Nothing Is Blue

By Biman Nath

It is the seventh century, a tumultuous time in India. Poised between the last of its empires and the beginning of western invasions, there is an ominous pause in the history of the subcontinent. It is also a time shrouded in mysteries and secrets. A few Buddhist monks have begun to dabble in tantric rituals. Elsewhere, a crucial astronomical discovery has been hushed up. And then follows the event after which there can be no turning back: a student monk from Nalanda - the great seat of ancient learning - stumbles on secrets better left hidden, and cannot be left to tell the tale. A vivid journey into the medieval world of new religions and changing sensibilities,Nothing Is Blue is an unforgettable tale about the cul-de-sacs of history, of pain and memory, of hope and fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 27, 2009
• ISBN: 9789351360513

Biman Nath

Biman Nath is an astro-physicist by profession and writes regularly for the Hindu. He lives in Bangalore with his wife and son. This is his first novel.

Book preview

Prologue

654 AD, CHANG’AN (CHINA)

The events of the day were destined to distract the monk.

An audience with the emperor in the morning had brought back memories of India. And a letter he sat down to write in the afternoon made him feel nostalgic.

A message had come from the palace the day before; the emperor wished to meet bhikkhu Xuanzang in private. He felt uncertain, as he always did about royalty. He felt that their words, like the mazy palaces they built, concealed more than what they revealed.

The meeting turned out to be different though. Emperor Gaozong requested him to think about a nunnery for Baocheng, the teacher of the Crown Prince, who wished to be a nun. Then a message was sent for her to come and meet the monk. Talking to her, Xuanzang had recalled another meeting: that with the Indian Emperor Harsha and his sister Rajyashri, who wanted to become a bhikkhuni, a nun.

Xuanzang told emperor Gaozong that he would discuss the matter with his fellow monks, and came back to the monastery. There was a visitor from India who was going to leave the next day, and he wanted to send a letter to an acquaintance through the visitor.

He began to write: ‘Bhikshu Xuanzang of the great T’ang Empire begs to address this to the Respected Tripitaka Master Prajña-deva of the Mahabodhi Monastery.

‘More than ten years have elapsed since I bade farewell to Your Reverence. My yearning for Your Reverence increases with the passage of time, as we are separated by great distance, and with scarce communication between each other.

‘The arrival of Bhikshu Dharmarudha brought your kind enquiries, and news of your good health, which suddenly opened up the vistas of memory. There were also two rolls of fine cotton cloth and one fascicle of hymns. I feel rather embarrassed as my lack of virtue does not deserve such kindness.

‘Of the scriptures that I have collected, I have already translated thirty odd works, and the rest will be completed this year…

‘Taking liberty of the closeness we shared in the time I spent in your revered company, I make a sincere request: when I was crossing the river Indus, I lost a horse-load of scriptures of which I am enclosing a list herewith. I would be deeply indebted if you could kindly send them to me when you write next.’

He sighed, remembering the fateful day he had crossed the river Indus on the way back from India. A large caravan of two dozen horses carried his books, idols and relics of the Buddha, and everything else that he had brought from India. The porters had difficulty guiding the horses down the steep climb of the mountain. There was no easy foothold on the slope covered with loose gravel, and zigzag steps of the reluctant horses occasionally dislodged boulders. The rocks plunged into the river in an eerie silence; the howling wind of the mountains had deafened Xuanzang.

The river was turbulent, its water chilly; the vigour of its current scared every member of the group. The porters had quickly built a few rafts, and Xuanzang offered a prayer when the horses boarded the rafts and began to cross the river one after another. The current in the water swerved the rafts violently at times. The horses stamped their hooves in panic, and steep hills on two sides echoed their shrill, frightful screams. But the porters had managed to steer them back from danger, and the rafts reached the other shore one by one.

All except one.

Xuanzang and the porters watched helplessly when one of the rafts swung dangerously in the middle of the river and the ropes gave way. The raft had quickly collapsed, fallen apart and crumbled in moments, and the horse, along with its load, was flushed away by the turbulent current. Only the porter on board managed to swim against the current and reach the other bank, wet, terrified and barely alive. The last strains of the screaming, struggling horse resounded through the barren and bleak mountains before disappearing in their labyrinths. The memory of the fading screams haunted Xuanzang till this day.

