Etched In Stone

This historical short story is a fictitious account of Ashoka, the Mauryan Emperor and his first wife Devi, who finds no place in Magadhan History. There is another fiction about her in the blog as well. This story stemmed from a merge of two ideas, one was to mention the cave inscription found in Saru Maru that mentions Asoka spending some days there with his lover (presumed to be Devi), the other idea of how if words did not immortalise a lot of battles and achievements, the names of many great men would be lost in time.

The prince stood on the edge of the cliff, looking at the horizon. Dawn arrived as the birds started leaving their nests, wings fluttering, eager to discover the world. He looked up at them, the thought of once again going back to exploring the length and breadth of his state making him feel a little restless as he eyed his healing wounds. He was left to die; his enemies wished so. Yet by some miracle of fate, as if his purposes were yet to be fulfilled, here he was breathing and healing, watching one more sun rise on the horizon. The forestland below the cliff was quiet. He could hear a stream meander somewhere and sounds of hooves as he imagined a group of animals going to quench their thirst somewhere. He gulped. Was he thirsty too? He turned his back to the vast forestland below as his eyes fell on the cave that had been his home for some time now. Away from the eyes of his brother’s spies and the scrutiny of his father’s trusted men, here is where he had healed. He was about to walk in when she walked out. Her face looked radiant in the morning glow. 

“Yet again, you walked away without waking me up. I thought you left,” her voice was low, firm, complaining as she offered him a pail of water. He stared at it, a little disbelieving. How did she know he was going to quench his thirst? He took it from her hand, intentionally brushing his fingers over hers and watched her breathe in the cool morning breeze. Her hair still dishevelled, the cloth over her body wrinkled. 

“I won’t leave without telling you.” He said at last, with a hint of amusement that did not escape her. She eyed him with a frown as he gave back the empty pail to her.

“How do I trust you?” Her question made him stare in silence. He did not trust anyone in the world enough to reassure her, let alone tell her to trust him. He shook his head at his own thoughts. He trusted her with the life she had saved. When everyone gave up on him, she did not. No matter how much he annoyed her with his thoughts. 

“You don’t have to trust me.” He said truthfully. “But I won’t leave.” She looked up at his face. The scars of his last battle for his life were still visible on his cheek. He looked weaker than when she first saw him. There was no way she would let him go before he healed properly. Her religion taught her to care for people who were sick. She was fulfilling her Dhamma. She reminded herself again as she looked away from his face at the forestland, wondering what he was staring at. There was a rustling of leaves nearby as his hand reached for the dagger he never forgot to keep with him. She held his arm, almost immediately, as both of them stared at the sound, as if to say he did not need that. A few feet below the cliff, a group of men were travelling through the forest, unaware of their presence. Their clothes were dirty, they looked poor, and some of them had chisels and wedges they carried. 

“They look like sculptors.” He whispered, observing. 

“They can also be writers, scribes…” She smiled. It was then that he noticed the ink on some of their fingers. He was amazed at her observation. She was neither a warrior nor a soldier. She went back into the cave, his gaze following her as she picked up the basket. “I will bring back fruits.” She made him nod. “Is there anything else you need?” He shook his head. “Here, take this.” He offered her his dagger. “For self-protection.” She gasped at the sight of the dagger, sharp-edged, perhaps marked with the blood of many. “I am fine without it.”

“You need to protect yourself from animals.” He narrowed his brows disapprovingly. “If something happens to you…” He stopped, almost alarmed at the concern in his voice. She smiled faintly and took his leave.

It was mid-afternoon when she had boiled some rice and pulses and spread out the fruit she had collected. He sat down, legs crossed, to spread the leaf plates and share the food. 

“I was wondering…” He said in between morsels. “Why do people write?” She looked up at his words, confused.

“Their words don’t help kill an enemy or prosper a state. They neither have the strength nor the money to be powerful.” She smiled at him. Sometimes when she smiled like that, he felt like he was making some mistake. Like he sounded too stupid to her, his words made very little sense. It made him aware of his thoughts. It made him question what he knew. She resumed eating as he pestered her, “Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t.” He expected that. When had she ever agreed to him? Yet, every time he shared a thought, he anticipated her disapproval and waited for her view. For the first time in his life, the prince, known for his short temper and arrogance, was not offended when someone opposed his view and added her perspective. She stopped at her morsel and looked up at him.

