REVENGE VENGENCE
I was looking over a few of the old books that I have.
It is one of the interesting and very relaxing of my pass-times. Especially when you have 5000 odd books and among them are rare and fantastic books.
One of the books that I was browsing through was 'Reaping the Whirl Wind'.
That is the caption of that book.
There is a reason why it got that title and it has an interesting background.
Vengence!
This is one of the traits of the human being.
Tit for Tat.
Butter for Fat
You kill my dog,
I kill your cat.
This is a famous ditty which has been in use for the past several hundred years. Describes and defines 'Vengence' in very simple words.
In the history of mankind, there are so many instances of vengence taken by one party against another.
How and why the parties exacted revenge, make very good stories. Some of the revengers had cultivated it as an art.
I will explain how the above-mentioned book got its title.
It was during World War II.
Germany was winning - already captured Poland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine. England was isolated.
Herman Goering the second man after Hitler, convinced Hitler that his airforce, the Luftwaffe could make Britain surrender.
Instead of dropping bombs over the air fields, they dropped bombs over London.
Britain nearly lost the war.
The air-force chief Harris, rallied his forces and in the Battle of Britaindestroyed the Luftwaffe.
Then he made a pledge, "They sowed the wind; they will reap the whirl wind".
Thus started the bombing of the cities of Germany and its industrial centres day in day out. Germany was almost totally destroyed.
So auther, Conelius Ryan took the phrase and used it as the title for his book.
One of the early historical instances of revenge takes us 2500 yearsto the kingdom of Magadha.
At that time, it was ruled by the Nandha dynasty.
They had actually usurped the kingdom from the Lineage of Chandragupta who was a direct heir to the throne. His father and all his brothers were treacherously murdered by the Nandhas. Chandragupta alone escaped.
Kautilya alias Chanakya was a very learned Brahmin who was verypoor. He was going through a forest and he was very hungry.
There was a hunting lodge belonging to the Nandhas.
Chanakya went in there and occupied a seat and started eating.
At that time, the Nandhas came inside from a hunting expedition,They got angry at seeing a filthy scrawny emaciated Brahmin in dirtyclothes, sitting in their seat and eating their food.
One the Nandhas jerked him to his feet, dragged him outside andthrew him into the dust.
In the process of being chucked out, Chanakya's hair knot became unwound and his hair fell to his shoulders.
Chanakya took a wrathful oath that he will not tie his hair knot until he had destroyed the Nandhas.
Then he went away in a gust.
But then a grass caught the web of his toes and tripped him.
Chanakya flew into a frenzy of rage, bent down, plucked the grass
with its root, crushed it with his palms and rubbed it over his body.
All this happening was being carefully watched secretly by Chandragupta.
Chandragupta befriended Chanakya and Chanakya drew out the blue-print for the destruction of the Nandhas and made use of Chandragupta. After accomplishing it, he made Chandragupta as emperor of the Magada and thus the Maurya dyansty came into being.
Chanakya became his prime minister and raja guru and drew up the administration of the Mauryan Empire and went on to write out a treatise about the Art of Politics, Administration, Jurisprudence, and King-craft.
And that, my dear chaps, is.....
The famous Artha Sastra of Kautilya or Kautilyam.
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