Chapter 236: Buddha, I Have Come to Protect the Dharma

Udabhandapura, the capital of the Shahi dynasty, was an ancient city a thousand years old.

In later ages it was called Rawalpindi; it had once served as the temporary capital of Pakistan, and it lay only a dozen or so kilometers from what is now Pakistan's capital, the Fortress of the Faith.

Yet compared with the stout defenses of Peshawar at the Khyber Pass, Udabhandapura could practically be called undefended.

Not only was its perimeter more than twenty li, but in most places it was merely an earthen wall piled two or three meters high.

Merchants coming and going from north and south, and local residents who came to trade nearby, had formed a vast and flourishing commercial district outside the city.

They had knocked large and small hidden openings through the city wall, so that the wall, already low to begin with, had completely lost its purpose.

So this was a city fundamentally impossible to defend; the only place with any defensive capacity was the inner city where the royal palace stood, which still had something of the look of a fortress.

After Zhang Zhao left Yin Yaozi to hold Peshawar, he brought everyone else with him, including Modaboluo, Jia'ermohe, and the Peshawar garrison commander.

Of course, this "everyone" included only the Kshatriyas among Modaboluo's thirty thousand troops, as well as the Kshatriyas from the vicinity of Peshawar.

As for how to deal with that old wretch Jia'ermohe, Zhang Zhao had suddenly changed his mind again. He would keep Jia'ermohe alive for now; Great King Zhang wanted to let him enjoy the sight of how his son Bahemohe would kill King Modaboluo.

Of course, Zhang Zhao did not mean to provoke Jia'ermohe, but rather to let Bahemohe know that if he dared to be disobedient, his father would be set loose.

A son killing his father is an abomination before heaven and earth, but a father killing a worthless wretch of a son — could that perhaps be called righteous extermination of kin?

Bahemohe glanced at Zhang Zhao from a distance and could not suppress a shiver. He knew he had no choice; he could only follow this road into the dark.

"Noble Great Khan! I am the representative of the tax-farmers of Udabhandapura's outer city. If the Great Khan can restrain his warriors, we are willing to pay a ransom of eighty thousand rupees!"

The literal meaning of "rupee" is actually silver coin; in later ages the official currency units of South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka were all also called rupees.

However, the silver coins minted by the Shahi dynasty, bearing the image of a king holding a spear, had too low a silver content and were not worth much. Eighty thousand rupees was only roughly equivalent to nearly twenty thousand Samanid dinars.

Were they trying to fob off a beggar?

Zhang Zhao gave a cold snort and glanced at the interpreter beside him.

"Tell them to raise the price to a hundred and fifty thousand rupees, or else the warriors will go and take it themselves!"

When the tax-farmer heard the interpreter's relayed words, a pained look appeared on his face, but there was not much surprise in it.

After considering for a long while, he nodded with feigned reluctance, clearly wanting Zhang Zhao to think that this hundred and fifty thousand rupees had been scraped together only with great difficulty.

Zhang Zhao did not believe a word of it. Udabhandapura itself held more than a hundred thousand people, and all around it lay a rich, well-watered great plain, densely populated. Moreover, it was the royal city of a country with a population of over five million.

For all the merchants of such a place, scraping together a hundred-odd thousand rupees was nothing. With a round of torture and plunder, even one or two million rupees could be squeezed out.

But that would also deal a severe blow to local commerce, which ran counter to Zhang Zhao's original intention of establishing a small circulation of trade routes, so Zhang Zhao had simply not made an exorbitant demand.

Great King Zhang, however, turned his head and smiled faintly, tapping the tax-farmer on the shoulder with his horsewhip.

"But I only want fifty thousand in rupees. The remaining hundred thousand rupees, I would like converted into gold — whether gold vessels or gold coins, either is fine."

The tax-farmer's face fell at once. A hundred and fifty thousand rupees was nothing, but being asked for gold worth a hundred thousand rupees was truly agonizing.

