✦ 𑁍 Chronicle Note: 1844–1845 CE – When Crowns Became Custodians 𑁍
A riot that almost was.A speech that cut through hate like a sword.A king who told his people that when no humans remain, religion is only a stone on a grave.
From that day in Kesarinagara's narrow street, stories spread across the Southern Realm:
"The Lion has taken an oath.Faith is free.But if anyone uses it to spill blood, dharma itself will stand against them."
In the same years, another, quieter revolution took place.
The old nobility woke up to find their swords dulled by law, their revenue rights gone, their armies no longer their own. In their place: deeds to ancestral homes, limits on how much land one man could hoard, and politely worded suggestions that perhaps it was time to learn business, not just lineage.
In faraway courts—in London, Paris, Istanbul, Lahore, Washington—men turned maps and reports and wondered what, exactly, was being born in the south of India.
And above them all, gods and Eternals watched a lion turn kingdoms into federations, nobles into custodians, and faith into a bond rather than a weapon.
I. After the Storm, the Quiet Questions
Two days after the almost-riot, the street no longer smelled of smoke.
Women had scrubbed the stones with lime and ash, the way they would after a funeral. Doors that had been slammed shut now stood half-open, as if uncertain whether to trust the morning.
Abdul the weaver sat at his loom, feet moving by habit while his mind replayed a single moment: Narasimha standing between two raging crowds, eyes ablaze as he asked, "When there are no humans left, what can religion do on a grave?" He had felt something in his chest crack open then, a hard knot of anger he had been nursing since news of killings in a distant town.
Across the lane, Venkata the potter shaped clay with hands that no longer trembled as much. He could still hear the king's voice, calm and cutting, saying, "Sanātana dharma does not teach cowardice or cruelty. It teaches that all beings are children of the same Truth." Venkata had wanted to shout about "them" and "us", but under that gaze, the words had withered.
Life resumed because it had to. Children chased each other, expertly dodging the cracks where blood had dried. Shopkeepers argued about grain prices with the same vigour with which they had nearly argued about God. But under the surface, questions lingered.
In the palace, questions came in ink.
On Narasimha's desk lay three piles of letters. The first overflowed with blessings: "May God reward you, Maharaja, for saving us from our own madness." The names at the bottom changed—Rama, Abdul, Joseph, Harilal—but the shaky gratitude felt the same.
The second pile was thin but sharp. "Why did you lecture us, when they started it?" some wrote. "Our dharma has always sheltered others; do not insult us by treating all the same."
The third pile was the most dangerous: letters written in smooth script, heavy with quotations, arguing that "true dharma" required putting one community "back in its place", or that God demanded harsher laws against "idolaters" or "kafirs". Piety as knife.
Narasimha rubbed his eyes and leaned back.
"I fought a demon last year," he muttered. "It had claws, horns, a bad attitude. Somehow, that was simpler than this."
From the window, Kaveri looked up from a letter of her own.
"You walked into a human demon this time," she said. "The kind born from fear and pride. They do not vanish when you cut them; they change clothes and come back as editorials."
He snorted despite himself.
"I told that mob," he said, "that this land is a mother, not a battlefield of gods. That Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Parsi, or anyone who accepts peace and dharma has a place here. That we are custodians, not owners. It felt… right. Clean. But speeches are like fireworks. Bright, then gone."
He tapped the third pile of letters.
"These," he said, "will still be here tomorrow."
Kaveri set her paper aside and walked over, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You wrote a Constitution," she reminded him. "You banned untouchability, discrimination by religion, caste, birth. You made yourself answerable to law. That was not a firework, Naatha. That was laying a foundation stone. This"—she nodded to the letters—"is the dust that settles after."
He exhaled slowly.
"There are Maulvis here," he said, picking up one letter, "who say, 'we want to help calm our people; we just don't know how'. Pandits who say, 'we need to remind our own that dharma does not mean domination'. A Jain muni writes that this is the first time he has seen a king scold his own side and theirs equally. There is goodwill, scattered like seeds."
"Then gather it," Kaveri said simply. "Before someone else gathers the thorns."
He looked up at her, mouth quirking.
