BINDUSARA
The possibility of Chandragupta Maurya having married a Greek princess (probably the daughter of Seleucus Nikator, as noted earlier; but it is unclear, in the first place, whether he was the latter’s son-in-law or father-in-law) has sent many writers of fiction into transports of delight. Endless storytelling opportunities present themselves, in this regard, particularly for those who are not really worried about historical accuracy and would rather focus on the enigmatic ruler being surrounded by one or many exotic green-eyed women and spawning an exotic green-eyed brood. Unfortunately, the actual facts of history are not always as romantic or alluring as one would wish. And so, the Mauryan narrative eventually shifts from Chandragupta, not to any of his probable half-foreign offspring but to Bindusara, his very Indian son.
The story of Bindusara is interesting precisely because nothing much is known about him. This is the usual fate of people in history sandwiched between two extremely well-known characters who have caught the public imagination in one way or the other. In Bindusara’s case, he is stuck between his father, Chandragupta Maurya—whose mysterious identity and meteoric rise to fame has spawned several exciting and wildly imaginative tales—and his grandson, Ashoka, whose charismatic personality and enduring legacy have ensured that he regularly figures in the list of most remarkable rulers from around the world. Caught between these two, Bindusara appears as a mere apology—a postscript, as it were, to the goings-on in the Mauryan empire. You catch him peeping from the annals of history but disappearing just as fast so that you sometimes wonder whether he really existed at all. And, of course, his name is routinely mixed-up with Bimbisara’s so that their two selves often meld in public memory into one confusing entity. (Bimbisara, of course, was the one who steered Magadha to political glory in the sixth century BCE and was the sinister Ajatashatru’s father.)
So why did Bindusara disappear and is he worth devoting an entire chapter to other than in the interests of a sequential Mauryan narrative? Let us examine the evidence for ourselves keeping in mind the fact—reiterated earlier—that writers of historical narratives are notoriously selective when it comes to compiling lists of past rulers and their deeds. Some make the final cut and some don’t—it is as simple and unfortunate as that! But, then, even early Buddhist sources are not particularly enthusiastic about Bindusara and are stingy with details on him. His interest in and/or preoccupation with the rival Ajivika sect might have had something to do with it. Conventional histories note that Bindusara ruled the Mauryan empire between around 297 and 273 BCE. But let us begin at the beginning—with the rather gory story of his birth.
As recounted in the previous chapters, Kautilya more or less dictated the course of Chandragupta’s ascendancy to the Mauryan throne but continued to be jittery about the latter’s hold on it. Admittedly, it was a tenuous one, at first—as was to be expected—but Kautilya honed suspicion to a fine art, purportedly seeing potential assassins and schemers lurking everywhere at court. His fevered imagination had Chandragupta strangled, stabbed and murdered in varied ways, and he soon became increasingly convinced that poison would be the chosen method of the dastardly (albeit hitherto invisible!) villains.
Accordingly, he began to inure his protégé to poison by dint of introducing small amounts of it in his food. Thus, when the actual assault happened (and Kautilya was sure it would), Chandragupta would be none the worse for it. Kautilya did not, of course, think it necessary to inform the king of his plan and the latter, blissfully unaware of these charming exertions on his behalf, continued to consume his daily poisoned meals. One day, he invited his pregnant wife, Durdhara, to share his food and the inevitable happened: the queen barely took a bite before falling, insensible, to the floor, her face turning blue. The attendants hurried to inform Kautilya and he burst in on the scene to find the king alternately wringing his hands and exclaiming aloud at why the meal had not affected him at all.
Kautilya was used to thinking on his feet. Snatching up a sword, he raced to the dying queen’s side and—grotesque as this sounds—sliced off her head and cut open her womb, taking her unborn baby out into the world. As he did so, some drops of blood splattered the baby’s forehead, thus conveniently solving the problem of a name for him—Bindusara (bindu/spot). At this point, there are several colourful textual versions that vie with each other in being increasingly bizarre. One claims that as the baby was taken out prematurely, Kautilya sealed him in an ewe’s womb (or a succession of ewes’ wombs) for some months till the whole tiresome process of cutting it open and taking him out was repeated. Once again, drops of blood splashed his forehead, hence his name. Others claim that the poison left a blue spot on his forehead, hence his name. Whichever way you look at it, though, Bindusara’s seems to have been a very traumatic birth.
