War of Lanka (Ram Chandra #4)

by Amish Tripathi

Innocence and truthfulness were so rare among adults. Life had a way of torturing those characteristics out of people, leaving resentment or cynicism in their place. Some adults gave their bitterness another word – maturity. A gracious word to hide their selfishness and cowardice. It was a delight to see this rare combination of fierce courage, quiet truthfulness and pure innocence … and in one who had suffered so much. This man, this king of Ayodhya, is special.

Vashishtha had taught Ram the three drivers of decision-making: Desire, Emotions and Intelligence. They arrange themselves in a hierarchy, with Desire at the bottom and Intelligence at the top. Desire and Emotions can be allowed to drive decisions at times. But Desire must never be allowed to override Emotions in decision-making. And Emotions must never overpower Intelligence. When we allow our behaviour and decisions to be primarily driven by Intelligence, then we have the opportunity to live wisely. ‘You are being driven by your emotions, Ram. Think calmly, with your intelligence, factoring in all the knowledge at our disposal. And then decide.’

‘I read this in a book once,’ continued Raavan, ‘that grief and suffering can serve as engines that move life forward. Happiness is overrated. Hatred, of course, is destructive.’

Raavan answered her look. ‘Great does not mean good, Sita. Great only means the person makes a real impact on the world. Ordinary people do not impact the world, they are only impacted by it. Now, with great people, the impact can be good or bad. But know this: Happy people can never be great.’

‘That’s not an answer to my question. People assume that depressed people look like they are in depression. That they cry all the time. Or mope. No. Most people who are depressed, smile. In fact, they smile more than necessary. Because they hide their grief from the world.’

It is said that the fate of truly great people is to suffer, but they confuse correlation with causality. It is actually the other way around. Because they suffer, they become great.’

Grief can provide the fuel for greatness, but it can also be the trigger for evil.’

But war can only take away an injustice. It cannot create justice. War can only take away Evil. It cannot create Good. To create Justice and Good, you need peace. And to win peace, you need a leader who will stay the course, no matter what comes along – grief, suffering – to sway him from his path.’ ‘True.’ ‘Ram is that leader,’ said Sita.

the ancestors had designed pilgrimages to be difficult. The journey must be a penance. It must prepare you for the destination.

The old Sanskrit word for a place of pilgrimage was teerth sthan. The root of this word was ‘the point of crossing over’. So, a pilgrimage place was where one’s soul could cross over and touch the divine. Which is why, often, pilgrimage temples

were built in inhospitable terrain, arduous and difficult to reach; the journey would serve as a preparation, purg...

‘Indians are the most difficult people to manage in the world. Constantly rebelling. They love breaking the law, even if there is nothing to be gained by it. We don’t like following orders from any leader. Unless it is that rare leader whom we look up to like a God. We would follow that leader to the ends of the Earth, and beyond.

‘People don’t consciously register the things that truly make their life better. Like schools and hospitals. They take these things for granted once they have them. Instead, they focus on the magic of the stories that beguile them, like great battles between a hero and a villain. The common people are, fundamentally, idiots.’ ‘Come

‘Have you heard that statement, “They buried us, but they did not know that we were seeds”?’ Sita nodded. ‘Yes, I have. Beautiful. Evocative and rebellious. Who said that?’ ‘Someone from the Greek islands to our west. I think his name was Konstantinos. But, in my honest opinion, it covers only half the journey towards wisdom.’ ‘How so?’ ‘It assumes that the seed itself rises. But we know that is not what happens. The seed will remain dead like a stone if it is not buried in fertile ground. The seed has to be buried. And allow itself to be destroyed. So that a glorious tree emerges from its shattered chest. That is the purpose, the swadharma, of the seed. For as long as the tree lives, songs will be sung of the seed that experienced death – even though it was already dead – to allow the tree to emerge. The seed is either lifeless above ground, or wrecked below ground. But when it rips open to allow a tree to emerge, it becomes immortal. Through the only way any living thing can become immortal: in the memory of others who live on after them. Its sacrifice makes the seed immortal.’ Sita

‘Among the most important components of a strong society is the spirit of aggressive

masculinity. Without it, society would be weak and vulnerable. It would be conquered by outsiders. It would fall apart. But aggressive masculinity without the control of dharma transforms into toxic masculinity.

