Lakṣmī’s playful charms

If the first introductory verse about Hammīra’s unsurpassed good or courageous character (sattva) also subtly introduces the tragic temporal logic of the kaliyuga, then the following verse purposefully re-introduces the related and all-important topic of Śrī. Let’s recall that this beautiful and beautifying Splendor entered the poem in the very first verse as the auspicious, luminous, active and playful potency of the Self (ātman), where she can, ideally, enjoy herself, again and again (raṃramīti). Verse 1.9 too refers to her playful activity (vilāsa), revealing Śrī’s natural connection to kingship (rājya). On the surface this verse introduces the reader to the heroic core of the Hammīra legend, explaining the reason why the Chauhan king was remembered as the only praiseworthy king of the present age. Importantly, however, this heroic core is formulated in the form of a rhetorical question, an ambiguous one about the value of Fortune/Splendor. I want to emphasize that Hammīra’s exemplary status is literally questioned (in 1.9). To further add a sense of doubt, Nayacandra appears to present Hammīra’s luminous “goodness” (sattva) from the eighth verse as a debatable point by conspicuously repeating it in the ninth verse, followed by the significant word kila, “as it is said”. Let me, for the sake of clarity, first isolate these two verses again, before further making my point.

Like the great kings Māndhātṛ, Sītā’s husband and Kaṅka how many have there not been on this earth?

But in the age of Kali, king Hammīra alone

is worthy of praise because of the quality of goodness (sattva). (1.8) ⁸⁶

He lived only by virtue of his goodness, as they say (kila).

So when he did not give away his daughter and those refugees to the Śaka were his life and even the playful charms

of Royal Splendor (rājya-śriyo) of any value to him? (1.9)⁸⁷

Through the use of kila “as they say” Nayacandra seems to be ‘quoting’ the gist of the traditional story. He reminds the audience of the traditional core of the Hammīra legend, namely that the Chauhan king heroically refused to hand over several (Mongol) refugees and his daughter to the Śaka (Sultan Alauddin). It is through this altruistic act that – as it

86 māndhātṛ-sītā-pati-kaṅka-mukhyāḥ kṣitau kṣitîndrāḥ kati nāma nâsan | kalau stavârhaḥ param eṣa sattva-guṇena hammīra-mahī-bhṛd ekaḥ ||1.8||

87 sattvâika-vṛtteḥ kila yasya rājya-śriyo vilāsā api jīvitaṃ ca |

śakāya putrīṃ śaraṇāgatāṃś câprayacchataḥ kiṃ tṛṇam apy abhūvan ||1.9||

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is said (kila) - Hammīra acquired the status of being the epitome of goodness (sattva). This is also how Hammīra is presented in Vidyāpati’s roughly contemporaneous story collection, his Puruṣaparīkṣā (“The Test of Man”) and in the genealogical list appended to Rājaśekhara’s Prabandhakośa (“Treasure of stories”, 1348). The latter text adds to the date of the last ruler Hammīra, who was killed in battle in V.S.1358 (1301 CE), that this king was endowed with sattva (prabhuḥ sattva-vān). ⁸⁸ In Nayacandra’s epic too, in both the prologue and epilogue, Hammīra is similarly presented as an epitome of altruism and heroic self-sacrifice.⁸⁹ I explain at length in the last chapter how Nayacandra’s new poem of Hammīra seeks to invert several - if not all - traditional elements of the plot, as a playful response to more overtly heroic stories of Hammīra at the time. For the argument of this chapter it might suffice to just draw attention to Nayacandra’s use of the small but significant word kila, which, I argue, is intended to already plant a seed of doubt concerning Hammīra’s supposed selfless, sattvic character. (This doubt will come to its full fruition in the actualization of Hammīra’s story from canto nine to thirteen, discussed in chapter four).

The word kila is used to express something like “so we are told”. It is used to specify knowledge derived from tradition, indicating what others have said. In this sense, writers often employ it to represent the wrong views of their opponents, before they set out to make a different point. As M.B. Emeneau explains, the particle kila often tends to mark a tone of sarcasm or irony by attributing traditional status to a false statement.⁹⁰ Because of the conspicuous repetition of the point about Hammīra’s goodness (sattva), it is quite likely that we can take Nayacandra’s verse to means something like this: ‘so this is what the tradition tells (kila), but…’. Of course, Nayacandra doesn’t state a ‘but’ here. This is not the place, yet, to challenge his audience and break the ideal.⁹¹

The point I want to emphasize here is that the word kila “so we are told” fits well with the interrogative sense of the verse and the intertextual make-up of the whole prologue.

This might explain why it is also added, somewhat conspicuously, in the next verse, where Nayacandra explains that he was only ‘allegedly impelled’ (nunnaḥ kila) to compose his

88 Jinavijaya 1935: appendix two, 134.

89 In the epilogue in 14.17.

90 Emeneau (1969: 248) discussing the different use of the syntactic particles kila, khalu and nūnam. If Nayacandra intended to express certainty or avoid ambiguity, he would have used another particle.

