A Tryst with Destiny

The day is nearly at an end, does Acharya Mukteshwar II (Moai Spammer) wish to speak ? Or forfeit his say ?

I think Mukteshwar II will sit this one out

After much careful consideration I have come to a conclusion on what course to take.

On the first question relating to expansion all councillors are unanimous on witholding the colonizing project currently being undertaken from Magadh. The janapada shall not divert any more resources for the support of settlers. We shall wait for when Magadh has grown more with better infrastructure before expanding South and West. Let Pataliputra grow on the rich harvests of the Ganga and improve the lives of its peoples.

On the second question pertaining to the expansion of the army, the councillors are unanimous on expanding our force of archers to defend the empire from the rising threat from the West. After perusing the reports, it is now clear that a warrior tribe known as the Persians intends to create an empire through conquest. We must therefore start building our forces to face this threat before it is too late. There is some disagreement however, on how to achieve this militarization. I would agree with Acharya AtulyaSen and Acharya Nagabhatta II's proposals which strike a balance between military and infrastructure. I therefore, conclude that all cities shift to training archer divisions except Indraprasth where a library is nearing completion. The same will be rushed using forced labor. Acharya Dhrittiman's proposal is acceptable to me in targeting raising 8 archer divisions.

On the third question pertaining to cultural development. There is agreement, that it should only be pursued as a secondary goal. For what use is culture when faced with war and doom ? Only Acharya AtulyaSen however, has suggested a plan in this direction which requires changing research to polytheism. This combines with the solution to our fourth problem.

On the fourth question pertaining to scientific and economic development, there is agreement on keeping the science rate as high as possible without incurring losses unless the treasury is large enough to handle it. I therefore, declare a minimum treasury threshold of 30 gold beyond which further research would not be allowed if it results in losses and a maximum threshold of 100 gold beyond which it would not matter if we incur losses. The maximum permissible deficit would be -3 gold per turn as suggested by Acharya AtulyaSen. I also agree with Acharya's suggestion of funding research for polytheism so that our rishis may finally have a complete understanding of the pantheon of gods. This would allow us to build wondrous new construction as our brahmins have envisioned.

Let the edicts reflect this new programme ! That our army be expanded to have at least 8 archer divisions. That the funding for colonizing settlers be ended till further notice. That scientific research be kept as high as possible without incurring losses to the exchequer, and that funds be made available to rishis for understanding the pantheon of gods.

Let it be known throughout the realm, that once polytheism is learned, there shall be a new religious order in the realm !

With these conclusions, I, King Biswajit, first of his name, King of Magadh and overlord of Bharat, declare this council dismissed as of this hour.

The reports from the West have now been confirmed. A new civilization is being born from the rugged hills of Persia. The charioteer patrolling the western fringes of Gandhar was now seen sporting a new crimson banner whose sigil was an eagle with its wings spread out.



As anticipated, their intentions were not benign. With their eyes set on world conquest the Persians amassed a massive army and set out like a horde of death on the known world declaring war on Bharat, Greece and Babylon. They propounded a new faith which went against the very ideals of the vedic way of life. Our noble devas were their demons and the vile asuras their gods. One prophet who said to have been exiled from the city of Takshashila was the man who united the tribes of Persia into one entity. He with his learning had created the seeds of the Persian civilization.



In the meantime, the cities of the Mahajanapadas continued to train archers,



while the workers helped establish small townships which would bring revenues to Pataliputra. The bulwark of this production was the backbreaking forced labor of Shudras. As directed by the King's Council, the course of research would be altered from horseback riding to polytheism. Soon, the brahmins of Bharata shall have full knowledge of the secrets of the pantheon of gods. No longer would we have to be bound to the animistic traditions of the past.



The forced labor led to the loss of thousands of shudra lives across all the realm except Magadh. Before long Emperor Biswajit had the army that was envisaged.



With our substantial defensive capabilities, the empire faced its western challenge boldly. Three archer divisions were stationed in Takshashila along with two warriors.



In course of war preparations, the hills south of Varanasi were mined more extensively. This led to an unusual discovery. Tin was found on the foothills of the densely forested region and this led to a boom in mining activity there. It increased productivity in Kashi.



Emperor Biswajit saw his empire grow and prosper. Bharat grew both in power and in culture. Its name was known throughout the known world and its might could war off the mighty Persians. But Emperor Biswajit was growing old. His son and successor Ripunjay, was thought of a soft and slow witted man, and this worried the emperor of what the future might bring. Despite his old age, the emperor continued to hold zealously to the power of the throne. He commissioned the best medics in the realm to find the secrets of longevity. A strange potion was created which seemed to slow down the aging process. With it, Emperor Biswajit ruled for decades more. In one of his final acts, Emperor Biswajit secured peace with the Persians and met with their newly appointed 'shah' whose name was Cyrus.