Nothing is known of Bindusara’s childhood and youth but if we assume that Kautilya’s strictures were adhered to, then being a prince in the Mauryan world could not have been an easy task. After all, as the venerable mentor warns, any royal family ‘with undisciplined princes, will collapse under attack like a worm-eaten piece of wood’1 and then he proceeds to expand on this theme. Accordingly, the strictest monitoring and regimen is recommended: a prince who is being groomed as the heir should not only learn words and numbers from the word go but also, at a later point, philosophy and the three Vedas ‘from authoritative teachers’, economics from the heads of governmental departments and the science of government from theorists as well as practising politicians,2 along with observing some mandatory rituals—all this while, simultaneously, consorting with learned elders for maximum exposure to the merits of discipline. Thus, the prince was to be exposed to the rationale behind subjects and their actual working—a thorough indoctrination into the art of governance and administration, as it were!
And here is Kautilya’s prescriptive daily regimen for the prince: the first part of the day was for training in the martial arts, specifically with elephants, horses, chariots and weapons; the latter part was for listening to histories and precedents; the remainder of the day and the night was for preparing new lessons for the next day, revising old lessons and listening ‘repeatedly to things which he had not understood clearly’.3 Not a single minute’s let-up, then, in the young heir’s schedule. Thus, with his body trained for battle and his brain crammed with learning, he could ascend the throne, in due course, as a worthy successor to his father. This is, presumably, the schedule that young Bindusara followed and the one that he would have imposed, in turn, on his chosen heir (although, as we will see, the lessons were focused on the entirely wrong person, in the latter case.)
Curiously, however, the sources are not unanimous on who succeeded Chandragupta to the Mauryan throne. Jaina texts note that he abdicated the throne in favour of his son, Simhasena. Another text refers to Chandragupta’s successor as Amitraghata, or destroyer of foes, a generic title in itself but one that seems to be seconded by Greek sources, which use a similar name—Amitrochates. This is now seen as the Greek name for Bindusara. He himself makes an appearance in the records of the Mauryan empire in 297 BCE on his father’s abdication of the throne.
Inheriting the massive realm must have been a bitter-sweet moment for Bindusara given that it was, quite conceivably, a logistical nightmare to govern, coupled with the fact that Chandragupta was at the other end of the country in Karnataka, where he eventually committed suicide. (Here, as noted earlier, it is tempting to speculate that Chandragupta’s sudden fascination with Jainism that led him to renounce his throne and move to the opposite end of his realm might have, in part, been dictated by his being fed-up with Kautilya’s endless machinations and manipulations—and, perhaps, a desire to not have his innards poisoned every single day, among other things!)
And to further complicate the historian’s task, this is precisely the point where all the direct information dries up, leaving only incidental references to piece Bindusara’s story together. There is evidence that Kautilya remained on the scene but this is not difficult to presume! After going to all those lengths to get Bindusara into the light, he would hardly have abandoned this untrained son of a beloved protégé to govern as he pleased. The Tibetan lama, Taranatha, in his History of Buddhism in India (CE 1608), talks of Kautilya as one of Bindusara’s great lords who is supposed to have destroyed the nobles and kings of sixteen towns, and to have made his ruler the master of the entire territory between the eastern and western seas, which is seen as a reference to the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Alternatively, some historians believe that this is an allusion to Bindusara’s conquest of the Deccan, while others see it as indicating the suppression of a revolt.
In any case, Bindusara is credited for extending Mauryan control to Mysore. Tamil poets provide a very evocative description of the Mauryan chariots thundering across the land, their white pennants brilliant against the sunshine. So this, along with the fact of Ashoka inheriting a colossal empire, implies that Bindusara not only consolidated Chandragupta’s acquisitions but also added to them in a significant way. At the time of Bindusara’s death, almost the entire Indian peninsula—northern, central and eastern India, along with parts of Afghanistan and all the way up to Karnataka in the south—was under the Mauryan sway, apart from a few areas, such as Kalinga on the east coast, the Tamil kingdoms and Kerala. This was no small feat for an otherwise obscure ruler who has had no hold on the popular imagination!
