SHE
WAS THE Princess Ajita. And the court poet of King Narayan had never
seen her. On the day he recited a new poem to the king he would raise
his voice just to that pitch which could be heard by unseen hearers in
the screened balcony high above the hall. He sent up his song towards
the star-land out of his reach, where, circled with light, the planet
who ruled his destiny shone unknown and out of ken.
He
would espy some shadow moving behind the veil. A tinkling sound would
come to his ear from afar, and would set him dreaming of the ankles
whose tiny golden bells sang at each step. Ah, the rosy red tender feet
that walked the dust of the earth like God's mercy on the fallen! The
poet had placed them on the altar of his heart, where he wove his songs
to the tune of those golden bells. Doubt never arose in his mind as to
whose shadow it was that moved behind the screen, and whose anklets they
were that sang to the time of his beating heart.
Manjari,
the maid of the princess, passed by the poet's house on her way to the
river, and she never missed a day to have a few words with him on the
sly. When she found the road deserted, and the shadow of dusk on the
land, she would boldly enter his room, and sit at the corner of his
carpet. There was
a suspicion of an added care in the choice of the colour of her veil, in the setting of the flower in her hair.
People
smiled and whispered at this, and they were not to blame. For Shekhar
the poet never took the trouble to hide the fact that these meetings
were a pure joy to him.
The
meaning of her name was the spray of flowers. One must confess that for
an ordinary mortal it was sufficient in its sweetness. But Shekhar made
his own addition to this name, and called her the Spray of Spring
Flowers. And ordinary mortals shook their heads and said, Ah, me!
In
the spring songs that the poet sang the praise of the spray of spring
flowers was conspicuously reiterated; and the king winked and smiled at
him when he heard it, and the poet smiled in answer.
The king would put him the question: 1s it the business of the bee merely to hum in the court of the spring?'
The poet would answer: 'No, but also to sip the honey of the spray of spring flowers.'
And
they all laughed in the king's hall. And it was rumoured that the
Princess Ajita also laughed at her maid's accepting the poet's name for
her, and Manjari felt glad in her heart.
Thus truth and falsehood mingle in life—and to what God builds man adds his own decoration.
Only
those were pure truths which were sung by the poet. The theme was
Krishna, the lover god, and Radha, the beloved, the Eternal Man and the
Eternal Woman, the sorrow that comes from the beginning of time, and the
joy without end. The truth of these songs was tested in his inmost
heart by everybody from the beggar to the king himself. The poet's songs
were on the lips of all. At the merest glimmer of the moon and the
faintest whisper of the summer breeze his songs would break forth in the
land from windows and courtyards, from sailing-boats, from shadows of
the wayside trees, in number-less voices.
Thus
passed the days happily. The poet recited, the king listened, the
hearers applauded. Manjari passed and repassed by the poet's room on her
way to the river—the shadow flitted behind the screened balcony, and
the tiny golden bells tinkled from afar.
Just
then set forth from his home in the south a poet on his path of
conquest. He came to King Narayan, in the kingdom of Amarapur. He stood
before the throne, and uttered averse in praise of the king. He had
challenged all the court poets on his way, and his career of victory had
been unbroken.
The king received him with honour, and said: 'Poet, I offer you welcome.'
Pundarik, the poet, proudly replied: 'Sire, I ask for war.'
Shekhar,
the court poet of the king did not know how the battle of the Muse was
to be waged. He had no sleep at night. The mighty figure of the famous
Pundarik, his sharp nose curved like a scimitar, and his proud head
tilted on one side, haunted the poet's vision in the dark.
With a trembling heart Shekhar entered the arena in the morning. The theatre was filled with the crowd.
The
poet greeted his rival with a smile and a bow. Pundarik returned it
with a slight toss of his head, and turned his face towards his circle
of adoring followers with a meaning smile.
Shekhar
cast his glance towards the screened balcony high above, and saluted
his lady in his mind, saying: If I am the winner at the combat today, my
lady, thy victorious name shall be glorified.'
The
trumpet sounded. The great crowd stood up, shouting victory to the
king. The king, dressed in an ample robe of white, slowly came into the
hall like a floating cloud of autumn, and sat on his throne.
Pundarik
stood up, and the vast hall became still. With his head raised high and
chest expanded, he began in his thundering voice to recite the praise
of King Narayan. His words burst upon the walls of the hall like
breakers of the sea, and seemed to rattle against the ribs of the
listening crowd. The skill with which he gave varied meanings to the
name Narayan, and wove each letter of it through the web of his verses
in all manner of combinations, took away the breath of his amazed
hearers.
For some
minutes after he took his seat his voice continued to vibrate among the
numberless pillars of the king's court and in thousands of speechless
hearts. The learned professors who had come from distant lands raised
their right hands, and cried, Bravo!
The
king threw a glance on Shekhar's face, and Shekhar in answer raised for
a moment his eyes full of pain towards his master, and then stood up
like a stricken deer at bay. His face was pale, his bashfulness was
almost that of a woman, his slight youthful figure, delicate in its
outline, seemed like a tensely strung vina ready to break out in music
at the least touch.
His
head was bent, his voice was low, when he began. The first few verses
were almost inaudible. Then he slowly raised his head, and his clear
sweet voice rose into the sky like a quivering flame of fire. He began
with the ancient legend of the kingly line lost in the haze of the past,
and brought it down through its long course of heroism and matchless
generosity to the present age. He fixed his gaze on the king's face, and
all the vast and unexpressed love of the people for the royal house
rose like incense in his song, and enwreathed the throne on all sides.
These were his last words when, trembling, he took his seat: 'My master,
I may be beaten in play of words, but not in my love for thee.'