He discovered much later what he had lost, after unloading other horses and going through the rest of the books and relics. He made a list of the lost books hoping that someday he would be able to get copies from India.

But there was one book he knew he would never get back.

It was a book that would have stopped the madness of calendars going out of step with seasons, and would have fixed the dates of monastery festivals once and for all. The book that a woman had once written in desperation, a woman who had lost her tongue because she spoke too much—a woman who was chastised for trying to prove others wrong.The book with the secrets of the stars was now lost forever.

The secrets that had wrecked the life of someone to whom Xuanzang had once been close.

He had met Ananda in Nalanda monastery in India. Ananda was one of the few student monks chosen by the principal of the monastery to look after the needs of bhikkhu Xuanzang, their guest. Ananda and the bhikkhu had found themselves immediately drawn to each other, and their minds had forged a connection that bound them for many years—a bond that often tugged at the bhikkhu’s mind and made him feel listless. But he could never tell anyone about Ananda, because Ananda had got mixed up with the heretics in the monastery.

‘You, holy sir, are profound in scholarship, eloquent in speech, firm in belief… I wish you all the best in your endeavour in promoting the noble tradition and disseminating the true dharma. But Mahayana Buddhism surpasses all other schools in its perfection in reasoning. It is regrettable that Your Reverence has reservations about it. It is like preferring a sheep-drawn cart to a bullock-drawn carriage. Enlightened as Your Reverence is, why such persistence in unbelief?’

It was getting late and the missive had become long. He must attend the evening prayers now.

‘Now, there is a messenger returning to India. I send you my sincere regards and a little memento as a token of my gratitude, although it is too inadequate to express my deep feelings for Your Reverence.

Yours in gratitude and prayer,

Bhikshu Xuanzang’

As he finished the letter, a thought flashed in his mind. The visitor was about forty years old. And it was almost twenty-five years ago, Xuanzang thought, that Ananda would have joined the monastery as a novice of fifteen. If he were alive, Ananda would have been the age of the visitor today.

He shut his eyes for a moment, and wondered if destiny could have taken a different turn, and if Ananda could have survived the treacherous circumstances after all.

Or, if his fate was doomed from the beginning.

1

631 AD, NALANDA MONASTERY

Ananda woke up with a feeling of sinking in darkness. It was cold and dark, and for a moment he thought he had wet his bed. As he slowly gathered his wits and his robe, he realized that he had kicked a water pitcher in his sleep. The sharp tingle of cold water on his legs embarrassed him. He should have been careful and not put the pitcher close to his mat on the floor. He felt ashamed that he was yet to get used to the new surroundings. Even the darkness of the room felt unfamiliar to him and made him aware of how distant he was from his home and his parents.

Ananda sat up shivering in the cold, and then scrambled in the dark for a piece of cloth to arrest the flow of water on the floor. He did not want to awake Kushala, a fellow novice who shared his room, with the noise of mopping the floor. He dropped a piece of cloth as quietly as he could on the water that had collected on the floor, gathered the shards of the pitcher and piled them up in a corner to be discarded later.

A diffused light entered the room through a gap under the wooden door. Ananda did not feel like going back to sleep. He tiptoed across the room, quietly opened the door, and sat down on the wooden threshold of the door. He reflected on the new life he had embarked on, and was overcome with a feeling of alienation to his new self— the bareness of his prickly, shaved head, the sound of his new monastic name. For a moment he longed to be home.

Although he had been in Nalanda for a few months now, it had not been easy getting accustomed to the life in a sangharama, especially the solitude and silence of the monastery at night. His days were kept busy with studying and helping senior monks. In fact, he enjoyed every moment of it. This was precisely what he had wished for all those years of childhood, ever since his village teacher told him about Nalanda. Getting admitted into the Nalanda Monastery was a dream come true.

But he felt lonely when days ended after prayer sessions and evening classes, when samaneras, the novices, were instructed to retire to their rooms. Talking to Kushala provided a certain distraction, but Kushala often went out at night—he never told Ananda where. Ananda usually lay awake long after Kushala left. Memories of his parents and of his younger brother often wandered into his thoughts; the memory of his toothless grandmother and her stories….

