1.5 The art of manipulation

Night had fallen.

As Sarpamālin’s shift ended, the boy offered him a piece of fabric taken from his dhoti to rest his head on. Half-asleep and barely attentive, Rājastambha noticed that all the previous guards were also asleep on similar pieces of cloth.

What a kind soul.

The guards of Ajātaśatru’s dungeons had been trained to be completely stoic in their emotion, to not betray the slightest sympathy for their prisoners – and to revile any of their members who did. Yet Rājastambha could not prevent himself from feeling sympathy for the boy’s plight. From what he had gathered, the boy had not harmed anyone, he had merely offered his advice to the emperor, and had politely acquiesced to leave when it was refused. And for that crime, he was to be executed.

“Rājastambha.”

Rājastambha was jolted out of his thoughts.

The boy Cāṇakya had prostrated himself before him, and was begging for his life most emotionally. Begging him to help him escape from prison.

Panicked at the thought of the other guards waking, he softly hissed: “Quiet!”

Cāṇakya seemed to read his thoughts. His voice jittery, he said: “I have put all the other guards to sleep. Please, grant me the boon of life.”

From any typical prisoner, Rājastambha would have remained unmoved – wouldn’t even have considered such a request.

But this was a request from a friend.

A friend who had taught him, and friend whom he knew, a friend who had told him profound truths about his own character from merely a short period of playing games.

(And somehow, already having been convinced to socialize with a prisoner in violation of the rules, and already feeling implicated, without cause, in the crime of intoxicating his colleagues, it became acceptable to consider such a proposal.)

The boy had chosen him, left him alone un-drugged, he had not offered him any material bribes, instead believing in the goodness in his character. To reject such a proposal felt like a betrayal of this trust, an acknowledgement of the corruption of his own soul.

But then he recalled what the consequences would be of such treason, and said so in so many words.

Cāṇakya looked at him square in the eyes and said:

“What did you learn from our game, Rājastambha? The source of the emperor’s information is in alibis – the art of successful deception lies in false alibis. This is not your shift; it is Sulabhin’s, thus there will not be any evidence of your responsibility in freeing me.”

The thought of framing his compatriot and having him executed for a crime of his own filled Rājastambha with disgust and horror, but Cāṇakya quickly added:

“You may have also observed, Rājastambha, how easy it is to tell a man’s innocence from his voice and tells; thus Sulabhin will not be believed to be guilty either; the purpose of framing someone is to secure your own alibi, not truly to incriminate them.”

Before Rājastambha could argue further, Cāṇakya fell back onto his knees, folding his hands and begging for freedom.

“I don’t want to die,” he cried, “Not at the age of eleven. I love my life.”

Despising himself more than he despised anyone else, Rājastambha forced himself to shake his head.

The sole torch in the cell blew out.

“ … ”

Rājastambha gulped audibly.

“ … ”

“ … ”

A sudden burst of light seared his eyeballs.

He slowly opened his eyes.

The boy who had just been whimpering and begging for his life now stood upright, the slightest hint of emotion having vanished from his face. His previously white dhoti had turned golden; his left arm was folded with his palm facing to his right, and the other hand was outstretched in blessing. A silver halo emanated from the back of his head.

A peacock feather decorated his untied hair.

Rājastambha’s mind filled in the sound of conch shells being blown.

I do not mind the fool who knows little, Cāṇakya had said after their games. But a fool who fails to recognize the truth even when it is told to his face in simple terms, even upon seeing it in all its obvious glory, even refuses it – that is the mark of a barbarian.

The day that Mathura had been razed, Rājastambha had asked the priest of the Saṃkarṣaṇa temple the natural question: We are told that brighter days will come, that the Heir of Saṃkarṣaṇa will return. How will we know to recognize him, when he does?

The priest had pridefully twirled his moustache and asked: How does one recognize the Sun when it rises at dawn?

Had Magadha truly changed him – had he truly turned himself into a barbarian?

Was he now no different from the men who had once slaughtered his countrymen?

Had he forgotten to recognize the Sun?

Lord Vāsudeva stood before him in all his glory, and yet Rājastambha had not recognized him.