Tears filled the eyes of the hearers, and the stone walls shook with cries of victory.
Mocking
this popular outburst of feeling, with an august shake of his head and a
contemptuous sneer, Pundarik stood up, and flung this question to the
assembly: 'What is there superior to words? ' In a moment the hall
lapsed into silence again.
Then
with a marvellous display of learning, he proved that the Word was in
the beginning, that the Word was God. He piled up quotations from
scriptures, and built a high altar for the Word to be seated above all
that there is in heaven and in earth. He repeated that question in his
mighty voice: 'What is there superior to words?'
Proudly
he looked around him. None dared to accept his challenge, and he slowly
took his seat like a lion who had just made a full meal of its victim.
The pandits shouted, Bravo! The king remained silent with wonder, and
the poet Shekhar felt himself of no account by the side of this
stupendous learning. The assembly broke up for that day.
Next
day Shekhar began his song. It was of that day when the pipings of
love's flute startled for the first time the hushed air of the Vrinda
forest. The shepherd women did not know who was the player or whence
came the music. Sometimes it seemed to come from the heart of the south,
wind, and sometimes from the straying clouds of the hill-tops. It came
with a message of tryst from the land of the sunrise, and it floated
from the verge of sunset with its sigh of sorrow. The stars seemed to be
the stops of the instrument that flooded the dreams of the night with
melody. The music seemed to burst all at once from all sides, from
fields and groves, from the shady lanes and lonely roads, from the
melting blue of the sky, from the shimmering green of the grass. They
neither knew its meaning nor could they find words to give utterance to
the desire of their hearts. Tears filled their eyes, and their life
seemed to long for a death that would be its consummation.
Shekhar
forgot his audience, forgot the trial of his strength with a rival. He
stood alone amid his thoughts that rustled and quivered round him like
leaves in summer breeze, and sang the Song of the Flute. He had in his
mind the vision of an image that had taken its shape from a shadow, and
the echo of a faint tinkling sound of a distant footstep.
He
took his seat. His hearers trembled with the sadness of an indefinable
delight, immense and vague, and they forgot to applaud him. As this
feeling died away Pundarik stood up before the throne and challenged his
rival to define who was this Lover and who was the Beloved. He
arrogantly looked around him, he smiled at his followers and then put
the question again: 'Who is Krishna, the lover, and who is Radha, the
beloved?'
Then he began
to analyse the roots of those names—and various interpretations of
their meanings. He brought before the bewildered audience all the
intricacies of the different schools of metaphysics with consummate
skill. Each letter of those names he divided from its fellow, and then
pursued them with a relentless logic till they fell to the dust in
confusion, to be caught up again and restored to a meaning never before
imagined by the subtlest of wordmongers.
The
pandits were in ecstasy; they applauded vociferously; and the crowd
followed them, deluded into the certainty that they had witnessed, that
day, the last shred of the curtains of Truth torn to pieces before their
eyes by a prodigy of intellect. The performance of his tremendous feat
so delighted
them that they forgot to ask themselves if there was any truth behind it after all.
The
king's mind was overwhelmed with wonder. The atmosphere was completely
cleared of all illusion of music, and the vision of the world around
seemed to be changed from its freshness of tender green to the solidity
of a high road levelled and made hard with crushed stones.
To
the people assembled their own poet appeared a mere boy in comparison
with this giant, who walked with such ease, knocking down difficulties
at each step in the world of words and thoughts. It became evident to
them for the first time that the poems Shekhar wrote were absurdly
simple, and it must be a mere accident that they did not write them
themselves. They were neither new, nor difficult, nor instructive, nor
necessary.
The king
tried to goad his poet with keen glances, silently inciting him to make a
final effort. But Shekhar took no notice, and remained fixed to his
seat.
The king in anger
came down from his throne—took off his pearl chain and put it on
Pundarik's head. Everybody in the hall cheered. From the upper balcony
came a slight sound of the movements of rustling robes and waist- chains
hung with golden bells. Shekhar rose from his seat and left the hall.
It was a dark night of waning moon. The poet Shekhar took down his MSS
from his shelves and heaped them on the floor. Some of them contained
his earliest writings, which he had almost forgotten. He turned over the
pages, reading passages here and there. They all seemed to him poor and
trivial— mere words and childish rhymes!
One
by one he tore his books to fragments, and threw them into a vessel
containing fire, and said: 'To thee, to thee, O my beauty, my fire! Thou
hast been burning in my heart all these futile years. If my life were a
piece of gold it would come out of its trial brighter, but it is a
trodden turf of grass, and nothing remains of it but this handful of
ashes.'The night wore on. Shekhar opened wide his windows. He spread
upon his bed the white flowers that he loved, the jasmines, tuberoses
and chrysanthemums, and brought into his bedroom all the lamps he had in
his house and lighted them. Then mixing with honey the juice of some
poisonous root, he drank it and lay down on his bed.
Golden anklets tinkled in the passage outside the door, and a subtle perfume came into the room with the breeze.
The poet, with his eyes shut, said: 'My lady, have you taken pity upon your servant at last and come to see him?'
The answer came in a sweet voice: 'My poet, I have come.
Shekhar opened his eyes—and saw before his bed the figure of a woman.
His
sight was dim and blurred. And it seemed to him that the image made of a
shadow that he had ever kept throned in the secret shrine of his heart
had come into the outer world in his last moment to gaze upon his face.
The woman said: ‘I am the Princess Ajita.’
The poet with a great effort sat up on his bed.
The
princess whispered into his ear: 'The king has not done you justice. It
was you who won at the combat, my poet, and I have come to crown you
with the crown of victory.'
She
took the garland of flowers from her own neck, and put it on his hair,
and the poet fell down upon his bed stricken by death.
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