The corridor in front of the row of rooms looked endless in the faint and diffused light. Ananda wrapped the quilt tightly around his body, and covering his shaved head, sat with his chin resting on his knees.

‘Feeling cold?’

Ananda heard Kushala’s voice behind him. He felt he would recognize Kushala’s high-pitched and nasal voice even in complete darkness—Kushala’s manner of speaking would give him away anywhere. He came from a faraway place, at the far end of the Himalayas in the northwest.

‘Very!’ Ananda replied with clenched teeth.

Kushala picked up another quilt from the room, and crouched on the wooden threshold beside Ananda. ‘Don’t you want to get back to sleep?’ He yawned and said, ‘Looks like you’ve made a mess of the room. It’s all wet inside.’

Ananda mumbled an apology. Then, to distract Kushala’s attention, asked him what kept him busy the previous night. Kushala pursed his lips, and looked away. They did not speak for a while. Then Ananda asked if he thought dawn would come soon. He did not fancy sitting in the cold for hours, he said.

‘Me too.’ Kushala rubbed his toes and tucked them inside the quilt, guarding them against the chill, and asked, ‘Do you miss home?’

Ananda looked at Kushala, his chin still resting on his knees. ‘Very much. What about you?’

‘I’m sure every samanera does.’ Kushala’s words, Ananda felt for a moment, had a sting like the early morning air.

Kushala asked him, ‘So, who do you miss most?’

Ananda looked back with a blank stare. It had never occurred to him to rank his family members in any order.

‘Your parents, perhaps?’

‘My grandmother,’ Ananda spoke after a few moments of silence.

‘She must be really special to you.’

‘Of course,’ nodded Ananda. ‘And she told me stories. I really miss them.’

‘What kind of stories?’ Kushala asked. For a moment Ananda wondered if there was a faint sign of mockery in Kushala’s voice, if he found it silly to miss a grandmother’s stories at this age. Kushala had a strange, almost scornful, smile on his face, and Ananda did not know what to make of it. He decided not to care, and drily said they were just like any grandmother’s stories. ‘Fairy tales,’ he said, ‘sometimes, stories of our king.’

‘Is there a famous king where you come from?’ Kushala asked in a chirpy voice.

‘There was a famed king once. The palace is not far from our village.’

‘He must’ve been a small village king then. Have you ever been to a big city?’ Kushala asked. ‘Do you know what a big palace looks like?’

Ananda kept quiet. In the past few months he had come to know a good deal about his fellow samanera, especially his style of speaking in jest. Kushala seemed to jump at the first opportunity to snub people around him, try to out-do others even when no one competed with him. Yet, Kushala was also the first one to hold out a helping hand to fellows in need. He had joined Nalanda a few months before Ananda, and helped him in getting acquainted with the life of a samanera. It confused Ananda when Kushala spoke with apparent sarcasm; he did not know how to react.

‘I’ve been to a big city,’ Ananda said, ‘and I know what a big palace looks like.’

Kushala hurried to calm him, and asked which big city he had visited. Ananda told him that the small monastery at Raktamrittika— the ‘Red-clay’ monastery—where he spent a few months before coming to Nalanda, was on the outskirts of Karnasuvarna, the capital of Gauda.

Kushala laughed at the name of the monastery.

‘I think it is a pretty apt name. The soil there is reddish, you know,’ Ananda defended.

‘But why did you go there instead of Nalanda?’

‘My parents thought Nalanda was too far from home. They thought I should get admitted to a nearby monastery.’

‘A-ha, mother’s pet, are you?’ Kushala’s eyes glistened even in the faint light; he was clearly in a mood to tease. Ananda decided to ignore him and looked away at the corridor.

The monks’ rooms were arranged around a square yard. Samaneras, the novices, had their rooms on the ground floor, separated from the yard by a corridor and a row of round pillars. The upper floors had rooms for samanas, the ordained monks. From where they sat, Ananda and Kushala could only see a tiny part of the sky. The wide roof over the corridor and the upper floors hid most of the sky from their view. It was beginning to show a pale light.Dawn was creeping into the sky.

Soon the monastery would be alive with activities. After breakfast, desks would be set up throughout the yard and outside the building, and teachers would take up their seats behind those desks for their discourses. Not just the vihara, the building in which Ananda and Kushala stayed, but the whole of Nalanda would buzz with a hum of prayers, chanting and studying. Another day in the monastery would begin in earnest.