In a fateful turn of events, the year that scholars would have finally completed the research on polytheism, would be the year that the noble King Biswajit, would breathe his last. In the decade that would follow, a complex and violent succession struggle would emerge which would go down in legend.

King Biswajit sought to secure his hold over the other janapadas through marital bonds entrenching the dynasty of Brihadratha as overlords of Bharat. For this, he had engaged in a marital alliance with a warrior clan from Takshashila. From this marriage a son was conceived who would otherwise be second in line to succeed the throne of Magadh. However, in what was perhaps a fit of senile madness, King Biswajit had disowned his own firstborn son Ripunjaya and declared that he be disinherited from the throne. There were sections of brahmins who had been discontent with the long reign of King Biswajit, in particular his favoritism to the anti-caste protest movements and his act of breaking the monopoly of the brahmin over the king's council. The sight of a shudra taking a position of power was an eyesore for the brahmins of Magadh. With his death, they sought to retake the influence they had been losing. The son of Biswajit, Prince Pradyota would be their enemy, as he had vowed to honor the legacy of his father and continue his policy of merit before birthright. Thus, it was the disgruntled and hedonistic prince Ripunjaya who would be their candidate.

What would ensue was a rebellion. This rebellion found support from a section of the lower caste who had been viciously oppressed in course of war preparations. They would lend themselves to rebel army. Before, the brahmins could make their strike at the heart of the empire, the clever king Pradyota had secured his position with the army of Magadh under his command while succeeding in sending those with dubious loyalty to the western frontier, far away from the seat of power where they could not threaten his rule. The plans of the conspirators was now failing. They would have to rebel but their forces were no longer in Pataliputra. A chaotic and unplanned insurrection happened in the Kashi and Takshashila Janapads. Several divisions of club wielding warriors and an archer appeared on the borders of Takshashila while a division of warriors appeared south of Varanasi who brought with them mercenaries from Babylon.



Additional archer divisions were sent from Pataliputra to support the war effort at Kashi and Takshashila. It was at Kashi that the rebellion saw its first battle. An archer division preempted the strike by the rebel warrior approaching the rice fields which fed Indraprasth . The result was a vicious slaughter of the rebels. The club wielding warriors were no match for King Biswajit's archer divisions.



The rebels had begun to realize the futility of their cause. The divisions in the North West would not dare attack the garrisons at Takshashila or Indraprasth. Instead they undertook a much more unsavory strategy. Throughout the regions around Takshashila they would raid and pillage villages along the Sindhu river. Vast wheat fields cultivated for generations and marble quarries which had been built over decades, the legacy of King Srutunjaya, were being shamelessly destroyed.



To put an end to the last leg of the rebellion, King Pradyota ordered the merging of the archer divisions to the garrison at Indraprasth to create a vast strike force of 10,000 archers to exterminate the threat of rebellion once and for all.



On the plains of Kurukshetra where thousands of years ago, the fate of Bharatvarsha was written in the blood of battle the two armies met once again to decide the fate of Bharata. The battle was intense, as volleys after volleys of arrows were rained down upon the enemy. The warriors from the rebel side charged in vain and were slaughtered by the hundreds. The volleys from the archers on the enemy camp could not stop the advance of the imperial troops as they marched down and finished the remnants of the rebel army, ending with the hopes of a successful rebellion.



Prince Ripunjaya was not seen in the battle. The rebel commanders had perhaps hidden him away, or perhaps the prince himself was too scared to be in battle. Rumors were rife throughout the West on the whereabouts of the rogue prince, till his discovery leading a rebel contingent of warriors who had laid waste to Takshashila's marble quarries. In the last battle of the rebellion, the archer division stationed in Takshashila was mobilized to liberate the quarries. They performed their mission well. The warrior division was extinguished, its remnants scattered into oblivion and their leader executed. Prince Ripunjaya was captured and sent back to Pataliputra in chains where he was to be executed by elephant.



Peasant families who had lost kith and kin travelled to Pataliputra to see the spectacle of the rogue prince's execution.



With this execution came the ignominious end of the line of King Brihadratha. King Pradyota was now officially crowned, as emperor of Bharata. From him began a new line of monarchs to rule India. The dynasty of the Pradyota.

The Pradyota dynasty under its first king, would implement the grand vision that his father King Biswajit had envisioned. That the whole world should know the grandeur of the culture of Bharatvarsha. With the knowledge of polytheism, the shastras were now refined. Vedic religion came of age and a pantheon of gods were established to regularize the practice of ritual worship. No longer would the people of Bharat live under the shadow of primitivity. It was indeed the end of our beginning. The twilight of antiquity had come to pass.

Execution by elephant. What a way to go out.

That was intense holy crap!

@This.. is just the beginning

King Pradyota ended two wars together. Beyond the western frontier, he made peace with the Persians, and within the frontiers of the empire, he ended the rebellion of the rogue prince. His successful diplomacy with the Persians led to greater trade between our two civilizations out of an open border agreement.