“Words… are more powerful than swords and gold coins.” She made him laugh. He could not help it. She sounded naive. “So the next time Magadha is attacked, call your bards to battle.” He said, almost spitting into laughter. She sighed, watching him. Her glance made him stop as he shook his head. 

“Your sword can win battles, your money can make monuments.” She said as he nodded. “Those are the real signs of power.”

“And what if there are no words? No bards to immortalise those battles and those monuments? No scribes to tell future generations about your achievements?” She made him stop at his morsel and look up. 

“We hear stories.” He contemplated. “Moral stories and heroic achievements are passed down from generation to generation.”

“And a little is lost when that is done. Perceptions change. Stories change. Narratives…”

“So you are saying to make a king more prominent to future generations, one must write down their morals and achievements?” He asked with raised brows. She smiled again.

“Do you not agree?” She questioned him. “There is a reason that the Arthasastra is revered. Had it not been written down, it could be lost, isn’t it?” He nodded unmindfully. She sighed.

“I wish like kings, stories of the common people would also be written down.” She said abruptly. He looked up at her.

“Like?” he asked eagerly. “A farmer harvesting his crops?”

“A lawmaker making rules. A woman who nurtures a family.” She reminisced. 

“A woman who nurses a prince?” He asked, brows raised as it was time for her to laugh. “I would not imagine being immortalised for being here now.” She shook her head. “Though it would be nice.” She admitted. “I am a human being, not beyond the greed of recognition.”

“And someone thousands of years later, arriving at this cave would know that you were here?” He smiled at her. She shook her head as she collected the leaf plates. “Your balms are ready. It’s time you take your medicines and collect wood for the fire before it gets dark. I am not doing all the chores just because you are the prince of Magadh.”

“I don’t expect you to.” He shook his head. “I also don’t expect you to stay the night, now that I'm conscious and recovering.” She paused briefly at his words, pressed her lips and glanced over her shoulder at him, inspecting the balm she had made. 

“I… stay to make sure you don’t leave.” She bit her lip. “Once I know you are healed, I will go back.” The sense of melancholy in her voice suddenly hit him. He looked up as she was about to discard the used leaves. 

“I did not mean… I don’t want you to leave.” He blurted. “But… I am afraid some day… I will have to… and…” He inhaled. She walked back inside the cave and watched him look away. “And you will. Nobody will stop you then.” Her words were firm, and he looked up at her smiling face, trying to decipher her emotions. She looked away, picking up the fresh pieces of clothes she had torn out for his bandage. 

“I think I still need help with that.” He extended the balm kept in a shell to her. She nodded, silently walking up behind him, to undo his bandages one by one and wash the injuries to his back, stomach and chest, before embalming them once more. He stared at her silently as she worked. It was dusk soon, and when he had come back with the wood, the birds were returning home. The red hue in the sky was slowly fading into the dark blue night sky. The crescent moon was accompanied by the evening star. She watched him light up the fire as she put an extra piece of drapery around herself to shield herself from the sudden gust of cold wind. She looked up at the sky and sighed. He finished making the fire as he suddenly felt a pain in his stomach. Worried that she might urge him to lie down, he hid the pain that appeared briefly on his face and watched her stare at the sky.

“My grandmother once told me a story about the guiding star.” She said abruptly as he sat down close to her. 

“ Will they not be looking for you? It’s been days…” He frowned. 

“They will know from the monastery that I am in service,” she said without a hint of worry. 

“So…” He cleared his throat. “This is not your first time away from home, nursing someone?” He tried to sound unaffected and failed miserably. His voice sounded jealous even to him. He stopped, alarmed as she looked amused.

“This is my first time away from the monastery.” She said, “I have never encountered a prince in danger before.” He smiled at her words, looking away slightly, then following her gaze up to the moon.

“What was the story?” he asked.

“What?” She sounded confused.

“The story of the guiding star…” He reminded her. “The one your grandmother…”

“Once upon a time…” She stopped. “Oh, you wouldn’t like it, leave it.” He frowned at her words.

“What? Why won’t I?” he asked.