Nalanda had a dozen such viharas or residential buildings, each with many floors, each enclosing a square yard in their middle. The viharas were arranged in a row on the eastern side of Nalanda. Temples and prayer halls dotted the landscape on the other side. A narrow, straight brick path divided the two sides—viharas with monk rooms on one side and temples on the other—as if it were the spine of the monastery.

Ananda closed his eyes and imagined the beginning of a day back home. His parents would be up and about by now, even though streaks of dawn had barely pierced the darkness. Father would have gone to inspect the cowshed, while chewing on a twig of a neem tree, while his mother would have begun her morning ritual of shoving dry twigs down the earthen stove in order to start a fire.

Nalanda was yet to stir out of its stupor. Ananda could hear occasional, random sounds of coughing and clearing of throats from a few rooms in the vihara, but no one had yet come out into the yard. Kushala yawned and stretched his arms. He had a habit of cracking his knuckles whenever he stretched; it always startled, and annoyed, Ananda. ‘Perhaps we should wash before it gets too crowded,’ Kushala suggested while cracking his finger knuckles one by one and finishing with his toes with a deadly seriousness. Ananda cringed at each popping sound as he watched Kushala out of the corner of his eyes.

Kushala slowly stood up. He was tall, well-built and fair. His wide forehead and his prominent nose set him apart in any gathering in Nalanda even when his accent did not. Ananda was small in comparison, and had to raise his eyes to meet those of Kushala.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Ananda, getting up from the threshold seat. Kushala was right; it was difficult to keep the vow of patience near the toilet area in the morning. As novices, they were obliged to wait longer than everyone else, and it was better to hurry even if it entailed the risk of tripping in darkness.

They went inside their room, folded their quilts into a corner, and wore their outer robes, the sanghati. Ananda gingerly picked up the piece of cloth he had spread on the wet floor. He mopped the floor with it, wrung most of the water out of it at a corner of the yard, and took it along to wash. Wisps of a light fog greeted them as they made their way out of their vihara to the toilet area. He collected a neem twig from a pile kept on a wooden stand, and chewed on it as he washed the piece of cloth he carried with him. The pungent taste of the twig awakened his taste buds with a jolt; its acrid but refreshing smell filled his mouth.

When they came back to their room, the air over Nalanda resounded with a loud drum beat and blowing of a conch—the first hour of the day was being announced. The time-keeper must have arrived from the neighbouring village, and set the water-clock for the day.

‘Aren’t you hungry Ananda? I am starving!’ exclaimed Kushala. The drum beat seemed to have made his stomach rumble. They collected their bowls but hid them under the folds of their robes, not being quite sure if wandering towards the kitchen so early would be considered proper.

‘Yes, I am,’ replied Ananda eagerly.

‘What about you, Ratnakar?’ Kushala spotted another samanera who had also washed himself. ‘We’re both hungry. Would you like to join us for breakfast?’

Ratnakar was sturdy, if a little swarthy, with large, bulging and ruddy eyes. His eyes often reminded Ananda of the scarecrow in his father’s garden. Kushala’s enquiry made his eyes swing wildly, looking for any senior who might be within earshot. He came close to Kushala and whispered to him, ‘Why are you talking so loudly again, Kushala? Didn’t the seniors scold you a few days ago?’

‘Alright, alright,’ Kushala said with a lowered voice. ‘But we’re starving!’

‘You’ll get me into trouble some day. Why do you have to announce your hunger to the world so blatantly?’ Ratnakar asked in an irritated voice. Ananda tried to suppress his smile; such banter between Kushala and their fellow samanera from the south had become a part of their morning ritual.

‘I didn’t announce it to the world, Ratnakar. I just wondered if you’d care to join us.’

‘Will you please keep your voice down?’ Ratnakar’s eyes scanned the corridor again. ‘Alright, let’s walk slowly to the kitchen. I don’t want my seniors to think that I pine for food.’

‘Oh come now, Ratnakar. Do you think we are talking about a feast here?’ Kushala rolled his eyes, and said, ‘It’s just a bowl of rice-water for breakfast, right?’