With this peace came development. The building projects which were set into motion from King Srutunjaya's time would be completed under King Pradyota's reign. Takshashila now had a library which would attract scholars from all across the realm. Kashi completed a library and barracks for training troops. Indraprasth built a barracks as well in view of its ability to quickly produce legions of archers.




With these building projects completed, King Pradyota felt confident about moving ahead with building a great wonder.

The brahmins of Takshashila who studied in its newly built library found a set of shlokas previously unread and unknown hidden within the texts of the vedas and the epic of the Mahabharat. A particular kind of magic which could be mastered only by the wisest of priests was enshrined in these shlokas, once mastered it would give them the ability to view into the future and reveal the secrets of the unknown. A grand yagya was organized in Takshashila whose fire would never die. Funds were granted for the building of a grand alter at Takshashila to be built around this yagya.



At the same time that Takshashila built the grand yagya, the city of Indraprasth built a great temple which would be built for the holy triumvirate of the hindu pantheon. Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar. The three foremost forces of the universe, creation, preservation and destruction.



In the meantime explorations revealed more and more of the land the Greeks call Europa. Another hellenic peoples settled in this land on the fertile peninsula West of Greece. They claimed descent from Romulus and Remus and named themselves the Romans.



They were not a friendly people, having raised themselves from the rugged ground of Latium. They had advanced concepts of mathematics, numbers and iron working, but lacked the knowledge of meditation, agriculture or pottery. We made them a friendly offer in exchange for learning the secrets of Iron working, but were rebuffed. The Romans proved themselves thus, to be arrogant and full of conceit. There may not be friendship between our two peoples.

Our explorer who had travelled all of Europa were now sent South to settle in Greek lands as our emissary.



Half a century had passed as Bharata recovered under the rule of the King Pradyota. He saw fit to pass on the crown to his son and successor King Visakhayupa. He was not an innovator like his father was, nor particularly charismatic. Everything about him seemed to exude mediocrity, yet to his credit it must be said, that he carried on his father's building projects ably.

Even as Greece had built the wondrous Temple of Artemis, Bharata was near finishing the grand alter for what the priests were now calling the Oracle of Takshashila.



Day in and day out, the brahmins would keep the great pyre alive with wood and oils. Each day people would come to contribute to the fire making it ever larger and grander.

However, with the weak rule of Visakhayupa, the dynasty begun to fail. High taxes and slow development of civic improvements, failing health and misery drove the lower castes of Magadh to revolt. The peasants and the workers took arms against the king. A king who had become so weak, the very thought of revolt killed him. A new king would now be appointed by the lords of the various janapadas and the Acharyas would give their blessings. The rebels were pacified, but the disruption led to a flight of citizens from Pataliputra.

King Haryanka ascended the throne, and with him begun the Haryanka dynasty. This would see India through one of its most glorious periods.

But there was another force emerging in the horizon. The reign of Srutunjaya saw the emergence of a caste system which cast a third to two fifth's of the populace of the empire into a lesser existence. Shudras were deprived of any right to life or right to knowledge. Against the ritualistic and corrupt monopoly of the brahmins, there was a protest movement led by those among brahmins who were discontent with these material ways, and sought enlightenment through meditation. They sought liberation from the oppressive realities of a caste ridden society. The development of priesthood had opened many new paths for aspiring brahmins and those seeking the supreme truth.

One among them was the son of an oligarch from the village of Lumbini.

Siddhartha Gautama was born unto nobility, but he had a tender heart and an inquisitive mind. These traits would lead him to confront the harsh realities of the caste system and lead him to strive to uncover the underlying basis of human suffering. Under the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha meditated in search of enlightenment. There he attained nirvana and became Buddha.



The second Haryanka king, Bimbisara had now taken power. All the mahajanapadas swore fealty to the new overlord of Bharat, the king emperor of Magadh, Bimbisara. Under his reign, new temples were completed in the city of Varanasi. Kashi became a centre of learning and spiritualism. There the Buddha preached his message of enlightenment :



"There are four truths that we must learn,

1)The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, unsatisfactoriness)
2)The truth of the origin of dukkha
3)The truth of the cessation of dukkha
4)The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha

One attains enlightenment by realizing these four truths and overcoming them."

The Buddha had two disciples, Tapussa and Bhallika, they were merchants from Kashi. These merchants would take the learning of the Buddha and spread his message all throughout the realm. They would establish this revolutionary new faith, that broke from brahminical orthodoxy and ritual practices, disregard the divisions of caste and promise only the perpetual path to enlightenment.

At the place where Buddha attained enlightenment, King Bimbisara who had become one of his followers, had built a shrine where pilgrims from all over the empire would congregate. This congregation began with a modest number of fifty disciples, but would grow to ten thousand. The Mahabodhi shrine became a wonder in its own right.