“Forgive me, lord!” he cried, falling to his knees.

His father had almost immediately caught on to the fact that Pabbata intended to use Cāṇakya in his own war against his brothers when the day came. Pabbata didn’t care; his father was too lazy and unmotivated to bother stopping him, and didn’t quite care who inherited the throne after him. Balding and burping, his repulsive father was hardly a threat to him.

“I assure you, father,” he had said, “That I am loyal to you and to my brothers. I intend to use Cāṇakya not against Magadha, but in her service.”

If Pabbata had judged Cāṇakya’s character correctly, the indignant, idealistic boy would almost certainly, upon being freed, declare himself an enemy of Magadha. Already being remarkably popular in Takṣaśilā for his intellect, his activities would undoubtedly catch the attention of other enemies of Magadha who may consult with him or employ him as a figurehead. By being close to Cāṇakya, Pabbata could spy on these enemies far more efficiently than any of the government spies ever could – as well as influence them through Cāṇakya, thus emerging victorious both ways.

Pabbata congratulated himself. He was really starting to believe his own lies.

Dhanānanda had laughed, asking what use could that Brāhmaṇa boy possibly be to his prince.

“He is very naïve on matters of understanding people,” Pabbata had agreed. “There is no doubt on that. Yet I have spoken to him earlier, and he is of considerable intellect. In fact his naivety is an advantage to us, for it makes him easily exploitable.”

Grinning, Pabbata had told his father his plan.

He would approach Cāṇakya asking for his support against a fratricidal war against his brothers – just what his father thought was what he wanted; Cāṇakya, despite not being in any position to reject his offer, would likely place some kind of condition in exchange for his support, like requiring that Pabbata accept him as his teacher so he could undo his Magadhi upbringing.

At this point Dhanānanda had interjected, pointing out that Pabbata would be a fool to accept that deal.

Pabbata had shaken his head.

“But what he doesn’t realize, and neither do you, father, is that this is no price – it is precisely that education that I desire from him. I have no ambitions for the throne of Magadha, I truly do not, that rightfully belongs to my brother. I wish to learn his knowledge and use it against him, against the enemies of Magadha, in service of my brothers. That is the plain truth, father.”

Of course, that was hardly the complete truth: Pabbata absolutely desired the throne of Magadha for himself. Well, every man desired the throne of Magadha for himself, although over the last several generations, the throne of Magadha had proved itself to be the clan whore.

After having received advice from Pabbata that later proved true, and after being rescued by him twice from the mouth of death, Cāṇakya was sure to trust him completely.

So while Cāṇakya attempted to re-educate Pabbata in his own image, he would, before he knew it, find himself moulded into Pabbata’s loyal minister, guide the prince to his victory and then secure the possession acquired in that victory. And if after several years Cāṇakya proved to be too independent and impervious to such influence, then Pabbata would capture him and all his allies, and march back to Pāṭaliputra a hero, thus securing his victory in that way.

With either outcome, Pabbata’s victory was guaranteed.

With that happy thought, he descended into the dungeons to free Cāṇakya.

That night, Cāṇakya was re-born.

All his idealism, all his irrational faith in men’s desire for the truth, indeed all his adorable childlike naivety left him that night.

Cāṇakya had not manipulated a wicked man.

Cāṇakya had manipulated a kind and conscientious man, whose insecurities he had learned on the pretence of befriending him. He had previously sown various powders into a fragment of his dhoti, and under the excuse of offering cushions to the guards, tore off the fragment and held it over his torch, rendering them unconscious with its smoke. He had previously planted the seed in Rājastambha’s mind of the memory of Vāsudeva, exploiting his insecurities so that even a cheap spectacle with some lighting and a peacock feather was sufficient to guilt him into servitude.

He had given Rājastambha an alibi, not to protect him, but in order to give him false hope. In truth, Dhanānanda would almost certainly execute all five guards when Cāṇakya was found missing in his cell the next morning. Such little value had Cāṇakya assigned to the guard’s life, that he had subsequently employed him as his spy in Pāṭaliputra, dooming him to his eventual death even if he were somehow miraculously spared the next day.

Cāṇakya felt no guilt. Such guilt served no purpose.

