3.6 Image consciousness

“I am asking you to defeat not one, but two great empires, each the largest to have existed in their respective realms, neither of which have lost half an inch of territory in the entire history of their existence.”

Candragupta stared at his Professor.

“But how, Professor?” he asked genuinely. “You have taught that a country that shares long contiguous borders with enemies on both sides lives perpetually in a fundamentally untenable position – even if we successfully unify the kingdoms of Sindh and the Punjab, that is precisely the situation in which we find ourselves, and you propose we fight a war on both fronts, defeating both the Magadhas and the Greeks? How, Professor?”

A distorted image of the fireplace’s sparks appeared as reflections in Cāṇakya’s eyes as he stoked the embers of its dimming light.

“We will exploit their strengths and use them against each other,” he said, “Then swoop in to seize victory.”

Candragupta intently pored over the map that he had been asked to retrieve.

“Are you not worried, Professor, that inviting the Greeks to fight Magadha will introduce a new source of chaos into what is already a mess of a situation?”

Cāṇakya fanned the smoke.

“The Greeks are not strong enough to invade Magadha successfully – of this, I am certain,” said Cāṇakya. Then he continued: “There is a great deal of respect that I have possessed, over the years, for Alexander. From what I have learned from merchants who frequent the West, he brought to many of Persia’s Western provinces a splendid culture of learning and thought, great improvements in infrastructure, urbanization and trade, he honours the sciences and possesses a great strategic acumen.”

“Professor … ?”

“And yet this supposedly honourable ruler has, upon crossing the Hindu Kush mountains, committed brutal atrocities against innocent civilians. Why so? Destroying the Sauvīrāyana University of the Mūṣikas did Alexander no benefit – yet he put the entire city to the sword, murdering the men, enslaving the children and forcing suicide upon the women. Why?”

Candragupta thought for a while, then recalled an old lesson of Cāṇakya’s:

“Because it feels like progress. It is like attempting to cross the desert even knowing that the task requires a larger jug of water than that in one’s possession. Crossing the desert halfway does you no good – indeed, it does a great deal of harm – yet, it feels like progress.”

“It feels like progress, to an animalistic mind that is not capable of distinguishing between fighting and winning. And in such desperation – his inability to fathom that this country is unconquerable to him – even the most strategic minds become animalistic, resorting to fighting rather than winning. Even as Alexander claims he stopped at the Vipāśa river because of his army’s mutiny, he knows this cannot be true, as his army would have been equally reluctant to continue South – no, it is because he is completely aware that he is himself incapable of conquering Magadha.”

“And yet you believe that I can do it? You wish to instigate a war between the Greeks and Magadha that will sufficiently weaken them both for us to vanquish them both at the last moment. But if you do not believe the Greeks pose a credible threat to Magadha – do you then plan to first weaken Magadha, transmit some security information to the Greeks?”

“I shall do nothing of the sort, and neither will you. Weakening the strong, and strengthening the weak – causes instability – causes a state of perpetual war, and this is not what I want with the Greeks. I wish for you to one day acquire the throne of Magadha, and then I will wish for the Greeks to be in submission to you, I will not wish for you to reign over a weakened state.”

“You wish to have Magadha weakened now, when they are your enemies, and strong in the future, when it belongs to you? … How will you simultaneously achieve both those goals, Professor?”

Cāṇakya smiled.

The flame flared.

“I will play a game.”

Augraseniya nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Why,” continued the prostitute who had quickly become the prince’s favourite – and perhaps his most trusted friend and confidante – in the matter of mere months, “If I were in your place, O prince, which I could never be deserving of course, I would be shaking, trembling, with every possible emotion one may have – at the conspiracies being plotted against me before my very eyes!”

The crown prince of Magadha let out a sigh. “I have long accepted Pabbata’s betrayal, my beloved. In truth, I never quite trusted my youngest brother – no, I always found him to be lacking in loyalty, but it was only my generosity that stopped me from expressing this thought out loud!”

“But to find out that even the Prime Minister is jealous of your position, prince? You do not even seem shocked by this – instead, you seem to have accepted such behaviour from your court-mates as a political reality, and focused your efforts on action. I truly, truly admire your strength, O prince!”

Augraseniya stopped dead in his tracks. It was not the first time, at all, that Rūpakośa had dropped such a revelation, seemingly assuming that Augraseniya had already figured it out for himself, and spoken conspiratorially of the same – no, no, of course he had already thought of it for himself, he was just surprised that Rūpakośa had as well. But he should no longer be so surprised – she was obviously no ordinary prostitute – much like his grandfather had been no ordinary son of a barber – no, she was fit to be his queen!

“Then you can surely also see precisely what action it is that I am going to take, can’t you, Rūpakośa?”

(It was an attempt to fish for more information, but Augraseniya caused himself to believe that it was truly just him behaving conspiratorially with his queen.)

“I can certainly now see the wisdom of your earlier act – of convincing Emperor Dhanānanda to give you equal say over the deployment of military troops and over relations with neighbouring states.”

The prince was starting to see what Rūpakośa was saying, but was still fearful of saying it explicitly himself to check, lest he embarrass himself. So he merely hummed in response.