Throughout HMK the particle kila is thus used to qualify ‘traditional knowledge’ and occasionally modify it, as is clear in v. 8.41 and 14.4. This questioning technique may not be that uncommon in the beginning of an epic. Eva De Clercq pointed out to me that Vimala Sūri’s Jain version of the Rāmāyaṇa (Paümacariyam) also starts by questioning the Brahmanical version through the use of kila (Prakrit kia).

91 Later in the poem, through the words of Bhoja, Nayacandra will actually insert a crucial ‘but’ (param) to break the ideal of Hammīra’s kingship, and implicitly reveal that he has become mad and blind (in verses 8.28-29, discussed at length in the fourth chapter).

poem because the weight of Hammīra’s virtues had plunged into the root of his ear. The use is odd in this verse because Nayacandra is speaking in the first person.⁹² We would have expected an unambiguous particle like khalu, “indeed, certainly” – or the ‘in fact’

(vastu-tas, as used in the adopted model of Jayasiṃha Sūri’s poem on Kumārapāla, noted earlier) - and not an “as they say”. The choice for this word therefore appears to give a clue to the reader that his prologue is indeed modelled on ‘what tradition says’. (Worthy of note is that the single surviving commentary deliberately irons out the ambiguity, which I believe is latent in this verse.)⁹³ But Nayacandra’s poem will do something different. He is playing with tradition, both in terms of the author’s persistent concern to playfully alter traditional elements of the Hammīra story, as in terms of his profound intertextual engagement with the poets of old.

Let me now finally turn to what I believe is thematically at the core of Nayacandra’s poetic project. I suggest that the apparent subject of the poem – Hammīra’s supposedly selfless heroism - is purposefully cloaked in an ambiguous question about the value of Royal Fortune (rājya-śrī), and what She symbolizes. She may represent many, seemingly contradictory things: the fickle nature of power, the inevitable transience of fortune, or her inherent fragility, the charming brilliance of kingship, the well-fare of the kingdom, etc. And did Hammīra consider Royal Fortune worthless or not? And in either case, is this a good thing, worthy of admiration or not?

In my view, the ambiguity of the question revolves around the equivocal imagery surrounding Royal Fortune as the king’s symbolic wife. Similar to the fickleness and capricious nature of Lady Fortune (fortuna) in European literature, the notion of ‘fortune’

is typically personified as an unfaithful lady who randomly and recklessly moves from one husband to another. Importantly, this may have something to do with the elusive topic of Time (kāla) and the complex notion of fate. In his discussion of Śrī in the Mahābhārata, Alf Hiltebeitel explains how she is said to “move in accord with the rhythm of Time”, going back and forth “irrespective of virtues.”⁹⁴ “On the other hand”, Hiltebeitel observes, “there is one unbroken continuity in Śrī’s behavior: her movements are related

92 I owe this point to Csaba Dezso, who remarked that khalu “certainly, indeed” would make more sense here.

93 I choose to preserve the interrogative sense of kiṃ in my translation. Of course, as a marker of a rhetorical question kim is often used to make a strong affirmative statement. The commentator emphasizes that Nayacandra uses kiṃ in this sense, as a niṣedhârtha, a question evoking a negative response. Hammīra, for sure, considered the pleasures of royal fortune (rājya-śriyo) and his life worthless, that is ‘not even the worth a straw’ (api tu tṛṇam api na babhūvuḥ). But it remains a question, and its meaning remains ambiguous.

Curiously, the commentator glosses the particle kila as expressing satye, truly, whereas a few verses later (1.14) he glosses it as prāpta-pravāde, “obtained from popular saying”. I see no reason why Nayacandra didn’t use the particle kila here in the same sense, with the effect of raising doubt about its truth value.

94 Hiltebeitel 1976: 164.

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to lists of royal virtues.”⁹⁵ He explains how the imagery of Śrī’s fickleness “coincides with a pessimistic vision of Time”.⁹⁶ The pessimistic view on Fortune/Time resembles a fatalistic determinism, dictating that Fortune is fickle because - in reality - she doesn’t care for virtues. Despite the view that she dwells in virtuous people of her choice, we see that virtuous people obtain misery and vice versa: in the face of fickle forces like Time and Fortune human effort (pauruṣa) seems often in vain.

Keeping this in mind, we can return to the question of verse 1.9. From a pejorative perspective on Lakṣmī/Fortune, the idea that Hammīra considered her worthless, might emphasize his wise nature. Hammīra might have understood the fickle nature of power.

Accordingly, as a true selfless hero he considered ‘her’ an unworthy pursuit, not even the worth of a straw.

The point of importance is that this is just one way to look at the significance of Royal Fortune, or kingship’s brilliance. I would argue that HMK repeatedly cancels out the value of the more ‘pessimistic’ view on Fortune’s fickle nature. The author’s more positive view on Śrī was already emphasized in the previous verses. Splendor (śrī) is the female principle needed to energize and awaken the Self. In its connection to kingship (rājya) this female principle is essential too. Verse 1.9 already introduces the importance of Royal Splendor by asking whether the supposedly selfless Hammīra not only considered his life worthless, but even (!) the pleasures of glorious kingship (rājya-śriyo vilāsā api). The word api may be purposefully stressing the central importance of the king’s symbolic wife. In symbolic terms the vilāsās, or “pleasures” of kingship, not only denote the playful activities a king engages in - and should engage in (but not too much, ati)- but refer to the playful and attractive coquetry of his symbolic wife.⁹⁷ Like lovers, a king and Royal Splendor are supposed to attract and desire each other. The well-being of his symbolic wife Fortune, just like that of the people, deserves the king’s full attention.

