Anandamath

Chapter V

Bhavananda went towards the Math in deep meditation. It was night before he reached. He. was going alone on the road. He entered the forest alone. He saw that another person was walking in front of him. Bhavananda asked, “Who goes there?”

The person who was going in front said. “If properly asked I may reply — I am a traveller.”

Bhavananda: Bande!

The person in front: “Mataram!”

Bhavananda: I am Bhavananda Goswami.

The person in front: “I am Dhirananda.”

Bhavananda: Dhirananda, where have you been?

Dhirananda: Seeking you.

Bhavananda: Why?

Dhirananda: To tell you something.

Bhavananda: What?

Dhirananda: It can only be told in a lonely place.

Bhavananda: You can tell me here. This is a very lonely place.

Dhirananda: Did you go to the city?

Bhavananda: Yes!

Dhirananda: To the house of Gouri Devi?

Bhavananda: Did you go to the city also?

Dhirananda: A very beautiful woman dwells there?

Bhavananda was partly astonished and partly frightened. He “What is this you are saying?”

Dhirananda: You met her?

Bhavananda: What next?

Dhirananda: You are much attracted to that woman.

Bhavananda after thinking a bit said, “Dhirananda, why did you take such detailed information? Well, what you have said is all true. Besides you, how many people know this?

Dhirananda: None else.

Bhavananda: Then if I can kill you I can be free from the shame of possible exposure.

Dhirananda: That is so.

Bhavananda: Then come! In this lonely place let us both fight. Either I shall kill you and rid myself of a thorn, or you will kill me and cure me of all my pain. Have you got a weapon?

Dhirananda: I am armed — none would dare to say these things to you unarmed. If you insist in fighting I shall fight. Disputes between Santans are forbidden; but it is not forbidden to fight in self-defence. That which I was searching you for in order to tell you, would it not be better to hear it out before fighting?

Bhavananda: There is no harm, speak!

Bhavananda took his sword from its sheath and placed it on the shoulders of Dhirananda, so that he should not fly.

Dhirananda: I was just telling you this — why do you not marry Kalyani?

Bhavananda: It is Kalyani, you know that too?

Dhirananda: Why not marry her?

Bhavananda: She has a husband.

Dhirananda: Such marriages are possible amongst Vaishnavas.

Bhavananda: That is the case with mendicants and shaven-head Vaishnavas — not with Santans. Santans may not marry.

Dhirananda: The religion of the Santans may be abandoned. Your life is at stake. Fie! My shoulder is bleeding. (Really blood was dropping from Dhirananda’s shoulders).

Bhavananda: What is the reason for which you have come to persuade me to follow the path of sin? Surely you have some motive in this.

Dhirananda: That too I wish to say. Don’t dig your sword into my shoulder please. I am disgusted with this religion of the Santans. I wish to abandon it and am eager to see the faces of my wife and children and spend my days with them. I shall abandon this religion of the Santans. But it is impossible for me to stay in my house. Many know me to be a rebel. If I go home either the state officials will cut off my head or the Santans will kill me as a traitor and go away. This is why I wish to convert you into my way of thinking.

Bhavananda: Why me?

Dhirananda: That is the chief thing. The Santans are under your command. Satyananda is not here. You are their leader. Fight with these soldiers. You will win I am fully convinced. As soon as you win why not establish a kingdom in your own name? The army is under your command. Be a king. Let Kalyani be your Mandodari. I shall be your follower and spend the rest of my days seeing the faces of my wife and children, and in blessing you. Let the religion of the Santans be drowned in the deep sea.

Bhavananda slowly took the sword off Dhirananda’s shoulder. He said, “Dhirananda! Fight, I shall kill you. I may be subject to my senses but I am not a traitor. You have advised me to be a traitor. You are yourself a traitor. To kill you will not amount to the sin of killing a Brahmin. I shall kill you.”

But Dhirananda, before Bhavananda had finished speaking, ran for all he was worth. Bhavananda did not follow him. For a while Bhavananda became absent-minded. When he searched for him he could not find him.