Because rupees could be squeezed out of the small and middling merchants, but gold vessels were simply not something ordinary small merchants possessed; the bulk would have to come from the rich merchants and from tax-farmers like himself.

The mournful sound of horns rang out, and another envoy arrived bearing a white flag. This was the third group of envoys to come out of the royal city of Udabhandapura.

Zhang Zhao waved his hand coldly. At his side, Bai Congxin lightly pressed his horse's flanks, charged out from the ranks, and loosed his hard bow even as his warhorse surged forward.

With a soft whistle, the envoy jerked violently backward, then toppled heavily from his horse.

"Fools! I have led twenty thousand troops here, and they still imagine that, like those merchants, they can pay some money and escape disaster.

They are worse than the Zhongyun king Sanpoba. At least he understood that if one enjoys the wealth of the five cauldrons, one must have the resolve to be boiled in the five cauldrons!"

Zhang Zhao snorted coldly. This envoy had been sent by the Shahi royal house from within the royal city; they were trying to make peace with Zhang Zhao, willing to bring out all their treasures in exchange for his withdrawal.

But how could Zhang Zhao possibly agree? This territory was one he intended to manage, and the Shahi royal house had to be annihilated.

"Exactly! The Great King has already been exceptionally merciful. If they would only surrender the city, they could escape death, yet they still want to hold on to their wealth and rank!"

Qiong Reduojin said from the side, long spear in hand. Toward those nobles who could not recognize their own situation, he felt utter contempt, just as he had toward Geduo back then.

"Let us wait two more days. I imagine they are secretly continuing to gather men, and will also stir up the Kshatriyas of every region to come to the king's aid. We shall wait, and right here beneath the walls of Udabhandapura, settle them all at once!"

This was the reason Zhang Zhao had halted his troops and held back. He could not be bothered to hunt them down one by one, so he simply drew in the last military strength of the entire Shahi dynasty, and would settle it all in one stroke.

In the middle and lower reaches of the Ganges lay Rajgir. Even in a place as rich in history as India, Rajgir could be counted a rare and renowned historical city.

As far back as the era of the Magadha kingdom, fifteen hundred years before the present, it had already existed as a dynastic capital.

The famous Nalanda Monastery lay in the vicinity of Rajgir. The Bamboo Grove Monastery where Shakyamuni long resided, and Vulture Peak where he preached and expounded the Dharma, were also here. It had always been a sacred place in the hearts of Buddhists.

Although several hundred years earlier, due to the needs of expansion, Rajgir had gradually become unsuitable as a national capital, and the political and economic center had long since moved to Pataliputra, several dozen kilometers away.

Yet as the place where the Buddha had lived and preached, after Rajgir lost its role as capital, its religious atmosphere had only grown stronger.

Historically, large numbers of Chinese monks had resided here for extended periods, including the most widely known of all, Tang Sanzang.

As well as Master Yijing, author of the Great Tang Records of Eminent Monks Who Sought the Dharma in the Western Regions.

And Master Huili, author of the Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery.

Even just a few decades earlier, the eminent monk from across the eastern sea, Huiye of Silla, had still come here.

At this time, Rajgir belonged to the territory of the Pala dynasty, India's last Buddhist dynasty.

In fact, after the loss of the royal city of Kannauj more than forty years earlier, Rajgir's status within the Pala dynasty had already become equivalent to that of a capital.

For ever since the death of King Devapala, Protector of Heaven, the entire fortunes of the Pala dynasty had begun a precipitous decline.

Over eighty years, the Pala dynasty, which had once nearly unified all of India, had been defeated again and again by the Pratihara dynasty, losing vast territories including the national capital of Kannauj.

By now it had shrunk back to the lower Ganges, and the only remaining territory of any wealth was the region of Bengal.

Within Rajgir, Rajyapala, king of the Pala dynasty, sat restless and uneasy.

He was not a particularly wise monarch; in truth, even the present situation was hard for him to maintain.

Rajyapala's sole accomplishment, more or less, was to have driven the great and small Buddhist monasteries and monks within his realm to the point where they had no retreat left.

