Confluence of past and present

Our double bullock cart with the white oxen, like two small snow-­laden Himalayan peaks, was lumbering forward like moonlight spreading over hill and dale. The moon was sailing high in the blue skies on a pearly-­lighted chariot drawn by white swans. The fields on either side of the road were silent in the magic of moonlight.

Man travels night or day in moonlight or starry-light; in burning sun or under the cloud-laden skies. He travels in his life either to sorrow or to joy. Our double bullock cart was going to the famous place of art and history, the valley of Nagarjuna’s Hill, to the ruins of Vijayapura, once the capital of the famous Andhra Ikshvakus. Till recently this place had not been identified as the Apara Saila Sangharama. That was left to the archaeologist who dug out the mounds - the ruins of many Buddhist Stupas - revealing the exquisite sculpture of ancient Andhra.

The present travels to the past, and the past travels forward to the present. Nagarjuna was a famous Andhra saint of the first century of the Christian era. He was revered as an avatar of the Buddha. He was the father of the famous Mahayana school.

As we were travelling, the road was slowly climbing up to the pass that leads to the deep valley of Vijayapura. I heard a deep emotion-burdened song, sung in the fields by a dreaming farmer youth.

“To what distances we travel, O Maiden!
Along this narrow path, O Maiden!
To what trysting place of love, O Maiden!
We travel along this path of stone and thorn; O Maiden!”

In tune with that distant song small birds were chirping now and then, whenever they woke up and when a moonbeam lighted on them. I slept to this lullaby sung by the farmer and feathery musicians.

II

I woke up when the Dawn-maiden’s rosy smiles were on the eastern peak, to find ourselves in the pass. The old bastions of the Ikshvakus were on either side of our pass on two peaks, and before me, four or five hundred feet below, lay the smiling valley of Vijayapura. The road from the pass to the valley was very steep and a hamlet or two were peeping up in the distance in that rambling valley. The river Krishna flowing rapidly in that narrow gogre of the Nallamalas was on three sides of this beautiful valley. The river which has been flowing endlessly from the distant dim past to this vivid present is the confluence of the past and the present, of cultures new and old, and of the waters of the Western Hills and the Eastern Bay of Bengal.

We got down. Our path turned and twisted, and we were at the gate of the Museum that houses the sculptures and carvings excavated from the Buddhist Stupas. Except these Stupas, there were no remnants of the ancient town of Vijayapura. The Vihara of Nagarjuna was on the hillock at one end of the valley, and perhaps for that reason it is called Nagarjuna Hill.

I went into the Museum, and a beautiful world of the ancient Andhras unfolded itself before me and, as though by the power of a magic wand, I was transported to those far-off centuries. From one sculptured stone to another I slowly wended my way. I saw there revealed a life of beauty and struggle very similar to that of the present. If only we can look into the present with a higher vision, we see in it, and beyond it, at first the shadow and then the reality of the far distant ages.

There were kings and queans, princes and princesses, monks and rishis, warriors and villagers, court damsels and village maids. There were the gardens of the king and the fields of the villager. There were palaces and huts. There were beasts and birds. There were bullock carts and chariots drawn by horses. It was a world at once beautiful and mystic.

The dresses and ornaments of people have not changed much, not their features and contours. Like the faces of modern men and women their faces shone with joy, or were dark with pain. The gait and the poise, the posture and the expressions were the glorification of the life of the present.

III

I have to come out of the Muscum to prepare my meal and the it meal of the caman. While I was cooking under the shadow of the neem tree by the side of a well nearby. I observed men and women working happily in the fields. I overheard the conversation between a maiden and her swain.

He: I hope this year our field will yield a good return of cholam.
She: Why not also of marigold flowers?
He: Perhaps to adorn your raven locks.
She: No! To doeoratic your broad chest and give joy to your crooked heart.
He: Not as crooked as your looks.
She: But crookeder than the running serpent.
He: Not as crooked as your walk.
She: Who wants to walk with you?
He: Who wants to talk with you?
She: And so I will go away to the end of the field. I will talk to myself. I will talk to the birds and to the silent Hill of Nagarjuna.
He: Nagarjuna will come to look at your beauty, stepping down from his hill.

The maiden walked away in anger. I recognised in that scene a small panel in which a man and a woman were sculptured as angry lovers. Their faces were turned away from each other, and on the man’s face chagrin and regret were portrayed with a masterly hand; and on the woman’s face shame, anger and sorrow were delineated with an exqui­site touch.

IV

After my siesta, I began again carefully to observe the power of the Andhra artist of yore; the grace and charm of his touch; and the bliss­-laden concentration of the master sculptor. As I contemplated the Buddha either seated in his padmasana pose, or as walking amongst men and women with a begger’s bowl, his right hand in dinmudra pose, preaching his gospel of love and ahimsa, those sculptures of the Buddha melted away, and there arose before me a vision of the Father of our Nation doing the same divine work twenty-four hundred years after this “Light of Asia” preaching the same sacred Truth. Those kings and ministers of yore are, perhaps, our leaders today; and I thought I saw in our nation’s Prime Minister the fulfilment of the mission of Nagarjuna, the alchemist of love and adventure, of dreams and achievement, of work and vision.

Often I came across the swain that worked in the field nearby, and I did not know how he and the maiden were related. The three days that I remained in the valley of the Nagarjuna Hill, the maiden and her sweetheart were not in a loving mood towards each other. I was curious and enquired about them, and I was told that they were newly-married and the maid had come to her “Lord” only a few months before.

The fourth day happened to be the Vinayaka Chaturthi, the first festival of the year. Early in the morning I went to the river Krishna for a bath. The river was in spate. Brown muddy waters were rapidly flowing past, in whirlpools and in rapids. The level of the river was high along the gorge, from mountain to mountain. The multi-templed village of Eleswaram on the other side the border of the Hyderabad State - was looking down, contemplating this mighty, beautiful river flowing from eternity to eternity.

Those Kakatiya temples erected by Ganapati Dava and his daughter Rudrama Devi, perhaps wondered at their birth and thought that the river herself gave birth to them. The queenly river Krishna, ancient maiden of the South, daughter of the Western Mountain and sister of the monsoon ­wind, had seen the birth of the nations, rejoiced in their growth and sorrowed over their fallen glories. Rishis, kings and armies crossed her waters many a time, and lovers sailed over them through fragrant nights, singing songs of joy and love. This beloved river is now rejoicing over the birth of a new giant nation of the free people of India, children of the great ancient tradition of rishis and law-givers, scholars and tillers of the soil, fashioning a new nation with hope, faith and vigous, never again to be slaves till the end of time.

V

That morning while I was cooking my special festival food, the couple in the field nearby timidly approached me with a basket. I was wonderstuck.

“Have you made up your quarrel with your young wife?” I queried the shy youth.

With a thrill playing in his honest eyes he replied: “It was really not a quarrel, sir. How could I ever quarrel with a beautiful girl like this?” he laughed; “ask her if you like,” and he looked at her. With shyness lighting up her face, she bent her head and said: “Master, it was really not a quarrel but the joy in our hearts. Here is our humble offering to you.”

I saw in that basket fresh vegetables, three or four oranges, and wood-apples and flowers. My eyes became moist with tears and I thought: Oh! Eternal India! my Mother and Teacher, Mother of the nations of the world. Thou hast always been full of love and Thy simple children following the path of Truth and Dharma are rising once more to the guides of this warring world, to the land of peace and harmony.

Nagarjuna, these ancient works of art, and the couple before me, with the surging river Krishna in the ground, have all become the tunes of one great eternal Harmony of Love and Beauty.