Kashi: Secret of the Black Temple (Harappa Series) Read online

  Published by TreeShade Books (VB Performance LLP) in 2018

  Copyright © Vineet Bajpai, 2018

  All Rights Reserved

  Vineet Bajpai asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this book.

  This is a work of pure fiction. Names, characters, places, institutions and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of any kind to any actual person living or dead, events and places is entirely coincidental. The publisher and the author will not be responsible for any action taken by a reader based on the content of this book. This work does not aim to hurt the sentiment of any religion, class, sect, region, nationality or gender.

  KASHI

  SECRET OF THE BLACK TEMPLE

  ISBN : 9788193642443

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, physical, scanned, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations (not exceeding 200 words) embodied in critical articles or reviews with appropriate citations.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DISCLAIMER

  STORY SO FAR – PART 1 – HARAPPA

  STORY SO FAR – PART 2 – PRALAY

  PROLOGUE

  Banaras, 2017 ‘NAAAAAGG!’

  HARAPPA, 1700 BCE ‘THE GODS… HAVE ABANDONED US!’

  Banaras, 1700 A CURSED ASURA EMPEROR, A DEFEATED KAURAVA PRINCE, A TREACHEROUS TAANTRIC

  Harappa, 1700 BCE CHANDRADHAR

  Barrackpore (Bengal), 1856 THE GREAT ARYAN INVASION

  Banaras, 2017 RAAKSHASA-BALI

  Harappa, 1700 BCE ‘COME WITH ME TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY, O PRINCESS OF MOHENJO-DARO!’

  Alibaug, Off the Coast of Mumbai, 2017 EMPIRE OF CRIME & BLOOD

  Harappa, 1700 BCE KARMIC DEBT

  Banaras, 2017 THE KILLING OF A HUMAN BEING

  Harappa, 1700 BCE HARAPPA – CURSE OF THE BLOOD RIVER

  Banaras, 2017 KARTIKEYA

  Mohenjo-Daro, 1700 BCE THE MOUND OF THE DEAD

  Banaras, 2017 THE MURDEROUS CODE

  The Dark Forests of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE DAITYA

  Banaras, 2017 KASHI VISHWANATH

  The Dark Forests of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE ONSLAUGHT OF CREATION

  Banaras, 2017 A TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT

  The Dark Forests of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE DHRUV

  Banaras, 2017 KEDARNATH

  Ark Basecamp, Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE THE LAST HUMAN COLONY

  Banaras, 2017 A TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT – PART II

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE THE ARK

  New York, 2017 THE STONEFELLAR FAMILY

  Rashtrakuta Kingdom, 762 Ad PRITHVIVALLABHA

  Banaras, 2017 A TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT – PART III

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE THE ARRIVAL OF PRACHANDA

  Banaras, 2017 9/11

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE THE NIGHT OF THE BLUE FIRE

  Banaras, 2017 THE COLD EYES OF DEATH

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE THE PUJARI BLOODLINE

  Banaras, 2017 NAINA & VIDYUT

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE GUPTACHAR

  Banaras, 2017 GODS & DEMONS

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE DEADLIEST WEAPON ACROSS ALL OF THE KNOWN WORLD

  Banaras, 2017 THE FINAL SOLUTION

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1699 BCE RATNA-MARU

  Banaras, 2017 ADVAIT, DURGADAS & MARKANDEYA

  The Dark Forests of Aryavarta, 1698 BCE NARA-MUNDA

  Banaras, 2017 THE BLACK DEATH

  The Marshes of Aryavarta, 1698 BCE MILLIONS OF ARROWS

  Banaras, 2017 ‘KARTIKEYA TRIED TO BURN DOWN THE ILLUMINATI’

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE THE MAN-EATING OGRE

  Banaras, 2017 ROHINI NAKSHATRA

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE ‘THEY ARE COMING…’

  Banaras, 2017 IT IS TIME I MET THE DEVTA…

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE ANTIM YUDDHA – PART I

  Banaras, 2017 THE BLACK TEMPLE

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE ANTIM YUDDHA – PART II

  Banaras, 2017 THE SERPENT KING

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE ‘BEFORE THEY BEGIN TO CLIMB THE ARK, WE MUST CLIMB DOWN’

  Banaras, 2017 SHESHNAAG

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE ANTIM YUDDHA – PART III

  Banaras, 2017 THE STATUE OF RUDRA

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE RIDERS OF THE FISH-TRIBE

  Banaras, 2017 ‘PADAARPANAM KURU, PRABHU!’

