Moonlight excavation
Master slowed the vehicle.
Disciple’s gaze roamed in the quietude, but it still remained a
puzzle for him: “Where are we now?”
Master approached the front passenger seat, his face laced with a
smile:
“Welcome to our most ancient Anuradhapura kingdom.”
“Are we going to do an archeological excavation someplace?”
“Hm... You can say so.”
“And how are we going to do it? Look, it’s getting dark.”
“We will, my son. We will.”
Master walked forward slowly. Disciple lagged behind, his expression
quizzical. They paced a few yards in quite the quiet until they reached
an outbuilding. Master stopped short of the building’s left façade, and
motioned to the disciple over shoulders.
“Look through this hole, and see what’s going on.”
Disciple could see an assembly of men with one in the centre. The
centre man had a majestic air around him. He seemed to read something
out loud to his attentive audience. It was something written on leaves
that the man read out in the moonlight – once read, those pages fell off
one by one to the ground. Sometimes he smiled. Sometimes it was just
blank expression. Disciple tried to listen to his voice properly, but he
was too far to hear.
He was in a daze for a while, and before long master dragged him out
of the hole. His gaze suddenly turned skywards to notice the clouds
strolling over moon in its full ripe state.
“Well…”
“Well… let me get it straight now. It was King Mugalan the fourth.”
“King Mugalan the fourth?”
“You heard me huh? Maybe you are not familiar with the name. Okay
King Mugalan the fourth was a poet.”
“If you say so. I simply have no clue.”
Master gave him a smile, again. It was puzzling for disciple. He
could not make out anything.
“But now you have an idea, I suppose.”
“Sort of. He was the one in the middle?”
“That’s right. King Mugalan reads out his poetry to his ministers.
They come here everyday after the Dhamma discussion at night. That’s
what they do every Poya without fail.”
Disciple could not believe his ears for a moment. A king reading his
poetry to his ministers! Isn’t it too weird for a king!
“King Mugalan the fourth ruled the Anuradhapura kingdom. You know
that’s the most ancient kingdom we know of. I don’t need to tell you
that Ven Mihindu introduced Buddhism a little before this period. That
influenced the whole Anuradhapura literature. But unfortunately only a
few works survived.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t know exactly. Maybe because of those South Indian Chola
invasions towards the last stages of Anuradhapura era. Like the
Europeans wanted to establish Catholicism and Christianity, Cholas too
wanted to establish Hinduism.”
“But we are talking about literature, right?”
“Listen to me, will you, young man. Most of the - or the whole -
literature was influenced by Buddhism. Cholas didn’t like the trend. So
I think they must have done every possible thing to get rid of
literature.”
“Oh I see. So what kind of poetry did King Mugalan compose?”
“King Mugalan the fourth. I don’t think other Mugalans wrote poetry.
So this fourth Mugalan collected all those poetry in one volume called
Daham Kavi or ‘Religious Poetry’.”
“That too didn’t weather the hard times?”
“No, sadly.”
“Master can I say something if you don’t get me wrong?”
“You said there’s no living evidence for books of Mugalan, oops…
sorry King Mugalan the fourth. That means we cannot talk about them. If
that’s so why have we come all the way here?”
Master smiled again, for the third consecutive time. This is getting
out of hand, disciple thought worriedly stroking his windblown hair.
“You are right, son. We have no living evidence, and so we cannot
talk about it. But that’s not the thing.”
“Then? What’s the thing, actually?” Disciple asked somewhat
irritably.
“Only a few rulers had aesthetic skills. Aesthetic skills make you
reach close to divinity. Aesthetically talented people cannot become
rulers. And rulers are not skilled in aesthetic things either. That’s
why rulers dole cash out to artistes. Only a few rulers have been gifted
by such talents. So isn’t it inspiring to see someone like King Mugalan
the fourth?”
For a moment disciple became speechless. He was taking the words in
one by one. In that ensuing quiet they could see a distant figure in
royal attire stride across their way. Master zipped along and broached
conversation.
“I’m a master and this is my disciple. We’re here to see the king.”
“His Majesty is in an important meeting now. But you can see him in
half an hour. You can come in and have some refreshments in the
meantime.” The courtier said in an unusually polite note.
“That’s so good of you sir. We’ll be there right away.” Master said
bowing a little.
Disciple tried his best to read into this whole episode, still
somewhat enigmatic.
Sachitra and Samodh |