‘It’s still food,’ Ratnakar whispered back.

A small kitchen, with an oven on the floor, marked the southwest corner of the yard. Wooden logs were pushed down two tapered sides of a long tunnel underneath the floor where they burned, the fire reaching the top through a series of square holes on the floor. Twice a day, monks gathered around the kitchen, sat on wooden and cane seats, and took their meals before heading out for their studies.

Ananda reached the dining area with Kushala and Ratnakar to find that it was being readied for breakfast. Small cane stools for samanas, the senior monks, and blocks of wood for samaneras. Sitting down on them with knees together was one ritual Ananda found cumbersome and difficult to get used to; he felt like an elephant struggling to kneel down. At home he would simply sit cross-legged but it was impossible here. Kushala knew how Ananda disliked it, and cast a glance in his direction while Ananda gathered his robe to sit on the wooden block on his knees. Ananda looked back and smiled, acknowledging Kushala’s concern.

Although he was peeved at times by Kushala’s teasing and sarcasm, Ananda somehow felt he had a friend in Kushala. He often found himself confiding his weaknesses to Kushala—although he had never gone to the extent of blurting out his deep secrets, like wetting his bed till three years ago. But Kushala was the only samanera he felt he could trust. Something in Kushala’s eyes told him that he did not mean any harm, and Ananda had a hunch that Kushala would protect him if he ever got into any trouble.

When they left the dining area after washing their bowls, Ratnakar spoke to Ananda about his studies. He had difficulty coping with the pace of his teacher. The scriptures he was asked to learn were voluminous and confusing.

Kushala looked bored. He asked, ‘Ananda, do you know about the monastery that Ratnakar comes from? Any idea what the samanas do up there?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Ananda stole a glance at Ratnakar, trying to anticipate the answer. Ratnakar looked away, pretending he heard nothing.

‘The monastery is on a hill overlooking the sea,’ said Kushala with a glint in his eyes. ‘And samanas light lamps to help ships navigate at night!’

‘That sounds like a charming place for a monastery!’ Ananda said, and wondered what Kushala’s punch line might be.

‘No doubt about that! And what an exalted company I keep. One fellow comes from the ‘Red-clay’ monastery and the other hails from the ‘lighthouse’ monastery!’ Kushala’s teeth sparkled in the morning sun as he broke into resonant laughter.

Ananda was used to Kushala’s barbs, but he noticed Ratnakar did not appear to be amused at all. ‘At least we helped the sailors.’ Ratnakar sounded offended.

‘Oh, no. I thought the samanas were supposed to meditate only for themselves and not waste time helping others,’ Kushala said jeeringly. ‘Don’t they study Hinayana books there, Ratnakar?’

Ananda sensed alarm; he knew what was going to happen. Ratnakar did come from a monastery from the coastal south, where most monks studied the Hinayana tradition. After coming to Nalanda, Ratnakar had decided to continue studying the Hinayana texts.

Two schools of thought, Hinayana and Mahayana, divided the brotherhood of samanas. They could choose to study any tradition, but often there were fierce debates between the monks, followers of each tradition trying to prove the others wrong, even heretical.

Monks studying Hinayana texts criticized others of being reformists, of having changed the original teachings of the Buddha. Monks taking Mahayana lessons believed that the others failed to interpret the words of the Buddha properly. While one looked forward to nirvana for oneself in the Hinayana tradition, the other camp thought it was better to help everyone attain the perfect wisdom, to become Bodhisattvas. In the Mahayana tradition, one sacrificed one’s own nirvana for the benefit of people at large. Monks vouching for Hinayana texts found this foolish and presumptuous.

Though the Hinayana philosophy dominated the monks for five hundred years after the Buddha, the Mahayana tradition had come to prevail lately. Most of the monks in Nalanda studied Mahayana sutras; Shilabhadra, Nalanda’s Padhana, or principal, was a renowned Mahayana scholar.

Ananda knew it would be difficult to stop Kushala once he got going. He looked at Kushala with a stern face, ‘Aren’t we getting late for our studies, Kushala? Let’s hurry. I’m sure our teachers are waiting for us.’

He heard Kushala muttering, ‘Of course he’d find the sutras confusing—they are the wrong sutras!’

It was now going beyond the