Rūpakośa shook her head in indignation. “To think the Prime Minister is conspiring with Pabbata … against you, against the Emperor!”

“WHAT?” (Augraseniya immediately cursed himself for giving it away, but Rūpakośa didn’t seem to suspect anything – or so he hoped, anyway.)

“Forgive me for saying it out loud, prince! Forgive my tactlessness. But that is the plan, isn’t it? By sending away the most elite of Magadhi troops to the Western border, the security of Magadha’s interior country will be weakened, the most crucial heartland left assailable to Pabbata! By sending spies to the neighbouring states, Magadha will gain their enmity – they may aid Pabbata in his war, or use your cousins as hostage to extract favours from their fathers who hold positions in Magadha’s government – and even if the Prime Minister is able to somehow free some of them, he will surely use them to his own advantage, against you! It is a move that accomplishes several things – I am disgusted by it, O prince!”

“I knew that, of course.” (Despite knowing the gravity of all that his queen had just told him, Augraseniya found himself caring more about his image in her eyes than about acting on these revelations and securing his power.) “And of course … of course that is Sakadala’s plan, because he knows what the right course of action here would be.”

The prince had oft-encountered, that such conspiratorial talk from him would elicit an actual underlying meaning that he hadn’t intended from Rūpakośa – no, of course he had intended, had implied it, that was the point, he just wished to test her—

“Of course!” his queen exclaimed, “Sakadala knows to not escalate things with the neighbouring states so far so quickly – for even as your father may be more powerful than they are, Magadha is currently plagued with problems and stands divided, and the continual presence of enemies on its borders will surely weaken it by the time you ascend its throne!” (Augraseniya nodded thoughtfully) “Surely he knows that the right strategy here would be to, say, initiate a trade war with the neighbouring kingdoms to warn them to back down … ”

Something big was happening, Augraseniya realized.

When that boy Cāṇakya had arrived in Pāṭaliputra so many years ago, he hadn’t gone empty-handed – he had made friends, allies – in the Dungeons and among internal security personnel, but also among the ruling houses of Magadha. It was not only Pabbata who had freed him, but he had made one more friend, close to the throne.

(Of course. Sakadala was a Brāhmaṇa. There was no way that he would be content in living as a mere servant to a king, he would always wish to be master himself. That was the great mistake that Grandfather had made in appointing a Brāhmaṇa advisor in accordance with the customs of the Western realms – they were an ambitious people, power-seeking, never simply content with what they had.)

And so a great alliance had been forged that day, with the following agreement: the countries to the West of the empire would be conquered by Candragupta in Father’s name, while Pabbata would campaign to acquire Father’s empire itself; these two realms – the Western half, ruled by Cāṇakya and Candragupta, and the Eastern half, ruled by Sakadala and Pabbata – would, federalized, form one great empire, ruling over all Āryāvarta undivided.

And Augraseniya and his line would be no part of it.

This seemed to hardly bother Father, who seemed content as long as he could live the rest of his life with minimal discomfort – why would he care? It didn’t affect his reign after all, Pabbata would hardly commit patricide, and his line would continue regardless of who succeeded him.

And so Augraseniya was left to act for himself.

Thus he wrote, to Rūpakośa’s diction.

“Magadha has reacted precisely as you predicted, Professor,” said the chief of the Ārjunāyanas, “First, they blocked all trade links with the Ayudhajivi states, threatening to escalate into a full war if we do not resume paying tribute and send our princes back to them as hostages. Next, we received a communication from crown prince Augraseniya, offering great rewards should we support him in crushing Pabbata.”

It was almost as if Cāṇakya was omniscient – and omnipotent. Vṛṣṇiman wondered if the former was a result of the latter – that Cāṇakya’s apparent omniscience was because he was, in fact, somehow the one orchestrating all that was observed. The thought made him uneasy.

“At the end of the day,” the dark silhouette said, “Most people don’t really do much besides follow simple protocols that occur to them without much thought. Pretend there is a split within your faction and send conflicting messages to your enemy from each side, one hardline and one sympathetic … These powerful kings like pretending the machinery their states run on is something inaccessible or incomprehensible, but one who has actually dealt with them on a very intricate level knows just how simplistic and blatantly flawed these systems often are.”

Six hundred kilomiles East, in Pāṭaliputra, a woman wept, disgusted at the man she laid with.

“Guide me, Professor,” she had said some years ago, “To my revenge on that wicked lowlife who slew my husband. As long as you will help me achieve this goal, I am yours to wield as a weapon, regardless of whatever be your ulterior motive.”

Faking her pleasure for the barbarian scum that was the crown prince of Magadha, she closed her eyes and recalled her husband’s image, swearing that it would never fade out of her memory. Swearing to herself: my body may now be defiled, but my soul will always belong to my husband, and my mind to Professor Cāṇakya.

She clutched the pendant around her wrist – the small capsule of poison – and resisted the unstoppable urge to use it.

Not today. Not until her goal was complete.

(And not on herself, of course.)

(A month later, Emperor Dhanānanda was found dead in his bedroom.)