling around... Arthashasthra was a valuable source for my research. It talks of a society 70 years before Ashoka. I projected time a little, then got facts for the book's background.
I love reading historical novels like Mary Renault on ancient Greece, or The Winged Pharaoh on ancient Egypt. Essentially, I enjoy creating a world around vanished, everyday people.
I begin with the big, lazy Ganga. I think it runs widest in Patna during November by Bankipore Club. Now it's filthy. But as a child it was beautiful.
I knew Pataliputra was on the river, and villas of nobles were on its banks. So I visualised a graceful society in harmony, with undercurrents of push and pull.
Basically all people are political. Ashoka was different things to different people. A murderer to some, but I saw him as far-sighted, and powerful despite espousing Buddhism. He also belonged to the Axis Age which created Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Christ. To conclude, I visited ruins of Pataliputra palace not long ago. All that remains are 100 pillars preserved behind glass.
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