Bindusara seems to have extended himself in ways other than territorial as well. Greek sources talk of his diplomatic relations with some kings of the west. Antiochus, the king of Syria (and Seleucus’s son), is supposed to have sent an ambassador called Deimachus to the Mauryan court. Bindusara—in what would be construed as a distinctly undiplomatic move today—apparently requested Antiochus to buy and send him some sweet wine, dried figs and a sophist. This last petition must have confounded poor Antiochus but he seems to have recovered himself enough to send an exceedingly courteous response. He would send the wine and figs but not the sophist as Greek laws did not permit a philosopher to be bought. Presumably Bindusara wisely held his silence, thereafter. Incidentally, this desire of his has earned him a fair amount of reprobation. R.K. Mookerji, for instance, presumes, on the basis of this fig-and-wine request, that Bindusara was totally unworthy of the vast empire that his father had bequeathed him, heaps scorn on his ‘easy-going disposition’ and concludes, scathingly, that he ‘can hardly be credited with any additions to the empire by his own conquests’.4 The jury on this, though, could swing either way.
And here is something we must not forget: there would have been a palpable Graeco-Persian influence in the Mauryan court at this time, courtesy one of Chandragupta’s wives (or Bindusara’s, depending on who the original groom was), the princess of Seleucus Nikator’s family. Given that Antiochus I, Seleucus’s son, became the ruler of the Seleucid empire in 281 BCE, she would have been a formidable presence, at least until his death in 261 BCE. Bindusara is also supposed to have entertained Dionysius, the ambassador of Ptolemy II Philadelphos, the ruler of Egypt, but there is no evidence that he sent him a wish list of any kind.
Apart from this infuriatingly meagre evidence, there is a fragmentary inscription at Sanchi in central India, which has been seen as a possible reference to Bindusara, thereby suggesting a connection between him and this Buddhist establishment. However, before you jump to conclusions of the religious kind, there is also a story of a fortune-teller belonging to the Ajivikas, an ascetic sect of renunciation that was founded in around the sixth century BCE by one Makkhali Ghoshala,5 who foretold Bindusara’s son, Ashoka’s greatness, perhaps indicating that the king favoured the Ajivikas—but we will come to this story by and by.
And now that we have come to Ashoka, we may proceed to examine the distinctly prickly relationship between father and son. There are several interesting, even curious, stories, in this regard, that dance in and out of the borders of historical fact but are worth recounting, nonetheless. The Buddhist Ashokavadana notes that Ashoka’s mother was a queen named Subhadrangi who was the daughter of a brahmana of Champa, a well-fortified city near the Ganga, at the time, whose ruins are visible today on the outskirts of modern Bhagalpur in Bihar.6 The story is a riveting one. It begins with a prediction made by some brahmanas to the beautiful Subhadrangi’s father that she would eventually marry a king and bear two ‘jewel-like sons’.
Incidentally, most stories in the ancient context commence with itinerant brahmanas uttering random prophecies and generally stirring up a lot of excitement, as a result. And, of course, beauty is a mandatory requirement for all young women who are the subject of such predictions. No story ever begins with a plain-looking girl who rises to dizzying heights! Anyway back to our story and the prophecy that concerns us: one of these worthy sons, so it went, would become a chakravartin (or universal ruler) with a mighty sway while the other would wander forth and fulfil his religious vows.