"I swear," he said, "the gods reincarnated you mainly to assign me more meetings."
"Bhagavān gave you immortality and a realm," she said serenely. "He did not give you a calendar manager. That is my job."
He laughed, tension cracking.
"All right," he said. "Send invitations. Pandits, maulvis, padres, granthis, monks, lay elders. Let them argue in my hall instead of over corpses. And from that storm, we will try to draw out some rules the courts can use, the people can trust."
"And nobles?" Kaveri added lightly. "They, too, are restless. Their swords are now ceremonial, their revenue gone, but their pride has not yet learned how to sign cheques. They will need… a new dharma."
Narasimha groaned.
"Of course," he said. "Why not reform the entire social order in the same year I stop religious riots? Maybe I should also learn to fly while I'm at it."
Kaveri only smiled.
"You already fly," she said. "You simply call it 'work'."
II. The Sarva-Dharma Sabha
They came like converging rivers.
From Tirupati and Kanchipuram came scholars in white, foreheads marked with tilaks, hands stained with ink. From coastal towns arrived maulvis in crisp kurta-pajamas, Qur'an verses murmured under their breath. A padre from Madras entered quietly, his black robes a sharp line in the colourful hall. A Sikh granthi arrived with a small escort, the steel of his kirpan catching the light. A Jain muni walked slowly, each step measured to avoid harm, eyes bright in a face worn thin by fasting and thought.
They sat on equal cushions in the great audience hall of Kesarinagara. No one stood higher than another. There was no throne, only a slightly raised seat where Narasimha sat in plain white, his lion sigil small, his bearing large.
When the murmur died, he rose.
"Respected Āchāryas," he began, voice carrying easily, "Maulvijis, Sant Mahātmās, Father, Granthiji, Munishwar—welcome. I called you not for show. The British already think I have too much theatre in my life."
A few smiles flickered.
"I called you," he continued, "because this land stands at a tipping point. Foreign powers poke at our wounds and say, 'See, they cannot live together'. Some among us, for reasons of hurt or ambition, help them. If we are not careful, we will do their work for them."
He spoke of the riot-that-almost-was. Of the way fear leaped from town to town faster than letters. Of how men who had shared wells for decades suddenly saw only the god on the other man's forehead.
The Hindu scholar from Tirupati spoke first, voice steady.
"Maharaja," he said, "no scripture of ours says, 'kill your neighbour because he prays differently'. But there is fear. A sense that if we do not assert Sanātana dharma strongly, others will swallow us. If the State bends too much, some will say it is abandoning its own foundation."
The maulvi from the coastal belt replied sharply.
"And in our towns," he said, "people whisper that your Sanātana will one day push us into the sea. That our mosques will be turned to temples once you are done with the British. Your one speech calmed many, yes. But words can be forgotten. Laws remain."
The padre added quietly, "Our flocks are small, but they are not blind. They ask: 'This king protects all today. What about after him?'"
The Sikh granthi nodded gravely.
"We have seen empires rise and fall in the north," he said. "Promises of tolerance that vanished with a coronation. How do we know this is not just another king's mood?"
The Jain muni finally spoke, voice dry as old parchment.
"And even if your intentions are pure, Chakravartin," he said, "what of your nobles? Your chiefs? Their power has been trimmed, their land measured. They will look for other ways to assert themselves. Religion is a tempting weapon for men whose swords have been taken away."
There was a murmur of agreement.
Narasimha listened, then lifted his hand.
"Good," he said. "If you had all praised me, I would have suspected I had been drugged."
A chuckle ran around the hall.
"When I wrote the Constitution with my councillors," he went on, "we forbade discrimination by religion, caste, clan, birth, sex. We said no law may be justified solely by one faith. We banned untouchability. Those are stones that cannot be moved easily. But paper is cold comfort when facing a mob. So I wish to build a bridge between law and heart."
He outlined the idea: a Sarva-Dharma Commission recognised in law, made up of representatives from major dharmas and panths, plus lay citizens and jurists. When religious disputes arose that could lead to violence—over a shrine relocation, a procession route, a sermon gone wild—the State would be required to consult this body. Its advice would guide courts; its moral weight would back police orders.
