Chapter 3 Time’s tricky moves
3.3 Remembering Suratrāṇa: dissonant intertextual echoes
Right after the first suprabhātam, we learn that king Jaitrasiṃha is thrilled with joy when seeing the noble conduct of his son Hammīra, performing the morning rituals, including the “game of donations” (dāna-keli, 8.35). In verse 8.37 we learn that Jaitrasiṃha, “the knower of secret teachings” (rahasya-vedī), took him to a secluded place and informed Hammīra about his desire to hand over his symbolic wife Fortune. This setting already gives the impression that the eldest son Suratrāṇa - the legitimate heir to the throne - is excluded from Jaitrasiṃha’s vision. He tells prince Hammīra the following:
26 This theme will recur as an allusion to the famous Pañcatantra story of the enmity between the crows and the owls, evoked by Hammīra himself who seems to misinterpret the gist of the story (see my discussion of verse 9.180 in chapter four, section 4.3) This is a story about the (perpetual) shift of fortunes (and the workings of Time): a bloody massacre inflicted by the physically powerful (but day-blind) owls on the weaker but more intelligent crows turns into a revengeful destruction of the owls’ camp. The story can be read as a ‘sequel’ to the ominous prelude of the Sauptikaparvan in the Mahābhārata, where the night massacre inflicted by Aśvatthāman was inspired by the night attack of the owls on a tree with sleeping crows.
27I return to this point in the next chapter, in section 4.6 “Waking the sleepless”, where I discuss a crucial episode in the penultimate canto where a bard intervenes – again – with two verses about the break of Dawn (13.145-6) in order to awaken Hammīra from his fatal condition of sleeplessness.
When – in order to hold grip of Lady Fortune of complete sovereignty – there was a son who is endowed with clever intelligence,
and who is the best among the wise, then our praiseworthy ancestors were never subdued by misfortune.28
This is the start of a set of arguments to convince Hammīra to take over the burden of kingship. In Jaitrasiṃha’s (confused?) vision Hammīra makes the perfect successor, the ideal son on whom to confer his symbolic wife. He starts his argument with a lesson from the past. In secret he tells Hammīra that when there’s an intelligent son, endowed with pratibhā, “illumination, insight”, there is no danger in transferring the kingdom’s royal fortune (sāmrājya-lakṣmī). This argument makes sense in light of the example of his own father, the minister-turned-king Vāgbhaṭa, “the warrior of insight” (pratibhā-bhaṭaḥ, 4.94) who prevented the Chauhan’s Royal Fortune from falling (- as discussed in the previous chapter). But the reader has the superior knowledge that Jaitrasiṃha might be making a mistake, that with Hammīra’s kingship their praiseworthy dynasty will be subdued by misfortune, vi-ṣama, literally by that which is “un-even, odd, split, irregular, incompatible, adverse”. Like Jaitrasiṃha we know that Royal Fortune can only be maintained by wise and prudent kings, skilled in good policy (nīti, naya) like Vāgbhaṭa, and the excluded elder son Suratrāṇa. But unlike Jaitrasiṃha, we know that Hammīra is not such a ruler.
Quite interestingly, Hammīra himself points out the problem to his father. First, he implies that he doesn’t want the compound narakāntam – “beloved by men” (nara-kāntam) or split differently “whose end is hell” (naraka-antam) – to apply in its twofold meaning to the kingdom (rājyam, 8.51). With his kingship the beloved kingdom may turn into hell.