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE GANDHAK!

  Banaras, 2017 ‘HE IS HERE...’

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE TRUCE

  Banaras, 2017 ‘THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU, VIDYUT’

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE THE ERA OF KALI

  Banaras, 2017 SHAITAAN!

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE ANTIM YUDDHA – PART IV

  Banaras, 2017 DEV-RAAKSHASA

  The Marshes Surrounding the Great Ark, Aryavarta, 1698 BCE NARA-BALI

  Banaras, 2017 DEADLIEST ASSASSINS IN HISTORY

  The Great Deluge, 1698 BCE ‘MA...AATTSYA!’

  Banaras, 2017 ‘EVEN DEATH IS AFRAID OF THE WHITE MASK!’

  The Great Deluge, 1698 BCE LOK-NAAS!

  Banaras, 2017 ‘BABAAAAAA...!’

  The Great Deluge, 1698 BCE VIDYUT

  Banaras, 2017 VIDYUT

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DISCLAIMER

  This novel is a work of pure imagination and fiction, written with the sole intention of entertaining the reader. While the content has several references to various religions, historical events, institutions, beliefs, persons and myths, it is all presented with the only purpose of making a fictional story richer and more intriguing. The author is a believer in all faiths and religions, and respects them equally and deeply. He makes no claim to the correctness and veracity of any historical or mythological or contextual references used in the story.

  STORY SO FAR – PART 1 – HARAPPA

  Harappa, 1700 BCE – The devta of Harappa, the mighty Vivasvan Pujari, who has been revered for decades as the Surya of Harappa, is ambushed in a ruthless betrayal. His trusted friend and brother-in-law, the wise Pundit Chandradhar, succumbs to the malicious greed of Priyamvada - his beautiful wife, the Princess of Mohenjo-daro. Three blind black magicians from Mesopotamia, Gun, Sha and Ap arrive in Harappa at the invitation of Priyamvad
a and her evil man-at-arms, Ranga. The dark wizards poison the water sources of the city with their concoctions, driving its entire populace insane and violent.

  In the midst of the chaos, Vivasvan Pujari is indicted in a false accusation of the murder of Nayantara, Harappa’s most famous exotic dancer. The devta of Harappa is condemned to the mrit-kaaraavaas or the dungeons of the dead. His valiant son, the young Manu, joins forces with Pundit Somdutt, the chief architect of Harappa and the last remaining friend of Vivasvan Pujari. In the battle that ensues, Manu kills the vile Ranga in a spectacular duel. At the same time, the River of the Wise, the Saraswati, rises in unnatural and ominous spate, threatening to devour the whole of the Harappan civilization. Astronomers predict imminent doomsday. The devta’s gracious wife and Manu’s mother, Sanjna, becomes the target of the arrows of manic Harappan soldiers and breathes her last on the battlefield, dying in her son’s arms. At the behest of Somdutt, and his closest friend, the beautiful Tara, Manu rides out into the mist with his mother’s body in his lap. But even as he gallops into the haze, poison tipped arrows tear into the handsome Manu’s back and neck.

  The devta of Harappa is dragged and tortured like an animal in the Great Bath of Harappa. He is skinned by the mad soldiers, pelted with stones and spat upon by the maniacal citizens of the once glowing metropolis. The devta, the Surya of Harappa – Vivasvan Pujari - swears vengeance. A man once known for his glowing and God-like appearance now looks ghastlier than the Devil himself. He looks up at the sky and screams out his last, bloodcurdling words to the masses of Harappa -

  ‘Listen, you who are already dead. Listen, you congregation of corpses. Listen, you fools.

  I am half-human, half-God!’