Niyoga was an ancient tradition in India that stretched back to the hoary past. According to its tenets, a woman married to a man who was incapable of fathering a child could request another man to impregnate her. Usually, she would turn to a rishi. For one, the intellectual prowess of the rishi could pass on, genetically, to the offspring. More importantly, rishis were wandering mendicants and would not lay claim to the child. A child born of a union sanctioned by niyoga would, for all practical and societal purposes, be the legitimate child of the woman and her legal husband; the biological father would ideally remain anonymous.

Our Mother India has seven!’ Shatrughan began to name the great river systems, counting

them off on his fingertips. ‘The Indus river system, the Saraswati river system, the Ganga–Brahmaputra river system, the Narmada river system, the Mahanadi river system, the Godavari–Krishna river system, the Kaveri river system. And then there are many smaller ones, like the Tapti and Penna, which we don’t even count among the seven, but they each carry as much water as the Euphrates River! Even the Mahanadi, which is the smallest of the seven major river systems, often carries as much water as the Nile River!’

‘That’s right, Dada,’ said Shatrughan, smiling, ‘but only up to a point. The wood fibres expand with a little moisture, and contract when the moisture disappears. And the wood weakens due to this. But when the moisture content goes above a certain limit – I think for ebony it should be around thirty to forty per cent – wood fibres actually become more stable. The wood becomes harder.’ ‘So let me get this,’ said Bharat. ‘If we subject wood to some moisture, it swells, but when you subject it to excessive moisture, it hardens.’

Rajrishi, an old Sanskrit word, was a conjoint of raja and rishi. King and sage. It was sometimes used for kings who walked away from kingship and became sages. But more often, it referred to kings who ruled like sages. Who dedicated their energy, emotions, mind and their very soul to one purpose alone: the good of their people.

Raavan was right. The people would remember this image. For millennia. They would remember their rajrishi. They would remember their priest-king. They would remember their Vishnu, Ram. For as long as the land of India breathed, it would sing the name of Ram.

The invasion of Raavan’s Lanka would begin the following day. The first day of the month of Ashwin.

But even if you do believe that you have failed, remember that it isn’t as if great men never fall. Everyone falls some time or the other. Great are those who rise after they fall, dust themselves off and get right back into the battle of life.’

The puja, dedicated to the previous Mahadev Lord Rudra, was usually conducted to ward off negative energy. There was one other reason. Lord Rudra was one of the greatest warriors the world has ever seen, and they sought his blessings before a war. The puja was being conducted on a flat promontory-type sandy patch of land that extended in a northeasterly direction on Pamban Island. The bridge would begin from the south-east end of the island, two kilometres from here. Years from now, a great temple to Lord Rudra would be built on this spot. It would be known as the temple of Ram’s God or Rameshwaram.

What is easily available is not often desirable. What was true among lovers is also true among warriors. It requires great wisdom and discernment to differentiate unavailability from desirability. But there is something about love and bloodlust which diminishes the ability to be wise.

The next world, the land of the ancestors, lay beyond the mythical river, Vaitarni. Yama, the Lord of Death, guided souls into that stopover land. After some time, the souls either returned to this earth reincarnated, or moved onwards towards moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirths.

Sometimes the hero and the leader can fuse in the same individual. But often this does not happen. A hero does not need followers, a leader cannot be imagined without those he leads. A hero sacrifices himself, while a leader may not succumb to this magnificent impulse. A hero must be courageous, a leader does what must be done, even risk being perceived as cowardly sometimes. A hero inspires the storytellers, a leader lives on in the hearts of his followers. A hero is concerned with what the gods will think of him, a leader is concerned with protecting and nurturing his people and his land. A hero will not leave the moral high ground, even if it hurts his people, while a leader will step down from the moral high ground if need be, and even sacrifice his own soul for the good of the people he leads.

Bharat and Lakshman had taken some Indian peregrine falcons along with them; these fast-flying birds delivered messages across the island of Lanka in just a few hours.