Subhadrangi’s terribly excited father arrived in Pataliputra, daughter in tow, all set to make the prediction a reality. One can imagine poor Bindusara’s bemusement, though, and his irritation at being confronted thus. Subhadrangi might have had a lovely face but he already had a harem, as well as a son, Susima, to succeed him. So there was no reason to expect that he would bound cheerfully off the throne and clasp her to his bosom. And now the story takes a very strange turn, indeed: Subhadrangi’s beauty seems to have caught the eye of the other women of Bindusara’s harem who, threatened by it, contrived to keep her away from Bindusara, while (and this is decidedly weird!) training her to become a barber! (This begs all sorts of questions. Whence this sudden wherewithal for the task? Were they all closet hairstylists, for instance?) And so, Bindusara went about his kingly duties, completely unaware that the newest recruit to his harem was honing her skills with hair to the point where she became a most excellent barber in time. He was given concrete proof, though, when she ended up in his chambers to groom his hair and beard—an appointment clearly arranged with much dexterity.7
Subhadrangi’s instructors were impeccable: she was able to do her job so competently that Bindusara dropped off to sleep (much-needed, considering that he might have been following Kautilya’s insane royal sleep regimen but the latter would have been horrified at this dropping of his guard!) and when he later woke, much-restored in body and spirit, magnanimously granted her a wish. Time for Subhadrangi to recite the grand prophecy and for Bindusara to retreat in horror at her proposition: how could a Kshatriya, such as he, make love to a low-caste barber woman? Time, then, for Subhadrangi to prop up the prophecy with practical details: she was a brahmana’s daughter, the one who had tramped all the way from Champa to bestow her on the king. As history has repeatedly proven, rulers are nothing if not whimsical. Bindusara promptly made Subhadrangi his chief wife and all was well except, of course, for the previous incumbent of the post and the others waiting in line who must have boiled in anger at their protégé turning rogue.
Much happiness and frolicking ensued with this royal union, culminating in Subhadrangi bearing Bindusara a son. Apparently, as soon as she set eyes on her baby, she is supposed to have exclaimed, ‘I am now without sorrow!’ And this is how Ashoka got his name, which literally means ‘without sorrow’. Had Subhadrangi known how much sorrow her beloved baby would later unleash upon the world (at least for a length of time), she might have considered a totally different name but, as we all know, hindsight is perfect vision and does not help much in the present. She seems to have liked the name enough to confer a variation of it on her second son, Vitashoka (the ceasing of sorrow), also known as Tissa.
If we may fast-forward a little, it seems Vitashoka later abused his position as vice-regent under Ashoka until Ashoka persuaded (or forced?) him to become a Buddhist hermit, whereupon he became embroiled in a sectarian dispute—a tale bristling with treachery and mistaken identities—and was killed.8 Incidentally, Subhadrangi is known by different names in different versions of her story. In one, that of the Divyavadana, she is Janapadakalyani—a real mouthful—and in another, she is Dharma.9 The pivotal point, though, is that the original prediction worked but the one thing Subhadrangi could not have known, at the time, is that Bindusara would come to dislike his son heartily, creating all sorts of problems thereby.
Apart from having a cool head on her shoulders, as the story demonstrates, Subhadrangi also had a shrewd and pragmatic understanding of her royal husband’s personality, as well as of political imperatives. This comes to the fore in another significant tale where she plays a leading role, along with an Ajivika mendicant called Pingalavatsajiva, who had been asked by Bindusara to examine his sons.10 This was no random request—Pingalavatsajiva had the gift of scrutiny and was best suited to identifying Bindusara’s successor. However, it seems that Ashoka, unwilling to be scrutinised and keenly aware of his father’s dislike of him, kicked up a fuss. The Ashokavadana attributes Bindusara’s hostility to Ashoka’s rough skin and generally unattractive looks, at the time. In fact, in a recent fictional reimagining of Ashoka’s life, he earns the sobriquet of ‘crocodile’ from his clearly sensitive step-brothers, owing to his pockmarked skin.11 Subhadrangi, though, cajoled her beloved son into humouring his father and the net result was that as soon as Pingalavatsajiva’s eye fell on Ashoka, he knew that he must succeed Bindusara to the throne.
At this juncture, the mendicant was caught on the horns of a dilemma. The troubled relationship between father and son was not exactly a secret, and inviting the royal wrath upon his head was pointless, even dangerous. Therefore, opting for discretion over plain-speak, Pingalavatsajiva revealed the truth in highly-obscure words, which, it must be confessed, must have greatly irritated Bindusara. The one ‘who had the best mount, seat, drink, vessel and food’, would become the next emperor, he said. This seemingly baffling pronouncement thrilled Ashoka to the core. Modesty was never one of his afflictions and so he was able to tell his mother the good news with total conviction: it was he who would succeed his father because he fulfilled all the requirements—the back of an elephant was his mount, the earth was his seat, his vessel was of clay, his food was boiled rice with curds and water was his drink.
