I find myself still mentally in thrall to the romance of Ujjain and encouraged by your responses to last week’s column, I wonder if you would like to revisit more stories from its unique legacy in Indian culture.
The best-known story is from when Sri Krishna was sent to study there with his brother Balarama at Rishi Sandipani’s gurukul. Krishna helped all his classmates and grew especially protective of a meek, timid boy called Sudama.
One day, when Krishna and Sudama were sent to collect firewood from the forest, it suddenly began to rain.
“Krishna! I’m afraid,” quavered Sudama, shrinking from the thunderous downpour. “I’ll look after you, be brave,” said Krishna. “Let’s hide under this big tree. Its leaves will keep us dry. Quick, over here.”
After a while, Krishna said, “Sudama, I’m hungry, aren’t you? Where’s that packet of poha that I saw Guru Ma give you as we were leaving?”
“Oh, Krishna, I’m so sorry. I ate it all up myself when you went ahead of me; I was that hungry,” confessed Sudama.
“Never mind,” chuckled Krishna. “But see that you give me my share of poha another time, Sudama.”
“I will,” promised Sudama fervently.
Krishna was so divinely adept that he rapidly learnt not only the warrior’s skill of archery and the fourteen sciences but also ‘the sixty-four arts’ from Guru Sandipani.
When his education was complete, Krishna was lovingly blessed by his guru and his guru’s wife and took leave, though not without rescuing the guru’s long-kidnapped son as guru dakshina, by which Krishna also obtained his war-conch, Panchajanya.
Sudama kept his promise. When he finally paid a visit to Krishna at his royal capital of Dwaraka, he took along a small bundle of poha, that too, borrowed by his wife from a neighbour.
But seeing the splendour of Dwaraka, Sudama was ashamed of his humble present. Krishna, however, noticed that Sudama was trying to hide something and took the poha from him.
By eating just two handfuls of Sudama’s poor but sincere offering, he bestowed great wealth on Sudama and redeemed him from crushing poverty. A living cultural celebration of this story is that poha is modern Ujjain’s favourite snack, as is its spicy version in nearby Indore, Maharani Ahilyabai’s city.
King Vikramaditya’s court at Ujjain reportedly housed a collection of eminent scholars called the Navaratna or Nine Gems, including the great physician and healer Dhanvantari, a master of Ayurveda and the author of an important medical treatise.
Varahamihira was a well-known astronomer and astrologer whose fame spread to faraway kingdoms, as did the news of his specially built observatory at Ujjain.
Vetal Bhat, author of the widely known Vetal Pachheesi or Twenty-Five Tales of The Ghoul, wrote elegant, witty stories that both entertained and served as lessons in character-building, ethics and diplomacy for kings and commoners alike.
Vararuchi, the great linguist, wrote a formidable work on Prakrit grammar. He is also said to have authored the collection of stories called Singhasan Batteesi or Thirty-Two Tales of The Throne.
Today, they are part of Indian folklore. In their time, they upheld a very high standard of kingship, personified by Vikramaditya, as illustrated in the Singhasan Batteesi.
Its hero, Raja Bhoj, is informed of a strange occurrence. A little village boy turns exceedingly wise and just whenever he sits on a particular mound of earth. So perfect are his verdicts that many people seek him out to settle their disputes.
The mound is duly excavated, and the stepped throne of Vikramaditya is revealed, supported by thirty-two lovely, lifelike statuettes.
However, when Raja Bhoj prepares to ascend the throne, he is halted by a statuette speaking in a human voice: “Stop, O king! It is true that you are brave, virtuous and charitable. But this throne belonged to none other than King Vikramaditya. Can you really compare yourself to him? I, Ratnamanjari, challenge you to answer honestly if you are worthy, after you hear my story about Vikramaditya’s virtue.”
Raja Bhoj graciously agrees, and after hearing the statuette’s story about Vikramaditya’s good qualities, he honestly replies that he cannot match the legendary king.
Raja Bhoj is halted at every step by one statuette after another with a story about Vikramaditya. Raja Bhoj humbly admits each time that he is made of much commoner clay and returns Vikramaditya’s judgement seat to the ground.
Among the Navaratna, playwright Kalidasa’s legend is the stuff of high literary romance.
The story goes that he, an uneducated rustic, was married through palace intrigue to the learned princess Vidyottama. When she discovered his illiteracy, she sent him away to beg the Devi for redemption. Through the grace of Goddess Kali, he acquired learning. His first, grateful composition was the exquisite paean ‘Shyamala Dandakam’, which many still hear and recite.
When he went home, Vidyottama asked him in Sanskrit: “Asti kaschid vaak-vishesh?” Is there something unique to speech? She meant, “Have you anything to say?”
Kalidasa began three of his major works with those very words, as a grand answer that there is something to speech.
His play Kumara Sambhavam or The Birth of the War Lord, about the marriage of Shiva and Parvati, begins with the word ‘Asti’.
Raghuvamsha or The Lineage of Sri Rama begins with ‘Vaak’.
‘Kaschid’ occurs in the first stanza of Meghdoot, The Cloud Messenger, an epic poem that vividly describes the beauty of the North Indian landscape, with Ujjain as its jewel.
I could go on, for Ujjain’s legends are many and marvellous.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)