Ants have been on earth for nearly one hundred million years, well before human beings made their appearance. They were around when dinosaurs walked the earth, and survived whatever it was that destroyed those massive beasts. And then their population exploded a few million years later. The ant population is large, some estimates placing it in many thousands of trillions. They constitute between fifteen to twenty per cent of the terrestrial animal biomass; more than all humans and mammals combined! They build large, complex colonies and organise themselves efficiently along job specialisation: some are worker ants, others are soldiers, and most importantly there is the queen who founds a colony of ants and dedicates herself to laying eggs and producing the next generation. Ants, like human beings, conduct wars and exhibit complicated battle strategies. Enmities last generations. Their main competitive advantage is that an entire colony, comprising perhaps a million to twenty million ants, has a hive mind. Millions in one colony can self-organise and work together, like an eerily coordinated superorganism. When moving together, this ‘superorganism’ stretches many hundreds of metres. These

The key ingredient that makes large and complex civilisations possible is cooperation among massive numbers of people. At the biggest scale, even millions of people can cooperate and live together, like in our India. And this entire societal structure among humans works on a social contract between an elite which leads, and the masses that follow.’

‘I agree that too much power concentrated in the hands of the elite is not good. We must have balance. But swinging to the other extreme is also not good. Also, this thing about being inclusive … Look, by its very nature, excellence is not inclusive. It cannot be inclusive. It has to be exclusive. You can either have inclusiveness, where everyone feels involved, or you can have excellence, where those who are good at a certain thing are given the freedom and encouragement to achieve, with the hope that society at large will also benefit.

‘Why do civilisations weaken and collapse?’ ‘The theory states that this is a natural corollary to success. Some call it catastrophic success. The seeds of failure of some complex societies are sown in their journey towards success.’ ‘How so?’ Vishwamitra continued, ‘When a society is on the path of success, it gets richer steadily. And if the elite is efficient and just, as it would be in a successful society, they would share the rewards fairly with the masses. So, the masses also get richer and healthier steadily. But resultantly, the masses multiply. They grow in numbers. And as their numbers increase, the labour supply also grows. This is not a problem if the elite continuously finds new ways to grow the economy and absorb the increased labour into jobs. But if they fail to do that, and the supply of labour keeps growing, then the price of labour—wages—will steadily fall. And as wages for the masses fall, they get poorer and angrier, creating the conditions for rebellion, even revolution.’ ‘But wages can fall for other reasons, right?’ asked Nandini. ‘Like the elite allowing in a massive number of immigrants, without creating enough jobs to absorb those immigrants. Or the elite importing goods from other lands where the masses earn less.’ ‘True,’

The main point is that, if the masses become poorer or unhealthier as compared to before, they are unhappy and this creates the conditions for a revolution. A smart elite, with basic survival instincts, should want to control this and ensure that the masses don’t become too unhappy.’

As the masses become poorer, their wages fall, and those who consume the labour of the masses – the elite – become wealthier. As the gap between the two increases, the aspirations of the masses become focused and acute. The talented among them are desperate to enter the elite ranks. In fact, more and more people from the masses try ever harder to join the elite, because the rewards appear so attractive. This is especially true if the elite is ostentatious, showing off their wealth rather than being conservative and understated. ‘Some among the masses gradually become a part of the elite. They work hard, educate themselves and rise. But the problem is that the elite cannot keep expanding. There are only so many elite positions. There can only be one king. There can only be one chief general of the army. There can only be one chief priest of a religion. A big lie told to children today in civilised societies is that all of them are special, all of them can aspire to reach the top. This is nonsense. The top does not have endless space. The nature of a complex society makes the elite a small class. And if there are more and more aspirants for the elite class, logically more and more people will be denied their ambitions and psychological space under the sun. And these aspirants then get frustrated and become the counter-elite.’ ‘Since, usually, the counter-elite has risen from the masses by the dint of their hard work, are they more capable than the children of the old elite?’...

this is not about the varna that people belong to. It is about power; those who have it and those who don’t. The elite class is defined by one thing alone: power. Those who exercise power over others in their society are members of the elite.’

‘A smart elite should be able to anticipate these problems and avoid or control them, before they blow their society up.’

‘The first and foremost way is ensuring that the material life of the masses steadily improves. Whatever varna the masses belong to, their life must continuously improve, even if in small measures. Remember, the masses don’t evaluate their state in comparison to people from other countries. They compare it to their own past. India is the richest country on earth. So, the Indian masses are far richer than the Greek masses, for instance. If the Indian masses become worse off, they will move towards dissatisfaction, protests and rebellions, even if, in their poorer state, they remain economically better off than the Greeks.’