Meanwhile, Pingalavatsajiva, who wanted to make doubly sure that he had been understood, contrived to meet Subhadrangi and told her the unvarnished truth. She promptly advised him to leave the kingdom for his own protection—if Bindusara made him spell out his prediction in clear terms, his head might very well part company with his body! Pingalavatsajiva did not tarry long; he rushed away from Magadha and only returned, it seems, when Bindusara died. The wise Subhadrangi, on the other hand, decided to remain tight-lipped about the whole affair and allow her husband to assume that the Ajivika mendicant had been babbling. It made no sense to dangle Ashoka’s future greatness over Bindusara’s head given their frosty relations or before her harem compatriots. Susima and his mother were alive and well, after all, and the last thing Subhadrangi wanted was to make active enemies in her own home. This time around, retribution might well go beyond hair-dressing lessons!
Stealth, secrecy, danger and coded words make for a satisfying tale, indeed. However, there are several other legends foretelling Ashoka’s regnal glory in the textual tradition and differing versions of the same story in some cases. One notes that when he was in his mother’s womb, the latter displayed a yearning for all sorts of odd things, which greatly puzzled Bindusara. Accordingly, he turned to the brahmanas of his court for help but they were equally bemused. Bindusara was at his wit’s end when Janasana, an Ajivika known to the queen’s family, stepped forward to unravel the signs and proclaim the unborn child in her womb as the future ruler of Jambudvipa (in this case, the emperor’s realm but a reference to the country at large).
Incidentally, prophecies concerning Ashoka seemed to keep sporting an Ajivika motif. And as it happens, Ashoka, while on the throne, actively patronised the Ajivika sect, donating caves to them at Barabar near Gaya, remarkable for their polished interiors and glittering walls, and thereby bearing testimony to a lot of money having been invested in their creation.12 And so, Pingalavatsajiva did not flirt with death in vain! The answer to why Ashoka and the Ajivikas are so entwined in legend depends on which end of the kaleidoscope you are peering into. This religion, in fact, completely vanished in time with no contemporary practitioners—a fate that none of its peer religions, such as Jainism and Buddhism, faced.
It seems that royal patronage to the Ajivikas extended all the way back to Ajatashatru, and the charismatic Makkhali Ghoshala, its founder, also managed to maintain cordial relations with the Buddhists and Jainas (the latter eventually souring when conversions to the Jaina faith started from within the Ajivika ranks!). Nayanjot Lahiri notes that although Ashoka’s patronage of the Ajivikas was well-known, his motives thereof were unknown.13 Therefore, it made sense to tie up these central figures in a significant way, hence the Ajivika stamp on prophecies concerning Ashoka, all of which were made several centuries after Ashoka and contained in the Ashokavadana, as noted earlier.
This, as Lahiri notes, is a fairly common narrative device when it comes to important figures in the Buddhist tradition—one, we may add, that was also borrowed by other textual traditions. Nothing really comes as a surprise, therefore: every central figure is well-accounted for—via heavenly portents and planetary configurations and mysterious signs conveyed by birds and animals—a long time before he (and it is always a ‘he’; women figures aren’t ever central nor is there any excitement surrounding them!) appears on the scene.
There are other tantalising suggestions in the textual sources that hint at Bindusara’s deep dislike for Ashoka. If true, this would have created endless complications for the future of the Mauryan dynasty and, particularly, for Ashoka at the time. There are differing versions of this hostility, though. Most sources agree that when Ashoka came of age, he was appointed the governor of Ujjaiyini. He might have held a similar post in the highly recalcitrant province of Taxila earlier or been sent there to suppress a revolt.14 In any case, we know that he was given some sort of valuable administrative training during Bindusara’s reign, which clearly served to strengthen his claim to the throne, at a subsequent stage.
Incidentally, Ashoka wasn’t particularly unique, in this regard. If we fast-forward a bit through history, princes who had cut their teeth in rough areas usually managed to get the throne. The Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, springs to mind. His father, Shahjahan, is rumoured to have disliked him in similar fashion and sent him to govern the unruly Deccan, whereupon the whole plan boomeranged on him and the newly-toughened Aurangzeb shoved him off the throne and imprisoned him.