It was easy to congratulate himself on his successful escape, but the truth was that it was not his ingenuity that had served him, but pure luck. Had he not happened to meet Pabbata in the courtroom, had Pabbata not intervened on his behalf, had Dhanānanda not heard his son and agreed to delay the execution, had the guards refused point-blank from socializing with him … had any one of those occurrences gone wrong, Cāṇakya would have been dead.

Cāṇakya had been a fool to simply march into the empire of darkness, into its capital city and directly into the dwelling of the very source of that darkness that was its king.

A throne so powerful, yet so unstable as to pass from king to king each decade through executions, was hardly a throne that could be trusted. All of Professor Caṇin’s preparations had been based on his knowledge of the previous king Mahāpadma; he had had no idea of the extent of Dhanānanda’s barbarism.

He had been a fool to not bother learning about a barbarian king from his people before speaking to him.

He had been a fool to not make a detailed escape plan in advance, to not strategize in advance, were the situation to go awry.

He had been a fool to neglect Pabbata’s advice without considering that it may have been based even partially in truth.

He had been a fool to not question Pabbata or anyone else further on what the consequences of such an interaction might be; had he done so, he may have learned of Dhanānanda’s casual homicidal proclivities a bit earlier and have had the time to escape.

He had been a fool to not leave the city upon receiving news of how the king had treated the attendant who had requested his audience.

He had been a fool to not realize what he’d gotten himself into even after the emperor had mentioned his execution of the wrestlers and dancers.

Now as he walked along the Northern Highway that moonless night, disguised as an Ājīvaka monk, Cāṇakya thought, for the first time, about human nature.

(Most prison escapees preferred to wear more clothes, not less, to conceal themselves. Cāṇakya, too, had no desire to roam an unfamiliar country naked in the winter – however, disguising himself as a merchant would have required him to carry merchandise, and a Brāhmaṇa scholar in the Nanda capital would be seen as so odd that to assume that identity would certainly expose him. Pāṭaliputra had no secret tunnels, either; the engineering feat of building tunnels out of a water fort was restricted to the Vedic cities to its West – this raised some security questions about surrounding cities.)

Not in the abstract sense that he had discussed in the Arthaśāstra. It was economics, the science of his own development, that contained the laws that governed the behaviour of men. He had described the manner in which men pursued their goals, and the manner in which they ought to.

But he had never put any critical thought into questioning his conception of what these goals actually were.

Executing a scholar who came to his court offering cheap information was stupid.

Even if Dhanānanda had truly believed Cāṇakya’s advice to be incorrect, adopting such a policy would only discourage his subjects from attempting to advise him, or even interacting him in any way, depriving him of critical information and support. Did that, then, contradict Cāṇakya’s theories?

No. His theories were based in pure reason. But in his natural childish idealism, Cāṇakya had assumed that all men desired to know the truth, that all men cared about what they professed to care about, that all men cared at least for their own personal wealth.

Dhanānanda didn’t enjoy wealth.

He enjoyed looking decisive and powerful.

Yet a single interjection from Pabbata had been sufficient to get the emperor to retract his order.

Because Dhanānanda enjoyed looking statesmanly.

Cāṇakya tried to imagine what the emperor’s reaction would have been if someone else had interjected, saying, “No, actually just kill this kid, he’s kind of annoying.” His mind generated an image of Dhanānanda sneering: “Why do you bother me with quibbles on such minor logistic details? The Brāhmaṇa boy’s execution is scheduled for tomorrow at noon. Any objectors will be executed alongside him.”

Because Dhanānanda enjoyed looking high-status.

The greater number of common people – including kings and such – didn’t truly value what they claimed to value.

A king who said he cared about his people would bankrupt the royal treasury on wasteful government programs that benefit no one and end up raising taxes to unbearable levels. Because such a king did not truly care about his people – he cared about appearing to care about his people.

A king who said he cared about his personal wealth would lavishly display his wealth and ornaments leading to financial mismanagement and his eventual bankruptcy. Because such a king did not truly care about being wealthy – he cared about appearing wealthy.

A king who claimed to be a scholarly king who cared about the truth would often a time choose philosophers of particularly stupid ideologies as his advisors. Because such a king did not truly care about the truth – he cared about appearing to care about the truth.