“Because you won’t.” She shook her head. 

“Why?” He sounded cross. “What makes you say that?”

“Because it’s romantic.” She bit her lip as she spoke and looked away. “You are…”

“Not romantic?” He finished her sentence.

“A realist.” She corrected. The sudden streak of annoyance was back in his face.

“I command you, tell me the story.” He said in a rather authoritative voice, which he often used on his subordinates. She giggled. He looked surprised at her reaction.

“How dare you laugh at me? I am…” He stood up as he watched her amused face in the flickering light of the dancing bonfire. She looked up at him.

“I know who you are. I find it amusing that you would command me to tell a story.” She suppressed her laugh.

“And I find it annoying that you assume I won’t like a story without sharing it.”

“It’s just a story,” she shrugged.

“Then say it.” He insisted. She nodded, patting the seat he had left beside her, on the rock. He sat back in silence, fuming still from the sudden rage that had overcome him.

“The moon was lonely in the sky. Although it shone so bright and looked so beautiful, it wandered lonely in the sky…”

“And?” He urged. She looked up once again at the sky and pointed at the evening star, shining the brightest of all.

“Then the evening star met the moon. He said, I am going to guide your way, never leave your side, night to day, you don’t have to roam alone and aimlessly anymore.” She sighed. “ He was alone, too, far from all the other stars around him, shining the brightest. They were jealous of his shine,” her voice trailed.

He smiled at her words. “You found it silly, right?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “I knew you would.”

“I never said that, did I?” He shrugged. 

“It’s a story that intrigued me so much when I was a child that every night at odd hours I would run out to the courtyard to see if the evening star was still with the moon,” she smiled. “My mother would scold me.” He eyed her smile and sigh as she observed the other stars in the constellations. In the silence, the crickets sang, occasional owls hooted, and he could hear her breath. Suddenly, he was aware of his own heartbeat. He was never a man to think before he spoke, to contemplate his actions before he acted on his impulses, yet tonight he was thinking a lot. Thinking about the day he would heal and leave. Thinking about how one morning, she might say that he was fine and leave before he left. Thinking that the moment they shared would never come back. He held her hand, almost restlessly. Her hand was soft, cold and familiar. She froze in her spot, not swaying like she was, not playing with her braid, not moving her hand away from his. She stared at him in astonishment as he looked unsure, as eyes met. The sudden gust of wind against the fighting bonfire made her shudder as he took her hand in his and pulled her closer. His eyes shone, his breath warm against her face. She looked up at him, wondering. There was no going back from this. No denial of the surge of emotion she had kept hidden in her chest for so long.

The monastery was quiet in the evening. In her chambers, Devi lit the lamp beside her reading area and sat down for her evening rituals. It was then that she heard the nuns chatter outside.

“Piyadasi is travelling nearby. There is a procession of people with him.” 

“Heard he stopped by a cave to put in one of his worded addresses to the people.” Another spoke.

“I heard it's only an inscription.” Another corrected. “Once they leave, people are eager to go and see what it is.” She sighed at their words. The dawn arrived as she walked out of the monastery, with a pot to carry back some water in, ready to start her day. She stopped at the place where the forest path divided into two. One led to the stream she frequented, another, uphill. Something took over her. A desire to know. An eagerness to see for herself if they were right. If there was some truth to the gossip. She found herself on the uphill path. 

When she reached the cave, it looked familiar, like she remembered every rock and pebble the way they were decades ago. She stopped at the bushes, carefully scrutinising the cave site. There was nobody around it. Maybe they had left. She tiptoed into the cave, her eyes wandering, reminiscing about a time long gone, a man she once knew, a love she once lost to kingship. She wondered if her children ever thought of her as stubborn or him as arrogant. She realised that the previous night she had spent sleepless, drowned in her memories of a past string of attachments, that there was a long way to go for her to attain the detachment she wanted to achieve. He still haunted her thoughts the way she never wanted him to. Every time she realised that she felt like she swallowed something bitter, as if it was a reminder that he never felt the same. He had his conquests, his queens, his children and even hers. He took away everything she had, yet occupied her mind while she had no place in his. She looked around the place. Unable to find anything new placed or inscribed on the rocks around the cave, she turned to leave when her eyes fell on the lines inside the cave wall. Eager, she walked up to them, brushing her hand against the words that immortalised a moment of her life, mentioning his stay in the cave, accompanied by her. One anonymous sentence that immortalised their names together. Her throat was dry, her eyes teary as her hand trembled on the inscription. She took some time to compose herself before she picked up her pot and made her way back.