Taxila seems to have had a critical part to play in the relationship between father and son.15 The name itself was a Greek abbreviation of the original Takshashila, which, according to them, was the foremost city of Punjab. It is, in fact, a conglomeration of many sites pertaining to cities, with the ruins of Buddhist stupas and monasteries scattered around it. The people and the settlement of what is known today as the Bhir mound are the ones connected with Ashoka—and here it is the Ashokavadana that recounts its juicy details. It seems that Taxila, always a turbulent area, had risen in rebellion against Bindusara and he decided to send Ashoka there to quell it. He gave him a pretty decent army for this purpose, consisting of a cavalry, elephants, chariots and infantry but—here’s the catch—without any weapons.
The mysterious logic of providing a toothless army to his son to subdue a troublesome province was known only to Bindusara. If we are inclined to be charitable, we could presume a paucity of weapons in the Mauryan realm, which is why he could not provision Ashoka’s army, in the first place. However, given that there are no known blips in the Mauryan power, at the time, or any known lessening of its hold on its massive territory, this seems highly unlikely. If we scrape the bottom of the barrel further, we could assume that the Mauryan blacksmiths had suddenly gone on strike or begun to suffer unaccountable fits of indolence. Both these are ludicrous assumptions. Bindusara might even have hoped that the very sight of the imperial army would strike fear in the heart of the Taxila rebels and cause them to give in. Yet, a mighty ruler such as him did not get to where he was by taking stupid risks and being delusional in military matters.
So the only plausible reason was that Bindusara wanted Ashoka to make a fool of himself in Taxila and, subsequently, crawl back to the capital with his tail between his legs. This would, then, effectively remove him as a serious contender to the throne. Crushed by his failure, his image irrevocably tarnished, Ashoka would retire to a life in the shadows and brood over what might have been. And Bindusara would get to choose his own successor, after all, without having to consider his odd son or the growing rumblings in his favour. In the light of what actually transpired, though, this was an eminently laughable proposition. The Ashokavadana throws a generous sparkling of magic—and divinity—over it all. It seems that when the obedient—and completely oblivious—Ashoka was about to leave Pataliputra for Taxila, he was apprised of the situation by his apprehensive attendants. (One wonders why he did not think of inspecting his army beforehand, though!)
Ashoka, none deterred, apparently declared that if his merit was enough to make him king, weapons of war would appear before him. And lo and behold! As soon as the words issued from his mouth, the earth cracked open and sundry deities themselves brought forth the much-needed arms. Barely breaking his stride, therefore, Ashoka went off on his task. What happened, thereafter, is even more mysterious. It seems that when he arrived in Taxila with his fearsome army, which was bristling with (divine) weapons, not a single sword needed to be unsheathed because the people rushed out to welcome him, claiming that they had absolutely no problem with him or Bindusara but had been oppressed by ‘evil ministers’.16
Now let us make it quite clear, at this juncture, that there is no corroborative record of Ashoka’s campaign in Taxila nor does he breathe a word about it in his edicts, although the latter is in consonance with his complete reticence about his life prior to becoming king. (Why would he want to boast about the unsavoury steps he took to wrest power and his generally maniacal episodes of violence, when he is trying hard to convey an image of compassion and benevolence?) So we only have the Ashokavadana’s word on his armed-but-peaceful presence in Taxila, which, as Lahiri points out, rather conveniently ties in with his later textual representations as an ‘iron-wheeled monarch’ (ayash-chakravartin) who is supposed to have ruled Jambudvipa (India) with the threat rather than the actual use of the sword.17
However, the city of Taxila definitely bears many traces of an association with Ashoka, so perhaps there is no need to be sceptical, in this regard. Lahiri, for instance, notes that its most impressive Buddhist monument was a stupa whose name, Dharmarajika, refers to Ashoka (it denotes a religious structure built by the Dharmaraja of the Buddhists, the emperor Ashoka). She also notes that the title by which Ashoka was known in his edicts, Priyadarshi, was used in an Aramaic inscription found at Taxila on a white marble pillar. That the word refers implicitly to Ashoka is clear from the message of non-violence towards creatures and obedience to the aged that is enjoined upon its readers.18 This is a fortuitous reconstruction because this entire Mauryan episode has left no material trace and remains largely unconnected with the finds of the archaeological excavations at Taxila, painstakingly conducted by John Marshall of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) from 1913.19
So, quite clearly, Bindusara’s grand plan fell on its head. That the prince was able to restore peace in Taxila without using a single weapon simply added another halo to his head and was recounted as yet another miracle in a life rife with them. There is no evidence of Bindusara’s reaction, in this regard, but if our conjecture is true, he must have gnashed his teeth in private and wracked his brain for more ways to abase his son. To find more clues regarding this problematic relationship, we need to turn to the Ashokavadana again, which, obligingly, throws up more pointers. That Bindusara disliked Ashoka because of his ugly appearance is one of its claims, as noted above. Of course this creates the immediate impression that Bindusara was actually a very handsome man and felt affronted, in some way, that his son did not take after him in the looks department.
