Even as little children, Chitragupta and Yama had come to realize that history was not simply a collection of days, seasons and years.
Dandi, who sat beside Surya in his chariot and calculated the passage of the months, the solstices and the years according to the movement of his master’s chariot, was Chitragupta’s father. One day the child Chitragupta, asked his father: ‘What good are these records of the passage of the solstices, the years, the eras to us, father? What are we going to do with them?’
‘This is history, child,’ said Dandi, placing his hand on his son’s head. ‘These books record the passage of time without leaving out even a moment. However you measure it, there will not be a single mistake. Whether you add up the columns horizontally or vertically, the answers will always tally.’
‘Father, mathematics is not merely addition and subtraction,’ the son countered, mustering his courage. ‘It is differentiating between right and wrong. Think of all the happenings in this world: deceptions, betrayals, frauds, cruelties…’
Dandi smiled. ‘You do not know, son. There is no event in this world that is not recorded in my chronicles.’
Chitragupta shook his head. ‘Events do not exist simply as events, father. They have characteristics and attributes.’
‘Do you think Surya, who observes all events, does not note their characteristics as well? He witnesses everything, child.’
‘Can justice be enforced only with witnesses, father? Do you not need plaintiffs, judges, officers, to execute the verdicts?’
That is how the child Chitragupta, the son of Dandi, decided to put an end to the long days he had spent with his father in argument and discussion and leave his house. As he went on his way, he met Yama, the son of Surya, who was the same age as he was. Yama had disagreed with his father as well, got down from his chariot and come to earth. Together, the two boys started a movement to find out the characteristics of events, to provide meaning and significance to history. They established a city called Samyamani as the headquarters of this movement.
‘Looking back, Chitragupta, how dreadful the path we took was!’ said Yama, the Dharmaraja, while walking one morning in the garden in front of Samyamani. ‘The perpetrators of injustice laugh at us derisively. Those who wield power hate us. Even the well-meaning try to exercise control over us, discourage us from administering justice. We were forced to build a strong fort around this city to ward off attacks. Only I know how I escaped from the fire that the great Mahadeva himself prepared for me in one of his usual outbursts of anger.’
‘Why look back, my lord?’ said the more mature and mellow Chitragupta. ‘Let us look ahead. Think about the many changes taking place in the world, about the spiritual and practical challenges these changes throw before us. On the one hand we have war, tyranny, oppression, revolution. On the other, the defective laws and ideologies that human beings have invented to deal with sins and virtues. Look at the case of this Govardhan. A king who is deliberately unjust and behind him, the Company. Trade, the thirst for power, treachery—the kayastha that I am, I search for the sinner amongst them and am soon lost in the wilderness! I am in despair, my friend, I do not know what to write against this case in my book!’
Yama walked up to the fence at the end of the garden and stopped. Beyond was a sloping valley. Human settlements were scattered right through this valley, far into the distance. In the bright light of the rising sun, each one stood out clearly.
‘Chitragupta, you too kept going farther and farther back, searching for the sinner behind the sin. Look the other way, at the innocent man who has been sinned against. He stands alone on the road, bearing the burden of suffering, at the very spot where the sinner abandoned him. What reply do we have for him in the books of Samyamani? Or in the laws made by human beings?’
‘Forgive me, my lord,’ said Chitragupta. ‘Although I have started to note down the characteristics of events, this servant of yours is inherently only a kayastha. A keeper of accounts. While your mind reaches out beyond that, to the human being. However, reality does not change. In the books of Samyamani, there is provision only to punish the sinner and reward the virtuous one. No relief is offered to him who suffers for the sins of others either in our books or in the laws invented by men. Everyone abandons him on the road or buries him under the debris or writes him off.’
‘This is my greatest worry, my friend. We have only been able to invest events with characteristics. We have not been able to give history any meaning. Do not the protests that gather momentum against us every day prove that the movement we began to punish sinners and reward the virtuous has failed to generate confidence? Even those who have not sinned mock the system devised to punish those who have. Remember the stories they circulated about Samyamani? That scourges have built houses to live in around the city. That demons with long canine teeth and protruding eyes stand guard at our gates, armed with swords. Chitragupta, we tried to administer justice. But why could not the people of the world conceive of a need for justice?’
Yama’s voice faltered.
They stood facing the valley, which was by then completely bathed in sunlight. They saw guards leading sinners and virtuous people along the long path that wound towards Samyamani.
Yama looked up and saluted the sun: ‘Father, you have given me abundant light. But my eyes are once again unable to see everything properly. Behind what is visible, father, how much more there lies that is invisible!’
‘Sinners seek places to hide in, Dharmaraja. As for the virtuous, they come forward without feeling ashamed. The innocent and the wronged who are neither sinners nor virtuous slip behind our range of vision.’
‘Look carefully, Chitragupta,’ said Yama, pointing to human beings who could be seen only as specks in the distance, ‘do you see a sanyasi there? He knows he is helpless, but he has taken a vow to free his disciple, the innocent Govardhan, from the gallows. Do you see a writer who has put his pen down sorrowfully because he has realized that the canvas is larger than the creation he is attempting? A scientist who searches for the variable of a moan which he found entangled in the equation of his algebraic problems? These men give me hope, Chitragupta. Somehow, I have a feeling that they will claim our legacy. As we claimed that of our fathers…’