‘So, it is in the interest of the elite to help the poor. Be mindful of them. When in doubt, help the poor. When you have nothing else to occupy yourself with, help the poor. The default position of a smart elite must always be: help the poor.’ ‘And the problem of overproduction of elites?’ ‘It’s different for the elite. I don’t think their material life should be on an ever-improving spiral. In fact, I do think that for the sake of stability in a society, there must be a periodic culling of the elite. So that the old elite, which has become fat and lazy, is replaced by a new rising elite, with more energy and drive.’ ‘Culling?’ asked Nandini. ‘Isn’t that cruel? Really, Vishwa, I wish you would measure your words. Words have energy, my friend!’ ‘Look, I speak my mind, using the most descriptive and not necessarily appropriate words. In any case, that’s what happens with political civil violence, doesn’t it? Many elite members are killed, and then there is less internal competition in that class.

Intra-elite civil war is disastrous for a society.’

‘Maybe love is an illusion, maybe it isn’t. But even so, there is no reason we should not enjoy it while we feel it. Illusion or not. Only those who have not suffered the dreary desert of grief will deny the ethereal, even if temporary, comfort of love.’

‘Many Kshatriya royals attack Vaishya businessmen these days. I think there may come a time when they will start appropriating Vaishya wealth. Would you call that a culling of a segment of the elite, in a manner of speaking?’ ‘No, I would call it bigotry and stupidity.’ ‘Why? You just said that there must not be too many elite members.’ ‘It’s like this. There are four kinds of power: military, economic, political and ideological. Military power is based on the ability to use violence. This could be the army or police or any other such agency. Economic power is not about just wealth, but the ability to use that wealth. For example, a wealthy businessman may have more personal wealth than the managing partner of a large trade guild, but the managing partner can wield power derived from the guild’s money. So, this hypothetical managing partner of ours may have less money than the businessman, but she is more powerful. Therefore, she is elite. Political power is exercised by politicians and administrators; basically, the king, top bureaucrats, the judges, et al., who use the administrative machinery of the State to enforce their will upon the people. Lastly, ideological power is the ability to make the masses buy into ideas and memes that are supportive of the elite group’s grip on power. The ideological elite could include storytellers, academics, reporters, artistes and such others. Now, a coherent elite group will have ALL four power sources. They must have intra sub-groups...

They say that only the dead are allowed to reach heaven. But that is false. True heaven is not beyond us in this life. It is right here on earth. With the one you love.

‘She is the morning to my night. She is the destination to my travels. She is the rain to my cloud. Whatever be the questions of my life, she is the answer.’

‘Freedom comes from understanding that there is no perfection. Nothing in this universe can ever be perfect. Nothing can have all qualities. Gold has no fragrance; sugarcane has no fruit; and sandalwood has no flowers. But that doesn’t take away their beauty, does it?’

Pitralok was beyond the constraints of time and space. Three generations of ancestors remained in pitralok. And generations beyond either came back to earth for their next life, or attained moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirths.

‘Life, at its core, is very simple, my son,’ Mandodari had said. ‘We build complicated nonsense around it to avoid looking at the simple truth. Maybe because the truth troubles us. Maybe because the truth makes us unhappy. And so, we waste our lives living a lie.’

The true nature of the beast, ultimately, always prevails.’

And a king must always see things for what they are, in all their ugly truth, rather than what he would like them to be. The delusional view should be left to fools in universities; let them formulate air-headed theories. Kings and administrators need to live in the real world. That is the only way they can actually do their jobs. So many silly fallacies and maxims float in this world. Like ‘All people are decent at their core’. Or ‘All religions are the same and none of them preach hatred’. Or ‘All cultures are worthy of respect’. The truth is ugly. All people are not fundamentally decent. Some are actually good, and some are actually bad. All religions are not the same, and some do preach hatred. Just read their scriptures. Some cultures are better than others. That is reality. Strip the nonsense away and have the courage to see the simple truth. Remember, life is not complicated. It is simple. We make it complicated to avoid seeing the simple truths that trouble us. Don’t we?’

The Vedic Indians acknowledged a soul’s journey as it leaves a body with two words: Om Shanti. Thereby wishing for peace, and, hopefully, moksha for the departed soul.