It could, equally, be the opposite case: perhaps Bindusara was nothing much to look at and was, therefore, disappointed that his son was clearly going to perpetuate this legacy. Or could there have been some sinister palace intrigue in the making that prevented Ashoka from getting what he wanted? Whatever the reason, it seems that Bindusara wanted another of his sons, Susima, to succeed him but Ashoka was strongly supported by the Mauryan ministers. A minister named Radhagupta, who appears to have been Kautilya’s protégé and/or relative, seems to have played a particularly pivotal role in resolving this impasse.
The Ashokavadana claims that Susima had slapped the bald head of Radhagupta’s father in jest but this raised alarm bells in court over his obvious arrogance, making the ministers wonder what he would be like once he became king, hence the pro-Ashoka coalition. Meanwhile, Susima was sent to quell Taxila that had risen in revolt (again!) but a dying Bindusara recalled him, ordering Ashoka to take over the task. However, Radhagupta and the other ministers smeared Ashoka’s body with red turmeric to make him appear too sick to travel but a little later, the latter appeared in complete royal regalia before Bindusara, demanding to be made temporary ruler. This apparently infuriated Bindusara so much that he vomited blood and died. We do not know if his deathbed scene was this dramatic but, all the same, Bindusara’s death in 273 BCE precipitated a four-year succession conflict, involving copious quantities of blood and gore before the situation was resolved.
Kautilya rears his head again further on in Bindusara’s reign. That he was retained by the latter for his services has already been noted but there is an eventual twist to their relationship that develops, engendered, in part, by mischief-makers at court and in part by Bindusara’s alleged arrogance. The story goes that the young and fairly lost Bindusara, who suddenly found himself king upon his father’s abdication of the throne, begged Kautilya to stay on in court and guide him, which the venerable mentor agreed to do. However, after a point—and seeing Bindusara come into his own, he apparently retired by degrees from the hub of affairs.
The news of Chandragupta’s death in far-off Karnataka was a bit of a body-blow to both—more so, one imagines, to Kautilya. After all, a significant part of his life had been devoted to Chandragupta’s concerns and it is reasonable to presume that both were extremely close, even if the latter might have chafed at Kautilya’s restrictions at times. Even if one imagines Kautilya writing away to assuage his grief (presuming he wrote the Arthashastra and at this very time!), he must have felt miserable and hollow, and, if the stories are to be believed, unwilling to continue with his duties as the prime minister.
At this juncture, there was no doubt in Kautilya’s mind that Radhagupta would be the best fit—and he resolved to tell Bindusara so. Before he could act, though, Subandhu, another prime ministerial candidate and a stereotypical villain lurking around in the Mauryan court, struck—or, rather, blabbed. And the story he spilt into Bindusara’s outraged ears was the one involving his birth and, therefore, the gory details of his mother’s belly being cut open by Kautilya, leading to her death. Bindusara apparently flew into a right royal rage and demanded Kautilya’s presence forthwith to explain himself.
