THE HOYSALA COMMANDER

(A STORY)

BY MASTI VENKATESA IYENGAR

(Rendered by the author from Kannada)

(1)

It was the year Dundubhi, 944 of the Saka Era. Kamarasa, founder of the Hoysala line of kings, was ruling in Molanur. On the fifth day of the bright fortnight in Pushya, there was music in the yard of a fairly big house in one of the streets of the capital. Ladies, young and old, of the neighbouring households were coming into the house or leaving it with presents and sharing in the joy of a domestic celebration.

The house was the house of Joga, a commander in the employ of King Kama. The house was celebrating the seventh month of the pregnancy of Joga’s young wife. This house was to the young woman not only her husband’s house, but her mother also lived there.

Vasanti‘s friends had decorated her and placed her upon the festal seat and were doing her the honours of coming motherhood. The elderly ladies were singing blessings and performing the usual ceremonial to ensure good health and safe delivery.

Commander Joga stood near the doorway of his room on one side, of the hall, looking with eager joy at the beauty of his young wife as she was seated on the festal seat. Vasanti, half shy and other half proud that her husband should be looking at her in the presence of so many people, was flushing red and receiving the blessings of elders, pretending to be unaware of his presence.

A friend of Vasanti observed Joga for a moment and said something to the young wife and smiled a little. Vasanti also smiled and, as she did so, bent her head in shyness and pleasure. An elderly lady made the usual mark with red powder on Vasanti’s face and moved behind her to place some flowers in her hair.

“Taka Taka, Taka Taka, Taka Taka” from the street all of sudden came the sound of the army drum. Everyone was startled Vasanti, her eyes opened wide in fear, looked towards her husband and his face also showed a shadow of unhappiness. Why had this sound come in the midst of festive joy? What a pity?

The sound was a summons to the troops of the Hoysala king. The drummer had started to proclaim to the men of the army that the king desired them to gather together in the parade ground that evening. Within a few minutes a special messenger from the palace came to Joga and communicated to him in person the wishes of the king.

The joy of the festival ebbed visibly. Those who had assembled brought the ceremonies to a conclusion somehow. Desiring not to frighten the wife more than was inevitable, Joga tried to talk and move about as usual. But that wife seemed to be cast down by a new anxiety adding to the fatigue of the morning ceremonies and the fact that she was carrying a child.

Immediately after food, Joga went to the palace and learnt the details about the summons.

(2)

The Kadamba king of Banavasi was overlord to the Hoysala. Enemies of Banavasi were moving from the ghat boundary in a hostile expedition towards the Hoysala boundary. The commander of the boundary guards had sent word of the move both to Banavasi and to Molanur. Nripakama decided immediately to do his duty as feudatory and sent the drum summons over his territory.

When it comes to fighting, no soldier who knows the taste of fighting and is not forgetful of his duty hesitates to go. To cause injury and receive injury, to see others die and to be ready to die oneself, is not pleasant nor exactly sport. But to stay behind is no pleasure and definitely not sport. When honour summons to the fight, to stay behind is shame.

Yet one has a home and friends and for once, for some special reason, some of these may desire that one should not go to the fight. Joga’s mother and his mother-in-law arranged through a friend to bring to the notice of the king that the commander’s wife was with child seven months. Both the women had sacrificed their husbands in fights and had brought up Joga as the one boy who represented both the families. There was no other male in the household and the young wife was with child. It would be a gracious thing if the king should exempt the commander from duty on this occasion.

Joga himself was not aware of all this. Prepared like anyone else to start with the troops when required, he appeared on parade in the evening and stood Near Nripakama when he came to review his men.

The king saw the men of the various troops that had come, allotted their tasks to the different commanders and directed them to start for the boundary the next day. The senior officers were assembled and told of the disposition that had been ordered and requested to see to the execution of the plan.

Joga was present in this assembly. But the king assigned him no task. He, therefore, came forward and doing obeisance to the king said, “No section has been assigned to me.” The king said, “That will be done in the palace.”