"This Commission," he said, "would not decide theology. It would not say, 'this god is greater than that'. It would say, 'this behaviour is dharmic, this is not, no matter which god's name you shout while doing it'."
The maulvi frowned.
"And if the Commission itself becomes biased?" he asked. "If one faith dominates it?"
"Then," Narasimha said, "you will shout at me, and I will change it. Its members will have fixed terms, drawn from across regions. Its deliberations written. Its funding transparent. If it tries to become a throne, we will saw off its legs."
Laughter rippled again, easing some of the tautness.
The Hindu scholar bowed his head slightly.
"If such a body truly lives by dharma," he said, "we will send our best minds, not our loudest mouths."
The padre nodded.
"And if it protects the right of a man to quietly follow Christ," he said, "as much as the right of others to ring bells or call the adhān, then we will support it."
The Sikh granthi stroked his beard.
"Guru Sahib taught us," he said, "that we must be ready to wield sword and scripture to defend the weak. If this Commission lets us prevent fires instead of putting them out with blood later, we will walk with you."
The Jain muni's eyes twinkled.
"And perhaps," he said, "for once, a council about religion will spend more time saying 'don't kill' than 'kill in my name'."
By the time dusk turned the high windows orange, they had argued over seats, terms, selection methods, appeal procedures. They had agreed, grudgingly but sincerely, that no sermon anywhere in the Federation could call for murder without risking prosecution. That public wells, roads, schools could not be segregated by faith. That in places where ancient, narrow customs existed—like certain temples' gendered rituals—the High Court, not mobs, would decide if they were acceptable.
At the close, Narasimha stood again.
"One more thing," he said. "We will write into law that the State will not fund any religious institution as a reward for loyalty. Temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras, monasteries may receive grants only for heritage, charity, education, not for praising rulers. If any of you try to trade sermons for subsidies, I will personally come and sit in your front row until you grow uncomfortable."
"Spare us that penance, Maharaja," the maulvi muttered, but he was smiling.
Outside the hall, news ran like monsoon wind: that the Lion had gathered all paths and made them swear, together, that they would not let this land burn in God's name.
III. Law on Paper, Dharma in Stone
Words alone were not enough. They had to be hammered into law and tested in bloodless battle.
So, when the first case of "religious incitement" came before the High Court, all eyes watched.
The accused stood defiantly in the dock, a young imam whose fiery speech in a small town had turned a funeral into a near-riot. His defenders whispered that he was being punished "for being a Muslim". His accusers shouted that he was "a traitor pretending to be holy".
The courtroom, high-ceilinged and cool, smelled of paper and sweat. On the wall behind the judges, carved into stone, were words from the Constitution: "All persons are equal in dignity and before the law.""No law, policy or verdict may be justified solely by a particular religion or caste."
The Chief Justice, an elderly man with steady eyes, adjusted his shawl.
"You are not on trial for your faith," he told the imam. "This Court does not care how many times you bow, or to whom. You are on trial for calling humans to harm other humans. Your tongue is here, not your prayer mat."
Witnesses came. Shopkeepers who had heard him shout that certain houses were "nests of enemies". Women who had hidden their children under beds as stones flew. One trembling youth who confessed he had felt "a kind of fever" when the imam's words rolled over the crowd.
The Sarva-Dharma Commission, newly formed, had sent observers—a maulvi and a pandit, both of whom had been in the Sarva-Dharma Sabha. In a side consultation room, they offered an advisory note: that the imam's words violated the shared principles of all dharmas present, and that his punishment should be firm enough to deter others, yet not crafted to humiliate a whole community.
The defence argued that sermons were "passion", that the imam had merely quoted texts.
The Muslim judge on the bench spoke then, voice mild but razor-edged.
"Quoting a verse while lighting a house on fire," he said, "does not make the flame holy. This Court knows your Book says 'no compulsion in religion'. We will not let you hide behind its pages while disobeying its heart."
In the end, the judgement came out clear.
"By the laws of this Federation," the Chief Justice declared, "you are guilty of inciting violence and disrupting communal peace. You will serve seven years of rigorous labour and are barred from leading prayers or sermons for fifteen years thereafter. This is not a punishment for being a Muslim. It is a punishment for being a dangerous fool."