The story goes that Kautilya, upon hearing this, was nonchalant. Once the dust settled down, Bindusara would believe him, after all, over any random gossipmonger. However, he was very disappointed in the king’s credulity, of his being so impressionable that he instantly believed any rumours he heard. One imagines that Kautilya saw the empire he had so carefully constructed falling about his ears and ruing that he had not taught his second protégé better. He might, equally, have kicked himself for not divulging the dramatic circumstances of Bindusara’s birth to him earlier. One suspects it was due to the fact that Kautilya appeared as the villain whichever way you saw it—for feeding Chandragupta bits of poison and making him inherently dangerous and/or slicing his wife’s stomach open. One could, of course, argue that he was protecting both father and son but it was a deeply flawed argument, nonetheless.
Fortunately, there was a way out of all the stress and angst: Kautilya had been planning to renounce the world for a while now (Chandragupta’s decision, in this regard, might very well have spurred his) and he felt this was the right time to take the step. He decided to ignore the royal summons and asked Radhagupta for his help—his possessions were to be donated and a cow-dung heap, which was to be his pyre, prepared for him to sit on and end his life. And so, while Bindusara was contemplating all sorts of horrible punishments for his mentor, the latter was calmly preparing to renounce the world. However, news, particularly of the bad kind, always travels fast and the city was soon agog, everyone waiting to see which way things would pan out. Predictably, the king was the only one left in the dark!
At this point, several things happened at once in the manner of all good stories. A messenger arrived from Kautilya to Bindusara, conveying his regrets at not being able to come before him. There were more pressing things to focus on, such as his own death. Before the dumbfounded king could react, an old woman rushed into the court, demanding to be heard and identifying herself as his old nurse who had cared for him since his birth. A bewildered Bindusara was now subjected to the same long story but with the facts turned the other way around in that his very birth and existence were attributable to Kautilya’s quick thinking and courage. The blue dot on Bindusara’s forehead was cited as clinching evidence. (She is also supposed to have sung Bindusara a lullaby that he recognised as additional clinching evidence!) By the end of her plea, Bindusara had rapidly revised his views and rushed out, chockfull of remorse, to apologise to Kautilya.
As it happened, though, he was too late despite his rushing wildly through the capital’s streets to get to Kautilya’s abode. The mentor of all mentors was already half-submerged by flames and although Bindusara apparently roared and wept and did his best to extricate him from the pyre, nothing worked. Some versions of the tale claim that he killed the treacherous Subandhu in his rage while others propose a gentler ending to the latter’s story. And that, as they say, was that. Kautilya was presumably reunited with his beloved Chandragupta in a better place while a suitably chastened Bindusara appointed Radhagupta as his new prime minister, in deference to his mentor’s wish, and went on with life and ruling. The Tibetan Taranatha adds a twist to Kautilya’s end, though. Steering clear of any conspiracy angle, he attributes Kautilya’s death to a disease that came on owing to the demoniac powers he possessed, and which he used to kill the kings and ministers of sixteen major kingdoms. We will not go down that path!
Would Ashoka have met his grandfather, Chandragupta? The answer is, yet again, an unclear one. According to one version, Ashoka evoked the latter’s affection and admiration by his obvious intelligence and fighting acumen. Chandragupta’s changing priorities, however, had him throwing his sword away and becoming a Jaina but Ashoka found and held on to this important weapon despite his grandfather’s disapproval. It is more likely, though, that Ashoka was extremely young, probably little more than a toddler, when Chandragupta was around, so the sword incident could not really have happened. Or, perhaps, their paths did not cross at all!
Incidentally, Ashoka is credited by the Pali chronicles, Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa, with killing ninety-nine of his brothers and sparing just one, Tissa. That Bindusara had a hundred and one sons is stretching the limits of our credulity somewhat but that Ashoka indulged in some sort of bloodbath to get the Mauryan throne seems fairly plausible. In the Ashokavadana’s version of events, he apparently managed to become king after getting rid of the legitimate heir, Susima, by tricking him into entering a pit filled with live coals.20 A highly unpalatable route to power but one that many contenders to the throne in ancient and medieval India adopted, employing different permutations and combinations of violence to grasp the reins.
And so, ‘Ashoka the Fierce’ takes his place on the Mauryan stage.
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