Oh dear, I wonder how the Buddhist religion is going to fare with heavy Hindus. Hopefully they'll respect each other.

I sure hope so! Also, you have a duplicate image. The image where you have your emissaries in Greece shows up twice.

TheNoob said:

Oh dear, I wonder how the Buddhist religion is going to fare with heavy Hindus. Hopefully they'll respect each other.

Click to expand...

Here's a hint :

Did India have Militant Buddhists like Feudal Japan?

because I'm really hoping for some Militant Buddhists

If not we can pretend can't we?


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Before I make the next update I'm going to post a link to this wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajatashatru

The rise of The Buddha and his following went parallel with the rise of the Haryanka dynasty. Emperor Bimbisara was drawn towards the Buddha and his message of enlightenment. He was a man of power surrounded with the material pleasures and wealth that the world had to offer. His was the hand that ruled the greatest of empires in the world, but compared to the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha, all this would weigh no more than the feather of a bird.

But emperor Bimbisara would have a nemesis. None could have imagined that this nemesis would be his own true blood. The emperor's son Ajatshatru was an accomplished warrior and much drawn to the ways of the kshatriya. He had no inclination to the learning of the Buddha nor share in his father's spiritual pursuits. On the contrary, Ajatshatru, whose name means the conqueror of foes, grew wary of his father's ways. Before he became King, Emperor Bimbisara had entrusted Ajatshatru with the grand building projects in Indraprasth and Takshashila. Yet, it was under the influence of the Buddha that he was forbidden from using forced labour to finish the construction projects, notwithstanding the complaints of the Brahmins in the West.

Day in and day out he plotted to the downfall of his own father. Ambition and pride had taken him. But the last straw that would break his patience would come from an unlikely source. The Buddha had a disciple whose name was Devadutta, who grew an enmity with the noble soul. He strove to build his own sangh which would rival the sangh at Pataliputra. He saw to Ajatshatru to fulfill his ambitions. Thus, the catalyst had been born which would release a monster upon the people of Bharata.

Ajatshatru meticulously planned his coup. Those who were loyal to the king were separated from those whose loyalty could be brought. And then there were those who were loyal to Ajatshatru and became partners in crime with the prince. At midnight in the first night of the month of Shravan, soldiers loyal to Prince Ajatshatru would enter into the palace compound and capture Emperor Bimbisara. It is said, that the soldiers dragged the emperor to the dungeons below the ground, even as the queen pleaded for mercy. Cold hearted and cruel Ajatshatru was unpurterbed. The morning next, he announced before the people of Pataliputra, that a new monarch had ascended the throne of Magadh. That there was a new emperor of Bharatvarsh, and that emperor Bimbisara had peacefully abdicated his throne. Fearing anarchy would destroy the kingdom, Emperor Bimbisara willingly emerged for one last public appearance enforcing his son's rule. Crown Prince Ajatshatru was now, King Ajatshatru, king of Magadh and overlord of Bharat.



His first action as King Emperor was to strike down his father's edict made under the influence of the Buddha, that no more shudras should be forced to work against their will in construction projects. Or conscripted against their will. The Yagya kund of Takshashila was going to be completed using forced labor. Ten thousand shudra laborers were worked till death in the construction of a new sacred ground. The oracle, people called it, the flames of which would reveal the knowledge of the future.



At the very moment that the oracle was finished, the flames of the sacred fire seemed to rise in a massive spiral. The priests who had tended to the fire endlessly since its birth, were consumed by the flames. But they did not burn. None at the yagya kund burned. The fire was bizarre, surreal. It felt almost as a gentle breeze, yet it seemed like any other fire. From within these flames brahma the creator, and his wife, Goddess Saraswati presented themselves. The priests sat in an almost trance like state and listened as the gods recited the secrets to knowledge from beyond. There were seven brahmins who sat at the yagya. When the oracle had presented itself, only one was left to tell the tale. It was through him, that the secrets of metal casting was finally revealed to our people. Armed with this knowledge, the emperor would approach the Greeks for an exchange of know how. Our new found knowledge of Metal Casting was exchanged for the Greek's knowledge of working Iron. Greek hoplites were becoming renowned for their prowess in war, now Bharata too shall show its strength.



The knowledge of Metal casting would allow the people of Bharata to make magnificent steel monuments out of iron and other metals. The knowledge of the Ashtadhatu was now at hand, allowing artisans to create beautiful works of art. But most importantly, it allowed the construction of strong warships capable of smashing galleys to pieces ! Though naval warfare was of no import to the empire as of now, it would open up other opportunities in the future. In the meantime, Emperor Ajatshatru's mind fell upon other designs, as he stood before the iron mines at Kashi.

Finally! No more clubs!


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yay! we can build iron-man now