  Banaras, 2017 (present day) – Dwarka Shastri, the 108 year-old mystic leader of the Dev-Raakshasa Matth (God-Demon Clan) located in the ancient city of Banaras, is on his deathbed. He summons his highly successful, unusually handsome and supremely talented great grandson - the magnificent Vidyut to the matth. Before his departure from Gurgaon, Vidyut confesses to his beloved partner Damini and to his best friend Bala that he hails from an ancient and mystical bloodline of devtas. Upon reaching Banaras, Vidyut discovers that his arrival had been awaited for centuries. Among other loved ones like Purohit ji, Balvanta – the war General of the matth, and Govardhan - the clan’s physician, Vidyut also meets his childhood friend Naina. Naina has grown up to be an indescribably beautiful young woman, and Vidyut feels an inexplicable, magnetic attraction towards her.

  The great matthadheesh Dwarka Shastri reveals to Vidyut that their bloodline was the bearer of a primordial curse. And that Vidyut was the last devta, the prophesied saviour – not just of his own bloodline, of the matth or of Banaras – but of all of humankind. Just as Vidyut sets foot in Banaras, a mysterious man called Reg Mariani has a meeting in Paris with someone who is known not by his name but by his title – the Maschera Bianca. Reg hands over a note from his own superior, the Big Man, to the Maschera. The note has five words inscribed on it –‘Kill that bloody Aryan boy!’ The Maschera Bianca or the White Mask is Europe’s most dreaded crime-lord. An innocent looking yet masterful assassin named Romi Pereira arrives in Banaras.

  The great Dwarka Shastri narrates the haunting story of Harappa to Vidyut, along with how a dark conspiracy hid the truth of the metropolis forever from Indians. He elucidates how the East India Company blew up the most precious remains of the lost civilization and deprived the sub-continent of its true, ancient glory. But most unexpectedly, the matthadheesh reveals to Vidyut that he is none other than the great Vivasvan Pujari – reincarnated 3,700 years later…to fulfill his ultimate destiny.

  Events unfold rapidly including a daring but failed attempt on Vidyut’s life, a magical moment where Naina presses her lips on those of a smitten Vidyut, the bubbly arrival of Damini at the matth, and an open invitation to the last devta by Romi - for a final confrontation on the Dashashwamedh ghaat. Ridden with suspicion directed at Naina, Vidyut unleashes himself on the mercenaries sent for him by the same veiled overlords who had hired Romi. Vidyut vanquishes the mercenaries singlehandedly, but not before getting shot at by his most trusted friend – Bala. Bala is captured, and the devta then goes after Romi across the dark ghaats of nighttime Banaras. The sophisticated assassin is held captive by Vidyut and bites into potassium cyanide – in his dying moments informing Vidyut that a force called the New World Order was coming for him…and for all of mankind.

  STORY SO FAR – PART 2 – PRALAY

  Harappa, 1700 BCE – The devta of Harappa, Vivasvan Pujari, miraculously survives the torture at the Great Bath. He is rescued in a daring, violent raid led by his last friend and the erstwhile chief architect of Harappa, Pundit Somdutt, along with the valiant Tara. The rescue attempt results in a legendary battle that would be remembered for generations as the Rain of Blood. Vivasvan Pujari emerges from captivity looking like a demon, gutting through the entire body of a Harappan commander with his bare hands.

  Burning with the desire for revenge and unaware that his son Manu still lived, Vivasvan Pujari, the Surya of Harappa, is consumed with hate. He rides alone to join forces with his once sworn enemy, the great King Sura – emperor of the mighty Asuras. The devious Sura and his able war-general Prachanda succeed in poisoning Vivasvan Pujari. In return for retribution against the Harappans who spat upon and tortured the devta, against the city that took away everyone and everything he ever held dear – the Surya promises something that would blacken his pious soul forever. He promises the heads of the eternal protectors of Harappa – the divine Saptarishi.

  Meanwhile, Manu manages to escape the battlefield where he had slayed the bestial Ranga, and rides away with his beloved mother’s body on his lap. Mortally wounded, as Manu rides eastwards towards what Somdutt had suggested – the Black Temple – he finds a strange fish-man in a half-dead state, pleading for a few drops of water. The mystical man who wore fish-scale robes and whose skin radiated a strangely captivating blue, slowly grows to become Manu’s mentor, friend, philosopher and guide. His name is Matsya. Manu comes to believe that he is none other than an avatar of Lord Vishnu himself.

