The Chronicle of the King of Amritapura

Amitraghata was the king of Amritapura. He was cruel and arrogant. Even the people of his kingdom wished his death as he never thought of their welfare. He used to waste all the coinage of the kingdom in everything which was not useful.

One fine year, the wish of people came true. Andhaka, a king from far off lands, challenged him for a war which Andhaka won. Andhaka slayed Amitraghata and claimed Amritapura to be his. Then he banished Amitraghata’s son and wife from the kingdom. 

Andhaka turned out to be a worse king than Amitraghata. After the war, did everyone know that he was never a king of any land, he had been a chieftain of a small sect of soldiers in Ragangad, his kingdom. His whole sect was banished from his kingdom when they were found to be supplying information to the enemy empire, Shashtavadi. 

While wandering aimlessly they stumbled upon Amritapura and wished to rule it. Then followed the war in which Amitraghata foolishly took only a handful of soldiers and lost his kingdom and life.

After almost 10 years of exploiting the riches of Amritapura, Andhaka planned to take revenge upon Ragangad. He thought of raiding the city and stealing all it was famous for and destroying the whole place, like Nadir Shah did in the 18^th century.

While all this was going on, Sivakarna, the heir of Amitraghata was raised in a wilderness, near the kingdom, by the former queen of Amritapura, Shakuntala. Sivakarna acquired many talents from the animals that inhabited the place. His mother was also a very talented lady. She knew how to live without any resources. She knew how to build her own living out of nothing, and she did the same when she was banished from Amritapura. Shakuntala used to teach Sivakarna lessons, life lessons. Sivakarna’s favorite lessons were the ones he learned from the life of the great Chola emperor Rajaraja Chola I, which would in future become the Ponniyin Selvan story.

When Sivakarna was old enough to understand emotions, Shakuntala told him about his father and his rightful place in the palace. This angered Sivakarna and he skillfully entered the kingdom without getting caught. He then disguised himself as a merchant of historical fiction books (as he got to know that Andhaka liked historical novels) and went into the palace. 

He said aloud when he was bought before the king, “My name is Ravi Verma (a false name which he created, of course). I am from Kandahar and I am a merchant of books. I have heard that you like what I am good at selling.” He introduced himself grandly.

“You have all kinds of books, you say?” asked the king, not very satisfied. 

“Yes sir! I do! I even have the book you have been looking for!” saying this he took out a thick book. 

The king's mouth dropped in astonishment. “This is what I want!” shouted the king. He leapt out of his throne and ran towards the book to see it more properly. “Show it me,” He demanded when he reached near Sivakarna. 

Sivakarna was good at tricking people, but he never used it for bad. He never actually had the book; it was just a duplicated cover. When held in a proper angle it would appear to be a book.

When Andhaka demanded the book, Sivakarna dropped the cover and took out a knife which he had hidden under his shirt. This amazed the king once again. 

“You killed my father!” Sivakarna shouted, waving the knife at Andhaka threateningly. “But I am not going to do that, I will cut your hands!”

“Wait you! Who was your father?” Asked Andhaka, signaling his soldiers to put down their bows which were now pointing at Sivakarna. He was impressed with Sivakarna’s skills and wanted to have him in his court.

“My father was Amitraghata!” This statement shocked the court.

“Oh, that foolish fellow was your father! Ok yeah, I killed him, but I killed him fairly. I mean in war. And so, you should also fight with me when I have a weapon in my hand.”

Sivakarna agreed and they fought a duel in a battle ground. As per Andhaka; if Sivakarna would win, he would have the whole kingdom (which, he was sure wouldn’t happen) and if Andhaka won, Sivakarna would have to become a slave under him.

The end results were very unexpected and Sivakarna won the duel. And as promised, Sivakarna chopped Andhaka’s hands and banished him from the kingdom. After a few days, Sivakarna was crowned as king, much to the dismay of the people. They thought that Sivakarna would be as bad as his father and were not very happy. 

But Sivakarna turned out to be the best king Amritapura ever had. The one advantage he had was his mother, who advised him whenever he was stuck. The first thing he did after sitting on the throne was to cancel the raid on Ragangad. He also thought about building a good relationship with them. 

Ragangad was powerful kingdom, had fertile land and was a place which grew black gold. Sivakarna’s aims to form a relationship was successful and he then helped Ragangad to win a war with Shashtavadi. 

After a few years the king of Ragangad wanted Sivakarna to marry his daughter, Dakshayani, seeing that he was a very able and intelligent person. Sivakarna agreed to this proposal as he liked Dakshayani, not only because of her beauty, but because of her kindness and generosity.

A grand wedding was planned and both Sivakarna and Dakshayani were eagerly waiting for the special day. But none of them knew how fate would turn the event into a disaster. 

Andhaka, when he was banished, started venturing the world in search of how to retrieve his hands. One day he found a sage who taught him sorcery. The sage warned him not to use his powers for a bad cause. This provoked Andhaka

He cut the hands of the sage and was determined to take his revenge from Sivakarna. He came into the kingdom, disguised. He was about to kill Sivakarna when he saw Dakshayani. He was mesmerized by her beauty. He wanted to marry her, but to his dismay, he found out that Dakshayani was committed to Sivakarna. 

But Andhaka did not want to give up such beauty. He decided to kidnap her on the day of her wedding, which he thought would be a good lesson for Sivakarna. He was successful.

Sivakarna was appalled. His love was gone. He was openly challenged by Andhaka when she was kidnapped. Andhaka gave away the avenue of the place he planned to marry Dakshayani.

Sivakarna set out to save his love and kill Andhaka for good. But the only challenge he faced was that Andhaka was stronger than him now. He had to know Andhaka’s weakness. Luck supported Sivakarna. He saw the sage who taught Andhaka and learned that all of Andhaka’s powers were safely placed in a tree defended with enchantment. The sage also told him the place where the tree was and how to destroy it.

Siva Karna went to the place where the tree was situated and was enthralled by the things that inhabited the place. Weird and beautiful animals, stunningly attractive plants and trees. 

He found the tree he was looking for but when he pointed an arrow at it, out of thin air, Dakshayani came in front of it. He lowered his bow and looked at her, shocked. She hugged him and said, “I escaped from the hands of that bloody villain, now let us go and marry!”

Sivakarna turned around and was about to leave the place when he realized that this could be an enchantment. So, he raised his bow again and shot the tree in its center, destroying it. Suddenly everything around him dissolved into dust including Dakshayani and the only thing left was rocks and sand. 

He was happy that the enchantments did not misguide him and he continued on his journey. 

When he reached the avenue where Andhaka planned to marry Dakshayani, he saw that Andhaka was waiting for him and Dakshayani was looking around not knowing what to do, she was tied to the wall and tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Andhaka saw Sivakarna and ran towards him, and pushed him to the ground. The bow and quiver tied to his shoulders separated from him. Sivakarna saw that Andhaka’s hands had disappeared. He tried to release himself from under the feet of Andhaka. He tore Andhaka’s feet apart due to which he fell on Sivakarna. 

Sivakarna pushed him aside and stood up. He took his bow and an arrow from his quiver and shot Andhaka right in his heart. Death was now decided for Andhaka, even if he did not die because of his pierced heat he would surely die because of the poison that the arrow was dipped in.

Sivakarna with the future queen of Amritapura left the dreadful place and returned to their kingdom, where they married each other and lived happily ever after with 7 lovely little children.

THE END