The monastery looked more crowded than usual. She had to make her way through a crowd gathered outside it, wondering what was wrong. That was when she saw the flag of Magadha, and her eyes widened. She was informed by a senior nun who spotted her that she was the only one left who had yet to meet the king. He would be on his journey soon. She nodded as she stepped into her chamber, placing the pot down. He knew she was here, didn’t he? She straightened herself and almost consciously checked her clothes and hair. A sudden guilt crept into her heart. She had renounced the worldly entanglements. Yet, why did she care how she presented herself? For the sake of the monastery I represent, to the king of Magadha. She reminded herself.

He looked up at her as she appeared at the threshold, and he asked the man kneeling in front of him, with some woes in his village, to leave. She waited for the peasant to depart. 

“I thought you left the monastery.” His voice sounded different. Older. She looked up at his words. He was sitting in a posture not as kingly as she remembered him to be the last time they met. The last time they met, he had not taken so much interest in her religious beliefs and morals. 

“I…” She breathed in. “Went uphill.” She said in a hurry. “They said you had a new inscription for the people there.” He smiled at her words. “Did you find it?” She shook her head. “No, I… did not find any inscription for the people.” His smile faded at her words. “There isn’t any.” He shook his head. “Those are rumours.” A moment of silence passed.

“I did find…” She paused as she looked up at him, the desire for his reaction evident on her face, “the one in the cave…” He looked pleasantly surprised as he stared at her. Was she disappointed? “What made you…” She stopped. Who was she to question the king?

“The desire to immortalise …” He smiled as she looked up at him. “Someone once told me words were the most powerful tool to immortalise lives.”

“But…” She said as she stepped forward, and he stood up to face her. “Important lives…” She reminded him gently.

“Do I need to inscribe how important that time was to me, as well?” He asked, with raised brows. She shook her head, almost alarmed. “I never knew you… wanted to leave parts of your previous life scattered around the land like that…” She said truthfully.

“Only the parts I don’t regret.” He made her look up. She was uncomfortable at how her cheeks grew warm, and she felt her heart throb in her chest. “Are you on your way?” She asked. 

“I will be… I was just waiting…” He bit his lip. “Hoping to see you.” She nodded without sparing him a glance. “Is there anything you want from me?” Her question made him observe her face. The innocence that once moved him was replaced by wise wrinkles, and her eyes reflected the depth of knowledge her soul held. In the battle she fought for her life, in a striking contrast to the peace she believed in, she had given up everything. The wish to claim his love, the desire to be by his side, her life. Her children. Yet here she was offering more. How selfless could one be? If he had shed blood for the state, if he had sacrificed for Magadha, so had she. Her religious belief, her strong morals, her social standing deprived her of a life of a queen that she deserved, yet she chose to be with him, in his conscience like a shadow, in his transformation, as a reminder, in his life as a memory. It suddenly struck him that he needed to give something back to her. Something more than sending her children to preach the religion she believed in, something more than an acknowledgement of his fatherhood towards his firstborns. 

“I want you to oversee the construction of a Stupa.” His words sounded like a request. She looked taken aback. 

“Me? Why me?” She sounded unsure. “Your queens…” She stopped at his disappointed stare. He hated being reminded of the fact that she had no claim on him.

“Because nobody else can except you. You know the vision. You share the belief…” He made her nod.

“If that’s your order…”

“It is my request… along with a request to attribute the construction to you…” He was met with an expected resistance.

“I have no identity nor attachments from my previous life. I don’t want to be tied down by such accolades. I can help, if you want me to. But I need no mention anywhere in the history of your reign.” Her words were met with silent agreement. 

“It’s at Sanchi.” He said, the name evoking memories of their first encounter with his longing words. She nodded silently. Someone announced the procession was ready to leave. They exchanged one last glance before he walked away. Devi stood there, her back to the doorway, away from the sight of him leaving her behind, once again.