Joga did not go home. From the parade ground he went to the palace, waited until the king had finished evening worship and supper, and appeared before him again to receive orders.

Nripakama said, “I understand, Joganna, that the feast of decorating with flowers took place in your house just today.”

“Yes, Sire,” said the commander, “We submitted presents about this to your eminence yesterday.”

The king personally liked the idea of taking Joga with him. But he could also imagine the state of mind of the commander’s mother and mother-in-law. He had reconciled himself to leaving him behind He knew that the proposal would be distasteful to the young man himself, courageous by nature and keenly alive to the sense of honour. Unable to decide immediately, he told Joga, “I have to leave the capital in the hands of a competent commander. Let me think over everything. I shall tell you tomorrow. Now go home and rest,”

(3)

Joga went home and reported all that occurred to his mother and mother-in-law and asked, “Did you send word to the king suggesting that I should be left behind?”

The young wife looked at her mother. That mother looked at Joga’s mother. Joga’s mother turned a firm look towards her son and said, “I should have said nothing if your wife had been confined. But I felt that you ought not to go out when she is still carrying. At any rate I thought that the king should know how things stood. It is Our business to submit the facts to him. After that, we carry out commands.”

“If we indicate to the king what would be agreeable to us he is sure to command that very thing. If I make the least little sign to show that I prefer to stay behind, he will not want me. The command to stay would, in that case, not be a command. It is an assent to a wish expressed by us.”

“Son, we have not been ungrateful and we have not been unmindful of what is due from us. If we stretched our hands to receive food, we have stretched our hands to receive death also. We have fed on sorrow as we have on food. Your great-grand-father died in the service of the king. Your grand-father died in the same service. When you were a boy, your father closed his eyes in the same service. When your wife was a little girl, her father closed his eyes in the same service. All died for the king. True, the debt is not cleared. But we do not now refuse to pay it. How is it more service to fight on the battle-field and less service to guard the capital? Wait till your wife is confined. Then, having looked at your child and said a word of comfort to the mother, you can go to the fight. We shall not stand in the way.”

“Mother, I agree that it is service to the king, whether I go to battle line or stay to guard the capital. I am a commander of king’s bodyguard. My task is to guard the king’s person. When he is in any danger from the enemy I should guard him or die. That is my task. I can do this if I am on the battlefield. I cannot do it by staying in the capital. Supposing I stay in the town and there in the course of the fight a hair of that head comes to harm from the enemy, the food I eat would that moment be poison to me. My ancestors would fall low from high in heaven. The child of your daughter-in-law would live to hang its head in shame for the cowardice of its father. How then can I stay to guard the capital? It is like saying that the sun might come but not the light with him, to say that the king should go to the fight and leave me here. Give me your permission, my mother. Let my mother-in-law give me her blessings. I shall make my wife agree and leave tomorrow morning.”

The mother heard the son’s words. They seemed right to her. Though unwillingly, she gave the permission.

The mother-in-law said, “It is not as if your son does not know. What is there for us to say? If he thinks he ought to go, that must be so. Let him go, and may God guard him and send him back to us well and happy!”

The wife said nothing then. If she said anything later, it was known only to Joga and the spirit that guarded their nuptial chamber.

Next morning Joga started with the king.

(4)

Nripakama’s forces stationed themselves along the boundary. Some troops of the king of Banavasi came and joined. There was not, however, much of them. It was apparent that the principal had left to the feudatory a disproportionate share of the burden of protecting the realm.

The Hoysala troops waited for very nearly a month in expectation of the enemy and finally came into touch with them one day. Concealing themselves in the valleys and behind the jungles and attacking the defending troops from the side and from behind, the enemy troops teased the Hoysala forces for ten days. It became quite a task to beat a number of small troops of the enemy’s men and drive them to one field and force them to fight.