Outside, the ruling spread. Some called it harsh. Others called it too soft. But a pattern was set.
A month later, when a temple priest in another district began to shout that a nearby settlement was "impure" and should be "cleansed", an old woman in his congregation stood up, shook her walking stick at him, and snapped, "Do you want to join that imam in jail? Chant the bhajans and stop playing with fire."
The priest swallowed, changed his tone mid-sentence, and began to talk about charity instead.
Law could not make saints. But it could give ordinary people a stick to wave at would-be arsonists.
From his study in Kesarinagara, Narasimha read the court's report and allowed himself a small, tired smile.
"Good," he murmured. "Let them learn that dharma has teeth, not just metaphors."
IV. Thrones into Houses, Swords into Ledgers
While one fire was being contained, another slow-burning issue demanded attention: the nobility.
For generations, nobles had lived as small kings—collecting revenue, raising private armies, dispensing rough justice in their estates. The Constitution and the wars had clipped their wings. Land revenue was now collected centrally. Standing armies belonged to the Federation. Courts answered to written law.
On paper, nobles were now "honoured citizens with ceremonial precedence". In their hearts, many still saw themselves as feudal lords. Their pride had not yet learned to live without peasant bows and tax ledgers.
In a council chamber quieter than the Sarva-Dharma Sabha but no less tense, representatives of noble houses sat facing Narasimha, Rama Sastry, and members of the Dharmic Honors and Nobility Commission (DHNC).
A Grāmapati from a small coastal area spoke first, voice aggrieved.
"My family has served as village heads for three centuries," he said. "We protected fields, built tanks. Now you say we are just… citizens? What remains for us?"
At the other end of the line, a representative of the Mysore Wadiyar family sat composed, but her eyes were watchful. Their kingdom had often walked the tightrope between British pressure and native politics. Now they were part of a Federation where even a Chakravartin could be voted out.
Rama Sastry folded his hands together.
"No one is asking you to become nothing," he said. "But we are asking you to become something else. The age when a title gave you the right to squeeze peasants until blood came is over. The age when a noble's duty is to steward wealth, culture, and service—without legal impunity—has begun."
Narasimha took over, voice calm.
"We are not here to strip you naked," he said. "On the contrary. We are formalising what you can hold, so that your descendants are not fighting in courts a hundred years from now."
He gestured to scrolls laid out.
"First," he said. "Ancestral properties—palaces, mansions, family homes—are recognised as your personal property, within reason. The Grāmapati whose influence covers a few villages may have tens, perhaps a few hundred acres, a house, some attached lands. A Thākura more. A Sāmanta or Rāja, more still. In exceptional cases like Mysore's Wadiyars, where history and prior scale demand it, multiple estates may be held—palaces, hunting lodges, forests—adding up to a few thousand acres."
He held their eyes, letting the next words land.
"But the rest," he said, "is not yours. Lands that once lay under your jagirs, where people worked and you merely collected revenue, have already been reclaimed to the Crown Realm and redistributed through land reforms. No more will a man be able to own half a district while a hundred farmers own nothing but debts."
There were muffled protests.
"And outside your ancestral holdings," he continued, "we are setting limits. No individual, even a noble, may own beyond a certain ceiling of agricultural land. You may invest in industry, trade, shipping, education, hospitals. We encourage it. But you will not be allowed to hoard land as if it is a toy chest. Land is the mother; nobody gets to lock her in a private room."
The representative from Mysore cleared her throat.
"Maharaja," she said, "we understand the need to prevent hoarding. But what of future generations? We have seen heirs squander fortunes. Palaces left to rot, estates chopped into foolish pieces, or sold to foreign men who turn them into hunting grounds. How do we protect against… stupidity?"
The room chuckled; the pain under the humour was real.
Rama Sastry's eyes warmed.
"That," he said, "is where the Kuladhana Trusts come in."
He explained: nobles could voluntarily (and in some cases, would be required to) place large portions of their wealth—land, businesses, cultural properties—into family trusts, overseen by professional stewards under DHNC and financial experts.