For before this, although the several generations of Pala kings had also led this ancient dynasty steadily downhill, they had at least struggled a few times; it was just that their ability was truly lacking.

But Rajyapala was different. After struggling feebly for a few years, this one had simply lain flat.

This had driven the monks within the Pala realm frantic with anxiety. The Pala dynasty was the last Buddhist dynasty in India. If the Pala dynasty fell, the Brahmin caste of Hinduism were the only ones who could become masters over men, and there would be no place at all for these shaven-headed ones.

So in the last seven or eight years, after the Pala dynasty retreated to Rajgir and Rajyapala began to lie flat and give up, the monks throughout the realm had all become utterly frantic.

Temple treasures that they had once been reluctant to part with were now hauled out cartload after cartload; the warrior-monks guarding the temples were donated and expanded into armies; even the tenant households controlled by the great monasteries were armed.

Finally, last year, in two great battles at Pataliputra, the Pala dynasty, though it suffered no small losses, at last managed to stabilize the situation.

Still, looking at it this way, Rajyapala did have some real ability after all. Although his lying flat let many monks enter the upper ranks of the state, it also succeeded in making the monks bleed heavily, and thereby stabilized the country.

"Master Baotongzi, wasn't it said that the Juer Khan's envoy has already entered the city? Why has he not yet arrived?"

After another restless quarter-hour of waiting, Rajyapala, growing irritable, simply stood up.

Master Baotongzi was an old monk with a high nose, deep-set eyes, and a long beard — the current Chief Abbot and Tripitaka Master of Nalanda Monastery.

After being frightened by Rajyapala's lying flat, he had now in fact assumed the office of Chief Minister of the Pala dynasty.

The political system of the Pala dynasty was extremely peculiar. This dynasty was one that genuinely practiced feudalism: most of the land in the realm was personally granted by the king to groups below him.

Once a group received the king's grant, it needed only to pay a fixed annual tribute; taxation, justice, and administration within the fief belonged to the recipient group.

The reason it was granted to groups rather than individuals was that the objects of the king's grants were essentially religious bodies headed by monasteries, not grants to other individuals.

At the same time, the great monasteries bestowed upon the king the title of Dharma-Protecting King of Buddhism, and the king, in the name of Dharma King, mobilized the forces subordinate to the monasteries. Together with the power of the king and a small number of great nobles, this formed the backbone of the Pala dynasty's national defense.

This was, in fact, not so bad. The monasteries used religious authority to govern the localities, and were actually better able to mobilize grassroots strength than the nobles.

The king also saved trouble: he only needed to manage his relationship with the chief abbots of the monasteries, and he could govern the country smoothly.

But the crux was this: ever since King Shurapala, who died in 854, had received the title of Demon-Breaking Dharma-Protecting King, eighty years had passed, and the monasteries had never again granted any Pala king the title of Dharma-Protecting King.

This meant that the kings of the Pala dynasty simply could not mobilize the power of the monasteries.

And so Rajyapala changed course and became the newest generation of the Lying-Flat King.

You won't contribute? You can't bear to part with your wealth? My apologies! Then I'll just lie flat.

But as a king, Rajyapala's lying flat was forced by circumstance. Had he any choice, he absolutely would not have wanted to lie flat.

So when he heard that a terrifying Buddha-believing Juer Khan had appeared in the north, and that the Juer Khan had sent envoys to the Pala dynasty, Rajyapala keenly sensed that this might well be a fine opportunity to revive the Pala dynasty.

Master Baotongzi wore an expression of utter composure, but inwardly he was just as agitated.

For several hundred years, eminent monks coming from the Great Tang in the east numbered no fewer than eighty if not a hundred, but they had always come to seek scriptures and study — never had anyone been seen arriving with an army!

Could it truly be, as that merchant pilgrim had said, that the Juer Khan had heard that the Dharma of the Buddha was not flourishing in India, and had come specifically to protect the Dharma?

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