When this was done, troop met troop and a fight took place. Nripakama was a hero, without doubt. For two days continuously he led his forces in person and forced the enemy to move back. He seemed to be present at ten points at the same moment and his flag waved in front of his troops at all those points, heartening his men beyond all measure.

The young commander of his bodyguard moved wherever the king moved, ever beside him, and fought so well as to win universal admiration. As a hound of the chase follows its master, taking joy in the sport, Joga shared the fight with his master in simple joy of heart.

To the king who knew how matters stood in the young commander’s household, this care-free courage of the youth seemed astonishing. On the evening of the second day, he praised Joga in the presence of the troops and expressed admiration for his poise. The commander only said in reply, “It is the virtue of the hand that feeds me.”

Next day the battle continued and, in the midst of it, Kannama the Kongalvar Chief, made a target of the Hoysala king and rushed in a sudden onset towards him.

There had been no reason to suspect this sudden attack. The fight was wearing a different shape and the bodyguard were otherwise busy. Suddenly Kannama rushed on horseback towards Kama and, his sword uplifted and ready to descend, was almost by his side.

The king was taken by surprise and it looked as if he could not evade the blow. A fe,w of his men who noticed this from a distance, thought that all was over with the king and grieved helplessly.

The sword that flashed from on high like lightning did not, however, touch the king. For, that moment, Joga stood between the descending sword and the person of his king and diverted the stroke. At the same moment, he speared the pony that Kannama was riding. The pony fell to the ground and with it Kannama. The next moment Kannama disengaged himself from his pony and rushed at Joga and slashed at him. Joga fell to the ground, but picked himself up and rushed upon Kannama.

Kannama ran his dagger into Joga’s body. Joga fell down and died almost immediately. The king, however, was saved.

(5)

The town knew, of course, that all who went to the fight could not return alive and well. When a month and a half was over, and long before the troops returned victorious, the capital had news of the men who had lost their lives The whole province knew that young Joga had died.

Not merely that he died, but every detail of the manner of that death was known all over the country. Songs in praise of the young commander who sacrificed his own life to save the life of his king had been composed and were sung by the people.

Joga’s mother-in-law was grieved to see that widowhood had come to her daughter at an even earlier age than to herself. Joga’s mother burnt in grief and thought, “This was my portion in life.” On the day that the news came of the husband’s death, the young wife had been overcome by sorrow and given premature birth to a son and fainted.

The next day Joga’s wife told her mother that, her husband being dead, she could not live any longer and she would burn herself as Sati with Joga’s bones.

The news reached the king and he sent a message to her:

If I, Hoysala, were God, I would not have allowed Joga’s life to close. But I am only a man. He who is dead, is not merely my commander, but my son. I am so grieved myself.

“The child that is orphaned by Joga’s death is to me a grandson. That child has suffered grievous loss in the death of its father. If it should lose its mother too, how could it face its life! Death has not taken one man only. It has taken a hundred men. If, to the hundred men whom the enemy has killed, sorrow should add some more hundreds, what shall the king rule?–a large cremation ground?

“Joga’s bodily frame has gone. But his breath lives in his son and his name is as a light to the country of his birth. Joga’s wife should think of that child, should look at that light, and learn to bear her grief. She should endure all the pain that life has brought, and learn to bear with life. This she should do to enable the king to bear his life.”

(6)

Elders advised and the younger people begged; and the little one cried and tugged at the mother’s entrails. Unaware how she brought herself to do it, Vasanti consented to live.

On the day of the cradle-feast the king sent presents to the dead commander’s little son and got him named ‘Joga’ after his father. On the same day he had put upon the little child’s forehead the insignia of a commander of the Hoysala.

Some days later; the king erected at the spot where his heroic protector fell a monumental stone in commemoration of his courage and sacrifice.

The grandmothers of little Joga prayed to God that the little boy might grow up a hero like his father and that he might win renown, only differing from his father in length of days on earth. What the mother prayed for, her heart knew and its God.

No monumental stone has been found to commemorate the younger Joga. It would perhaps not be wrong to assume that he lived longer than his father.

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