And such was the nature of pretentious society, that people invested themselves into confirming these self-descriptions of their friends. A man who claimed himself to be intelligent, or who spoke with such lexicon and walked with such gait as to signal thus, would have his intellect spoken highly of in such a society, and none would so much as tease him for actions that betrayed his stupidity.

Thus the argument for why a king ought to befriend only sharp-tongued Brāhmaṇa ministers who were possessed of a tradition of frank honesty, and who had never heard of such a thing as flattery.

What Cāṇakya had witnessed that day was a clash of cultures in its truest sense: between the scholarship of the enlightened Vedic culture and the mindless mutual self-indulgences of the barbaric Magadhas. The cause for such a clash was man’s proclivity to assume that everyone who looked sufficiently similar to him must also think sufficiently similarly to him.

That was Cāṇakya’s answer to Professor Caṇin’s claim many years ago that the notions of “civilized” and “barbarian” were artificial constructs invented for some political purpose. Their true purpose was to remind men to be cautious among barbarians, to study their customs in detail without assuming any of those customs to be similar to one’s own.

Why Magadha? There were non-Vedic cultures in which even mere words and symbols were considered blasphemous, and where every member of these cultures defended so vigorously these obviously irrational social norms. It was essential that such a culture be described as barbarian so that travellers could better protect their selves.

By erring on something which would have been so obvious to any traveller, Cāṇakya had proved himself still seriously lacking in sense.

I have to raise my intelligence.

I have to learn the art of cunning.

Cāṇakya thought back to his last conversation with Rājastambha.

“I wish I could say that I helped you to save myself from committing the sin of Brahmahatya,” Rājastambha had said, “But in truth, I have been complicit to that crime so many times in the past that I could not possibly make up for it with one good deed.”

“The concept of atoning for one’s sins is the fallacy of Magadhi philosophy,” Cāṇakya had replied, “The goal of life is not to merely ensure that one does more good than bad, it is not to merely justify your existence in the world. The goal of life is to do as much good as possible, and that rarely comes from men who justify their actions on basis of doing good. Therein lies the distinction, between goodness and greatness.”

(From there he had claimed that Rājastambha could do the most good by serving him in Pāṭaliputra as his spy, carrying out and reporting small tasks for Cāṇakya.)

But despite the truth of these words, however, Cāṇakya found himself pronouncing a very particular oath, motivated by the cause that Rājastambha’s impending death not be in vain.

He did not intend to publicize this oath to anyone, not even to Professor Caṇin, not even by means of any visual indicators, for secrecy until cause arrived to be public was the way of wisdom.

Taking one single short break from that brisk pace that had judged to be optimal, Cāṇakya turned his head, laying his fiery eyes on the walls of Pāṭaliputra one last time before they faded out of view.

For that night, Cāṇakya gained a true understanding of his own ambition, and made an honest acknowledgement of the means that were required of him to achieve that ambition.

So many great minds had worked for the goal of preserving Vedic culture from the Magadhas – to protect their one little corner, the city of Mathura, from Magadhi conquest. And they had failed.

I swear to uproot you, Dhanānanda – to defeat your entire empire and the culture it manifests.

By restricting their ambitions so – to only defense of their realm, to never consider an offensive strike against the source of their problems itself – they had resigned their lives only fighting to protect the little corner they found themselves in.

Speaking to the fertile lands of Magadha, to the rivers that irrigated it, to its human settlements, Cāṇakya spoke.

I claim you as mine, he said – in the epic historical battle between the light of the Vedas and the wickedness that originated in this realm, the final move shall be mine.

And simply defending one’s holdings, or re-taking lost territories, would hardly be such a final move.

I will return, wielding in battle that torch that Vasiṣṭha had borne so many years ago taking the Bhāratas to their victory against the Purus – I shall take that throne you forbade me from resting on, and give it in charity to the deserving.

I swear to adopt the art of cunning; to be restrained by no foolish idealisms; to employ any means necessary to accomplish these goals.

Let it be known for centuries forth: that Magadha, after conquering Mathura, found herself conquered by her.