The King the Demon Could Not Eat

Upon his bed of arrows at Kurukshetra, Bhishma lay propped against the shafts that pierced him, waiting only for the sun to turn north before he released his life. Yudhishthira sat before him still troubled, for kingship weighed on him now as heavily as grief. 'Grandsire,' he said, 'you tell me a king must be armed and watchful, that enemies gather where a throne is weak. But no army stands at every door in the night. What protects a king when he is utterly alone?'

Bhishma's eyes, dimmed by pain, brightened at the question. 'There is an old story, Yudhishthira, that answers you better than any army could. It is the story of a king of the Kaikeyas, a good and vigilant ruler, who was living in the forest, rigid in his vows and devoted to study, when he was seized by a rakshasa.'

'Seized how, grandsire? Was he not devoured on the spot?'

'That is the wonder of it,' Bhishma said. 'The rakshasa was old in cunning, and it did not eat men without cause - for even demons, the story tells us, respect a certain law, and will not devour a king who has committed no wrong against his people. But before it could close its jaws, the king, held fast in claws that could have ended him in an instant, did not tremble. He began, instead, to speak.'

Yudhishthira leaned forward. 'What did he say?'

'He said,' Bhishma answered, 'exactly what a king should be able to say, if his rule has been just. Listen, and judge for yourself whether such a king has anything left to fear.'

In the story Bhishma told, the king of the Kaikeyas had gone to live in the forest, rigid in his vows and devoted to the study of the Vedas. He kept no guard there, for he trusted the peace he had made, and it was in this solitude that the rakshasa found him.

The demon came upon him suddenly, immense in the darkness, its breath rank with old slaughter, and closed its claws about him before he could cry out. Any other man would have screamed for help that could not reach him in time, or begged for a mercy demons rarely give. The king did neither. He looked up into the creature's burning eyes and did not flinch.

'Rakshasa,' he said, his voice as level as if he sat upon his own throne, 'you have caught me fairly, alone and unarmed, and by every right of the hunt you may eat me now. But before you do, hear this: I am a king who has never failed his kingdom. How then have you been able to seize me?'

The rakshasa paused, for it was an old and knowing thing, and it had learned across long centuries that a king who truly protects his people has nothing to fear from rakshasas, while an unjust king was fair prey to any power that could take him. It said nothing, but it did not let go.

And so, still held fast, the king began to speak of his kingdom.

'In my kingdom,' the king said, 'no sacrifice ordained by the sages goes unmade for want of my support. I have never grudged the priests their fire or their offerings, nor let a rite lapse that the gods were owed.'

The rakshasa's claws did not loosen, but it listened.

'In my kingdom, no guest arrives at any door, however humble, and leaves unfed. I have seen to it that hospitality is honored from my own table down to the poorest householder's, for a land that turns away the stranger turns away its own fortune.'

Still the demon listened.

'In my kingdom, no woman without a protector goes unprovided for. The helpless and the old, the weak and the sick, and women with no one to shield them receive from me all that they need, and I have never let that duty fall to another or to none at all. There are no widows in my kingdom left to fear want.'

'And in my kingdom,' the king went on, 'there is no thief, no drunkard, no doer of wicked deeds. I never eat without sharing, I never go to another man's wife, and when the whole kingdom sleeps, I stay awake to guard it. A thief, rakshasa, is exactly the sort of man you are permitted to eat, and you will find none here, least of all on the throne.'

He paused, and looked steadily into the demon's eyes. 'Search my reign for a lapse, if you can find one. I do not think you will.'

The rakshasa said nothing for a long moment. It turned the king's words over as a hunter turns over a trail gone suddenly cold, searching for the one broken thread that would justify its hunger.

The rakshasa was not easily satisfied, for demons that hunt kings have learned that men will say much to save their own lives, and that words cost nothing next to flesh. So it listened on while the king continued, turning over each claim he made as a jeweler turns a stone to the light, looking for the flaw within.

'The brahmanas of my kingdom are learned and keep their vows,' the king said. 'They teach and study, sacrifice and officiate, give and receive, and are honoured with their due. My kshatriyas give and do not beg, protect the brahmanas and never flee from battle. My vaishyas live honestly by farming, cattle and trade, and my shudras serve without resentment. I have never destroyed the ancient customs of any family or region. The ascetics in my land are honoured and fed, and I have never slighted the old, the learned or those who practise austerities.'

'And look at me, rakshasa,' he said. 'There is no space on my body, not even two fingers wide, that does not bear the scar of a weapon, and every one of them was taken fighting for dharma. My people pray always that I may go on protecting cattle and brahmanas and performing sacrifices. How then have you been able to seize me?'

The demon weighed it all, circling the king's account as it might circle a wounded animal, testing for the one place where the hide had broken and the blood might show. But everywhere it pressed, it found the same thing: not a boast dressed up as virtue, but a rule genuinely without cruelty, without theft, without neglect. There was no thread to pull, no seam where wrongdoing had been stitched over with fine words. The king's kingdom, examined from every side a rakshasa knew how to examine, was simply, thoroughly just.

At last the demon's claws, which had not loosened through the whole exchange, began to open.

'I have hunted many kings,' the rakshasa said at last, setting the man gently upon his feet, 'and I have eaten most of them, for it is rare that a throne is kept as clean as you claim to keep yours. But I find no fault in you, and a demon who devours a faultless king brings ruin down upon its own head, for such a king is protected by more than soldiers. He is protected by the gods who witness his sacrifices, by the guests who bless his table, by the helpless whom he shelters, by the subjects who are not robbed by his hand. That protection does not end where his palace walls end. It follows him even into a rakshasa's grip, in a dark forest, at night, alone.'

And so the demon, rather than devouring him, bowed low to the king of the Kaikeyas and let him go in honor, vanishing back into the night from which it had come.

Bhishma fell silent a moment on his bed of arrows, and Yudhishthira sat very still, turning the story over.

'You asked me, Yudhishthira, what protects a king when he is alone and no army can reach him,' Bhishma said at last. 'This is the answer. It is not a weapon, and it is not luck. It is a reign with nothing in it to be ashamed of. The rakshasa searched that king from every angle a demon knows how to search, and found not one place where injustice had left a wound for it to enter through. That is the true armor of a throne - not walls, not swords, but a rule so faultless that even the hungriest darkness finds nothing there to eat.'

'Then let no lapse of mine ever open such a door,' Yudhishthira said quietly, and Bhishma, watching him, believed he meant it.