When we first meet the great king of the Magadh empire, Bimbisar, in Tanushree Podder’s Bimbisar’s Curse, he is weak and infirm, imprisoned by his son in a cold, dark dungeon. As he reflects on the circumstances that brought him to this sorry pass, history unfolds before us.
Early on in the narrative, Bimbisar vows to avenge his father’s humiliation at the hands of the Anga king. He goes to war with the Angas and kills their king, which earns him the wrath of the Anga queen. The curse in the book’s title is one that she hurls at Bimbisar: that every king of the Haryanka Dynasty will be killed by his own son.
The Magadh empire was a famous and prosperous one in ancient India. Bimbisar belonged to the first of the three dynasties that ruled it. During the Magadh rule, two new religions, Buddhism and Jainism, emerged. Bimbisar embraced the former and would consult with the Buddha on various matters.
The author has devoted quite a lot of the book to the women in the king’s life—his mother and the three princesses who become his queens. The different personalities of the three queens are carefully delineated. They have no real agency, and the rules and regulations of royal life govern their steps. They have no choice but to accept that the king has to marry multiple times, more for reasons of state than love.
The Queen Mother is the proverbial strength behind the throne. A wise, clever woman, adept at statecraft, she guides her son every step of the way. The calm and composed first queen accepts everything with pragmatism. Not so the second queen; she is strong-willed, tends to speak her mind, has a temper, and a wild spirit. She also has the unfortunate fate of being mother to the son who will spell Bimbisar’s doom.
True to the lives of kings, there were other women, too, who were part of it but not through marriage. Here, it is the famous courtesan Amrapali with whom Bimbisar has a son. But this part of the book re-treads ground covered by the author in her earlier book on the courtesan, rendering it redundant. It was probably included because of the repercussions that it had on the king’s life.
And then there is the son. A wayward boy who grows into an impetuous, arrogant, and dangerously ambitious young man. Bimbisar’s act, in coronating him king while he himself is still alive, does not save the former from a dark fate. The shadow of the curse of patricide still looms large.
In a way, the story is the chronicle of a death foretold, but before Bimbisar reaches his lamentable end, the author lets us see that it is a life well-lived. This is historical fiction ‘lite’ but immersive and engaging.