Hammīra then hints at the fact that he might be lacking the quintessential royal quality of right judgment (viveka). Let me quote Hammīra’s protesting voice:
Oh King! When at your lotus feet I long to become the goose for the kingdom, who discriminates between good and bad this kingship, which brings about clear stains, never leads to happiness!29
28 sāmrājya-lakṣmī-kara-pīḍanāya jāta-pravīṇa-pratibhe tanūje |
vidāṃ vareṇye kvacanâpi nâsmad vaṃśyāḥ praśasyā viṣamâbhivaśyāḥ ||8.38||
29 tvat-pāda-padme sad-asad-viveka-kṛd rājya-haṃsatvam abhīpsato me | harṣāya suvyakta-kalaṅka-kāri rājan na rājatvam idaṃ kadācit ||8.52 ||
126
Hammīra is in fact hinting at something his father told him himself, in verse 8.45, namely that young people become tremulous or shaking (uttaralī-bhavantaḥ), and do not even remember what good or bad acts are (kṛtyāny akṛtyāny api na smaranti) – clearly echoing what happened to Vīranarāyaṇa. The reason for such oblivion might be that young people carry the burden of youth’s madness (yauvanônmāda-bhare, 8.46). Hammīra seems to be knowing that he will lack the skill of the goose to distinguish (viveka) sat from a-sat, good from evil, truth from falseness, or reality from illusion. Hammīra then reminds his father that he is not the legitimate heir to the throne:
As they say (kila), when there is an elder son
Royal Fortune (Lakṣmī) should never be given to another.
How is it possible that the king, who also knows this condition of the path of right policy (naya), wants to give her to me?30
Hammīra explains to Jaitrasiṃha that he is thus violating the rules of right policy (naya).
Perhaps the verse also reminds us of the earlier description of Hammīra’s elder brother Suratrāṇa as the spring to the blooming vine of naya.31 He would therefore naturally be the right choice for Lakṣmī. How can his father not know this, and “give her to me” - who doesn’t excel in this field? Why is his elder brother (jyeṣṭha) literally excluded from the conversation; and from the narrative? Apart from a brief but clear reminder of his existence at the end of the previous canto (in 7.120) Suratrāṇa’s name never turns up again. Like Jaitrasiṃha, the reader too is put to the test of remembering how important characters/thematic elements are introduced and disappear, but clearly leave a tragic trace, as here.32 But Jaitrasiṃha shuts down Hammīra’s argument by mentioning his dream-vision.
“After giving the kingdom to Hammīradeva, delight yourself in serving my feet.”
In this way Viṣṇu spoke to me
in a dream at daybreak, lying in the harem.
So son, what can I do?33
30 jyeṣṭhe tanūje sati rājya-lakṣmīr deyā kadācin na kilêtarasmai |
jānann apîtthaṃ naya-vartma-saṃsthāṃ mahyaṃ kathaṃ ditsati tām adhīśaḥ ||8.53||
31 In 4.159.
32 I will further discuss Nayacandra’s ‘play with silence’ as a running theme in the next chapter.
33 hammīradevāya vitīrya rājyaṃ mad-aṅghri-sevā-nirato bhaveti | svapne niśânte śayitaṃ ni-śānte mām āha viṣṇuḥ karavai kim ārya ||8.54||
We learn in the following verse (8.55) that in this way the king forcefully or stubbornly (haṭhena) – a crucial detail – silenced Hammīra.
Then, having stubbornly made him answerless, the king convinced the great-minded Hammīradeva - even though he was unwilling -
to take over Royal Fortune.34
Jaitrasiṃha’s stubborn (haṭhena) refutation of Hammīra’s ‘warning’ will become one of the most defining traits of Hammīra’s tragedy, whose ‘obstinacy’ haṭha, became indeed stuck to him as an epithet.35
But there is more to this whole episode revolving around Hammīra’s problematic and unwilling entrance into kingship. First of all, both the problem of Hammīra’s middle position and the ‘dream-vision’ solution are clearly meant to allude to the genre of patron-centered poetry. And here too, as I explained about HMK’s modelling on this genre in his prologue, it may be parodic in effect. The “as they say” (kila) of Hammīra’s own reply might add to the sense that Nayacandra is indeed playing with tradition. By making Hammīra the illegitimate ‘middle brother’ Nayacandra is purposefully letting his poem resonate with what Yigal Bronner identified as the core thematic problem of two famous, influential historical poems: Bāṇa’s seventh-century Harṣacarita, written in praise of his patron king Harṣa, and Bilhaṇa’s eleventh-century Vikramāṅkadevacarita, likewise composed to eulogize the life story of his royal patron. Bronner suggests that both poets
“may have been hired to put a positive spin” to a political drama involving the ascendancy of the middle brother to the throne.36 To save their patron’s name these poets skillfully craft a story in which the king-patron is presented as unwilling to accept the throne.