But even from this more positive perspective on Śrī – she doesn’t just randomly leave her royal husbands -, Hammīra might still emerge from the introductory question in verse nine as the epitome of selflessness. We could translate the phrase rājya-śriyo vilāsā as “the charming pleasures of Royal Fortune”. Hammīra was so selfless that he, in order to save someone else, sacrificed both his life and even the many enjoyments that come with kingship, with being in power. This, for example, is the conclusion of Vidyāpati’s story on Hammīra’s compassionate heroism: he gave up all enjoyments for the sake of another (parārthe)!⁹⁸

95 ibid.

96 ibid. p. 165

97 On the problem of getting over-attached to pleasure, see Daud Ali’s article on “Anxieties of attachment” (2002).

98 I quote and discuss this verse in the beginning of section 5.3 in the final chapter.

I will try to demonstrate that this is clearly not the message of Nayacandra’s poem. I want to suggest that the question of verse nine already hints at the problem of poetic justice in relation to karmic justice and personal responsibility, which I discuss at length in chapter four. If Hammīra was truly good, as it is said (kila), why did his reign end in misfortune: maybe he deserved his tragic fate? Perhaps it is Royal Fortune herself who considered Hammīra worthless? After all, Hammīra might not have given away his refugees or his daughter to the enemy, but he did lose his grip on his symbolic wife Royal Fortune.

In an important sense the main duty of a king indeed consists in maintaining Royal Fortune, that is secure both the welfare of the kingdom and the continuation of the dynastic line. This doesn’t constitute a personal goal, one involving the pursuit of selfish pleasure. It is rather imagined as the difficult but quintessential task of kingship, which is typically presented as a burden (bhāra), attracting ‘sin’ (pāpa), as made explicit in verse 1.26. Ironically, Lakṣmī, the goddess of Fortune, is always fated to become miserable. She is forced to undergo dangerous tests like the transfer from father to son. Importantly, as Nayacandra makes clear throughout his poem, it is not only the dynastic line, but the kingdom and everyone in it, the people, who have to suffer the consequences when a king doesn’t take care of Royal Fortune. For example, we will see, in the pivotal eighth canto, that the court poets urge Hammīra to ‘wake up’ for the good of the people (janatā-hitāya, 8.124). In the same canto Hammīra is told by his father not to forget the importance of Royal Fortune:

Oh King! When you obtain complete sovereignty, do not forget to behave properly towards great men.

Like a great fire, which is not under control,

a man causes the destruction of the entire clan (vināśa-hetuḥ).⁹⁹

A man who considers the affairs of honorable people

and acts with right judgment (viveka), is loved by the people of this world.

Dear son, how is it possible then that Lady Royal Fortune will abandon him, as she also inhabits this world?¹⁰⁰

HMK’s prologue already invites us to think about what it means to consider worthless even the playful charms of the “playful” Royal Fortune.¹⁰¹ It might indeed be the charm of

99 sāmrājyam āsādya mahattameṣu sma vismaro mā vinayaṃ nareśa | pumān bṛhad-bhānur ivâvinītaḥ kulasya sarvasya vināśa-hetuḥ || 8.74||

100 apy ārya-kāryāṇi vicārya kurvan vivekavān eṣa jagaj-janêṣṭaḥ | jagan-nivāsā tad iyaṃ nṛpatva-lakṣmīḥ kathaṃ taṃ vijahāti tāta ||8.75||

101 As she is called in 11.61: krīḍīkṛtāṃ…rājya-lakṣmīm

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a tragic hero like Hammīra that he perceives Royal Fortune as something unworthy, making him pursue ‘glory’ elsewhere, for example, as we will see, by playing the game of fame (kīrti-keli, 10.80), or wanting to marry the Splendor of heaven (diva-śrī, 13.207). The question posed in verse 1.9 leaves such perspectives open. We can see it as a playful invitation to read through the poem and find out whether the sattva “goodness” or

“conduct” of the famous Hammīra truly or really deserves to be praised as exemplary in the present age “as they say” (kila).¹⁰² The ambiguity of the question opens up an alluring uncertainty. Nayacandra could have used less ambiguous imagery or words, if he wanted to, but he didn’t. He invites the reader to consider the multiple sides of a popular, well-known story. And we have to explore these sides through the lens of Time’s degenerative and playful logic, in relation to Śrī’s brilliance (and the equivocal imagery surrounding her fickleness, transience, fragility and playfulness.) We are invited to discover whether a story about Royal Splendor’s inevitable disappearance, at least on the Chauhan side, can remain without dark spots of blame.