Chanakya, Rakhshasha, and .. (In Praise of Keyser Soze)

Think of the following situation:

A poor teacher goes to the king's court and challenges his judgement. The king makes sure that the headstrong teacher is thrashed and then kicked out of the palace. What would the teacher do?

Obviously, he would curse and fume and sulk and would vow to destroy the king! Usual; every loser, who's freshly thrashed, does it. So what?

But one would not say "So what?" if one had known that the person in question was named Vishnugupta, a supposedly physically ugly man with a disgusting complexion and whose limbs were deformed! Because this is the same person, who would manage to get the ruling dynasty destroyed, get the Greeks kicked out of India and help establish a unified India to be ruled by Chandragupta Maurya, his disciple, within the next few years.

But when one is talking about Chanakya, all these are possible, becauase this is the person who has been described as a saint, a ruthless administrator, the king maker, a devoted nationalist, a selfless ascetic and a person devoid of all morals.

Now I don't know the details; but it seems that it was Shaktar, the insulted minister of the Nanda Dynasty/Kingdom, who prompted Chanakya to go visit the king with an intention that this revengeful priest and teacher was the man most fit to confront Dhananand, the king blinded by his power. It's also said that it was Shaktar who told Chanakya about Chandragupta, the guy to later rule India for a quarter of a century.

If there was one guy, who could match Chanakya as a strategist, it was Rakhshas, the incorruptible minister of the (by then) Late Dhananand. He tried many plans to get Chandragupta killed, only to be foiled by Chanakya. However, Chanakya wanted to get Rakhshasa serve Chandragupta. The only hitch was that Rakhshasa was devoted to Dhanand, and he vowed destruction of Chadragupta.

But finally Chakanya managed to get Rakhshasa come out of hiding through staging a drama, in which he ordered all the family members of a friend of Rakhshasa executed, for giving shelter to him. It was too much for principled Rakhshasa, and he came to Chanakya asking for his friend and family be let free, and himself be executed instead. Chanakya immediately offered him the prime ministership under Chadragupta. Rakhshasa was tricked into being subjugated without any bloodshed.

When I watched the movie, The Usual Suspects, it reminded me of Rakhshasa. Keyser Soze, the central chacter of this movie, who is an underworld kingpin, is an enigmatic character. One day, rival smugglers invades his house, rapes his wife and holds his children hostage. When Soze arrives, they kill one of his children, and then they threaten to kill his wife and remaining child if he does not surrender his business to them. Instead of giving up, Soze kills his wife and child, along with all the smugglers (except one, whom he let escape to inform his bosses what happened), saying that he - would rather see his family dead than live another day after this. However, Soze does not stop there. He then goes after the Mob with a vengeance, killing dozens of people, including the mobsters' families, friends, and debtors, and then goes underground.

It amuses me to think what would have happened if Rakhshasa had the power to confront Chakanya tha way Keyser soze did his enemies! Rakhshas was an equally ruthless person in his own way (only that his ruthless was born out of his loyalty to his King and the throne!), and he tried every possible trick to assassinate Chandragupta. Perhaps Rakhshas with power to strike back at this point would have changed the course of events!

Note (6th March, 2006): A reader of this blogpost added a comment here demanding to know my source about the Chanakya-Rakshasa episode. My answer is: Mudra Rakshas as directed by Habib Tanvir was my primary source. I watched that play in 1999 or 2000.

I thought that this was a well-known episode and, so, did not include any reference; but it seems that is not the case. So, here is a reference below that discusses that episode.

http://www.freeindia.org/biographies/greatpersonalities/chanakya/page15.htm

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References:

http://www.shishubharati.org/culture3.htm
http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=305911