Bronner demonstrates how Bilhaṇa deliberately emulates Bāṇa in his solution to the same political problem, with the effect of praising his patron as a second emperor Harṣa. Like Bāṇa’s Harṣa, Bilhaṇa’s patron-hero Vikrama is presented as being “forced to take part in the political game”.37 However, Bronner shows how Bilhaṇa purposefully creates a
34 niruttarīkṛtya tato haṭhenânicchantam apy enam atuccha-cittam | hammīradevaṃ nṛpatitva-lakṣmīm amīmanal lātum ilā-vilāsī ||8.55||
35 I briefly discuss the literary tradition of ‘Stubborn Hammīra’ (Hammīra-haṭha) in section 5.3 in the final chapter. Here we might get the impression that the transfer of sovereignty from father to son seems to accompany the inheritance of fatal character traits. Each member in the Chauhan dynasty indeed seems to reenact the tragic life story of his predecessors. Sometimes it skips over a generation. There were a few exceptions like the goose-like Govindarāja and the tree-like Vāgbhaṭa, who both, after being dismissed by their ruling family members, were given the role of preventing the Chauhan’s Royal Fortune from falling.
36 Bronner 2010: 469.
37 ibid.
128
dissonance between the adopted ideal template, to “unimagine the political”, as his article is aptly called. Bilhaṇa’s patron-centered epic shows a profound ambivalence toward his patron and his own job, as a wandering poet hired by patron-kings to render their life stories into epic poetry.
Nayacandra, like Bilhaṇa, both emulates and steps away from the model set by Bāṇa.
He goes way further than Bilhaṇa’s hallmark poetics of ambivalence. The verse quoted above (8.55) clearly reaches back to Bāṇa’s verse where the unwilling prince Harṣa is said to have been forcefully (balāt) made to ascend the throne.38 Instead of balāt “by force”
Nayacandra has the similar haṭhena, which has the important extra connotation of
“stubbornness”. We could say that Hammīra too is thus praised as a noble character, refusing to accept the throne, telling his father to give it to his elder brother. At this point in the poem this may be very much the case.
But saving Hammīra’s name is clearly not the point of the canto. Let me repeat, Nayacandra’s poem is not a patron-centered epic narrating the rise (abhyudaya) of a patron to success and glory. It is a story of a king’s path to destruction (vināśa), and its causes. Let me start by claiming that his elder brother Suratrāṇa “Sultan” is obviously one of the many fictional characters in the poem, turning up to test how the Chauhan heroes respond to their fate. (Many historians miss their symbolic significance and take Suratrāṇa and characters like Dharmasiṃha, Bhīmasiṃha and Ratipāla for real, historical characters.) I want to suggest that Suratrāṇa is meant to highlight the tragic choice of Hammīra’s father Jaitrasiṃha, rather than to emphasize the nobility of his son Hammīra.
Nayacandra inserts ‘Suratrāṇa’ as an opportunity to play with the well-known tradition of patron-centered court epic. Instead of having been paid to give a positive twist to a real political problem, Nayacandra - for the sake of intertextual play - is inventing a problem.
Similarly, Jaitrasiṃha’s divine dream-vision may just sound as another allusive nod to a well-known poetic ‘solution’ in the poetry surrounding the Jain king Kumārapāla and the Jain minister Vastupāla, whose careers similarly involved problems of ascendancy.39
38 Thus, compare Bāṇa who has “…anicchantam api balād…” (quoted from Bronner 2010: 470 n 37) and Nayacandra who has “…haṭhenânicchantam apy…”.