  As Matsya leads Manu to an ancient Black Temple, he shares with the son of Surya that the temple is just one in a series of such shrines. And that the Black Temple guards mankind’s most precious secret. He informs Manu that Manu’s father was a guardian of the Black Temple, and that now the mantle rested on Manu’s shoulders.

  Matsya then announces the onset of apocalypse – ‘PRALAY...ESHHYATI...!’

  ‘The Great Deluge is coming!’

  As Manu reunites with his beloved Satrupa, lovingly called Tara, and with Pundit Somdutt – Matsya christens him with the name of Satyavrata, and commands him to build a gigantic Ark.

  An Ark that would emerge as mankind’s last refuge against the onslaught of Pralay.

  Vivasvan Pujari crushes Harappan troops and seizes control of the mountains of brick and bronze after a stunning display of battle prowess. He leads the vile Sura to the secret abode of the holy Saptarishi. What follows is a fierce battle, as Vivasvan Pujari tries, in vain, to protect the seven sages. The near-vanquished devta’s sword, the great Ratna-Maru, is burnished in the blue fire that burns the sages to ashes, and the Surya of Harappa kills the demon-king Sura.

  But it is all too late. The seven sages are the proverbial sons of the Saraswati, who erupts in rage at the cruel murdering of her children. The Blood River curses not just Vivasvan Pujari and his descendants, but all of mankind to eternal strife, violence and hatred. She and her burning sons prophesize that every son of Vivasvan Pujari’s bloodline would die suffering the same brutality that the Saptarishi had endured in this night of the blue fire.

  Eventually, the last Saptarishi blesses the devta of Harappa. Before the abode of the Saptarishi is engulfed by a devastating avalanche, the last sage assures Vivasvan Pujari that his son Manu would prevail over the curse, as well as over the great deluge.

  That Satyavrata
Manu would be the deliverance of mankind against the cataclysmic cleansing unleashed by the Gods.

  The last sage then speaks of Vivasvan Pujari’s own cosmic destiny –

  “Your name shall become immortal, O Vivasvan Pujari. You will be born again, thousands of years from now - to fulfil a destiny greater than anyone to have ever walked this planet.

  You will be reborn to protect the secret of the Black Temple in its final hour. It shall be you who will unfurl it in the Rohini Nakshatra of a particularly pious purnima, millennia from now.

  You are the chosen one, O great devta.”

  Banaras, 2017 (present day) – Vidyut is breathing his last as he is rushed from the ghaats of Banaras to the infirmary of the Dev-Raakshasa matth. Recovering spectacularly, Vidyut discovers how his great grandfather, the phenomenal Dwarka Shastri, had fought a deadly battle of exorcism to save Vidyut’s soul from being sucked into the dark depths of the netherworld.

  Still reeling under the betrayal of his best friend Bala, who had shot at him at the ghaats, Vidyut goes to meet the traitor in the prison cells of the matth. Bala is remorseless and mocks Vidyut for being ignorant to the realities of the world. He informs Vidyut that the New World Order had kept the devta (Vidyut) alive and wanted him so till the prophesied Rohini Nakshatra. Their conversation is disturbed by the arrival of a dreaded maha-taantric called Trijat Kapaalik, at the Dev-Raakshasa matth. Known a Masaan-raja or the Lord of the Cremation Grounds, the feared occult-emperor taunts Dwarka Shastri and observes Vidyut closely. The two deranged, murderous killer-twins accompanying him disappear into the crowd of the aghoris.

  Bala’s decapitated head is found on the very table where he sat talking to Vidyut. The last devta is shaken up by the inhuman brutality. His great grandfather, the mighty Dwarka Shastri, then narrates the chilling tale of the New World Order to Vidyut. He describes how the genesis of the morbid global vision began on the side-lines of the historic Council of Nicaea. He reveals how their valiant ancestor Advait Shastri tried to dissuade Constantine the Great from unleashing this monster, and how the 12th century Knights Templar were the Order’s first significant success. He also elucidates to Vidyut how this once-sincere vision convoluted into a dark brotherhood of the world’s most intelligent, ambitious and powerful men.