39 As it appears from A.K. Majumdar careful exploration of the many sources of Caulukya history (1956), it is not unlikely that similar motivations might have prompted the Jain scholar Hemacandra to compose his poem on Kumārapāla. Majumdar points out that Kumārapāla’s rather problematic rise to power must have involved a conflict in ascendancy between Bhīma I’s descendants (p.160-164). In the case of the poetry about Vastupāla’s ministry, it is clearly related to the shift from Chaulukya to Vaghela rule in the middle of the thirteenth century, and the role played by Vastupāla and his brother Tejaḥpāla in serving the generals Lavanaprasāda and Vīradhavala, the defacto rulers during the weak reign of Bhīma I. Majumdar problematizes this seemingly friendly shift from Chaulukya to Vaghela power, precisely by drawing attention to the many different versions of contemporary poets – i.e. from Vastupāla’s literary circle – about the replacement of Bhīma. He refers to the practice of poets “to shroud with vagueness the foul deeds of their
Nayacandra was clearly familiar with this poetry, and how poets tried to refashion contemporary political problems into eulogistic poetry. Nayacandra seems to invert the effects these ‘poetic strategies’ are supposed to have in the genre of patron-centered epic.
Nayacandra may be playfully emulating how poets like Bilhaṇa emulate Bāṇa’s ‘solution’
to a political problem. It’s like a parody of a parody. In Nayacandra’s poem there is no real reason to solve a political problem. Nevertheless, at this stage, it may take away the future blame that is bound to attach to Hammīra’s kingship. It is Jaitrasiṃha’s stubbornness (haṭha) that inaugurates the beginning of the irreversible tragic chain. He is to be blamed for Hammīra’s not so ideal entrance into kingship. After all, Hammīra didn’t choose to become king. Ultimately, the reader may thus trace the inevitable destruction of Ranthambhor to Jaitrasiṃha’s choice to give Royal Fortune to the ‘wrong’ son, instead of to his older son “Suratrāṇa”, the “Sultan”. It adds an extra dimension of complexity to the tragic chain, anticipating the poem’s concern to explore multiple visions on the
‘truth’ behind Hammīra’s tragedy. But the effect here, I believe, is mostly parodic, perhaps slightly humorous.
Indeed, Jaitrasiṃha’s dream-vision - at that confusing middle moment of twilight - just doesn’t sound convincing in Nayacandra’s poem - as it might have been the case already in the poems of Kumārapāla and Vastupāla. It reads as the actualization of the bard’s ominous verse (8.17), about the confusion upon awaking, making people mix up the distinction between East and West (pūrvâparayor), or indeed between the qualities of the first (pūrva) and second-born son (apara). It is hard to forget Hammīra’s own darker vision about the clear stains (suvyakta-kalaṅka) and the kingdom’s potential destination as hell (naraka-anta), looming over Jaitrasiṃha’s choice. Moreover, it seems that Jaitrasiṃha has to repay his tragic decision with a sudden, ‘unexpected’ death, apparently produced by the adverse workings of fate (vidhi). Or is it by the delusions and confusions caused by time (kāla)? This might be the central question that the eighth canto seems concerned with.
patrons” (p. 163) by using literary devices such as the insertion of a divine dream. He gives the example of Someśvara’s Kīrtikaumudī where Lavanaprasāda was told in a dream by Gurjara-rājalakṣmī, the goddess of Royal Fortune, to save the kingdom of Gujarat which was decaying under the weak rule of Bhīma. Someśvara, when asked to explain this dream, convinces Lavanaprasāda to follow the divine message. Accordingly, he takes over the rule of Gujarat and appoints the ministers Vastupāla and Tejaḥpāla as his advisors. In Arisiṃha’s poem it is king Bhīma himself who was told in his dream by Kumārapāla to bestow the kingdom on these generals.
130