"The idiot heir," he said bluntly, "will not be able to sell the ancestral palace to a passing British officer because he has a gambling debt. He will receive an allowance. Interests, dividends, rents will be managed. If a noble family wants to support universities, hospitals, art, they can instruct the Trust accordingly. DHNC will keep watch. You will be custodians, not pirates."
A younger noble, a Merit Sāmanta who had earned his title in battle and administration, looked intrigued.
"So we become…" he searched for a word, "shareholders in our heritage?"
"Exactly," Narasimha said. "You gain stability. The State gains predictability. Your descendants gain fewer reasons to stab each other over land."
The Grāmapati still looked uncertain.
"And if we refuse?" he asked.
"Then," Narasimha said gently, "the law will still cap what you can buy, and taxes will gnaw at scattered holdings. Trusts are a way to keep what is rightfully yours safe, while acknowledging that most land belongs in the hands of those who work it."
He leaned back, expression softening.
"You are not being exiled," he said. "We are asking you to become what your stories always claimed you were: protectors, patrons, not predators. Build schools. Start textile mills. Invest in shipyards and libraries. Turn your palaces into museums for parts of the year. Host music, not just durbars. The State will recognise and honour that. DHNC will award titles based on service as well as blood. But if anyone, noble or not, tries to use their old aura to stir riots or undermine this unity, they will learn that prisons have room for silk robes too."
Silence, then slow nods.
Later, in Mysore, Kaveri walked through the vast palace gardens with the Wadiyar queen. Children's laughter echoed from a wing of the palace that had been turned into a music school, partly funded by the new Trust.
"I thought," the queen admitted, "that losing troops and revenue would leave us… hollow. But now, watching my grandson learn violin alongside a merchant's daughter in rooms where we used to hold stiff durbars… it feels less like losing power and more like losing excuses."
Kaveri smiled.
"Power used well becomes lineage," she said. "Power used badly becomes a story told as a warning."
In village after village, old garhi forts became warehouses, training centres, schools. Nobles who adapted found new respect as patrons of industry and art. Those who sulked alone in crumbling halls became living museums of a fading age.
The mandala of power had shifted: less vertical, more layered. Dharma had been written into how land could sleep, how palaces could breathe.
V. Shadows in the Alleys
The British, naturally, did not take kindly to any of this.
Land ceilings meant fewer friendly zamindars to lean on. Faith equality meant fewer easy levers to pull. Noble Trusts meant fewer desperate heirs willing to sell secrets and land.
So they fell back on an old habit: whispers in the dark.
In a dingy warehouse near a river port, an Englishman in an East India Company coat handed bundles of pamphlets to a local middleman dressed as a respectable trader.
"These will be distributed at Friday prayers and in the bazaar," the Englishman said. "They say the southern king secretly plans to seize all mosques and churches next. That his constitution is just a mask. Fear is an excellent solvent."
The trader smirked.
"And your Company will, of course, be there to 'restore order' when things burn," he said.
Above them, invisible in the beams, two Trinetra agents lay flat, listening.
By dawn, Rahasya Seva Mandal had the plates used to print the pamphlets, a list of distributors, and a letter in English describing the operation as part of "moral and psychological pressure" on the Southern Federation.
Within weeks, the trader found himself under arrest—for "serious irregularities in grain weights"—his network quietly dismantled. The Englishman was recalled to Madras; his next posting, conveniently, took him far from India. The pamphlets never reached a critical mass.
More importantly, in the bazaar, a new reflex had formed. When a stranger handed out leaflets muttering, "They will ban your festival," someone would sniff and say, "Let me see if the Stamp of the Federation is on this." If it was not, the paper would often end up wrapping fish.
Narasimha read the captured letter with a sigh.
"They never stop," he said.
Sri, head of Rahasya Seva Mandal, shrugged.
"If they stopped, we would be out of work," she said. "Besides, it is almost flattering. Empires do not waste ink on nations they do not fear."
VI. Gods, Witnesses, and an Eternal
In the lotus-bright hall beyond time, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Maheśvara watched mortals play with fire and water, law and love.
"He has trimmed the claws of his nobles," Sarasvatī observed, her fingers resting lightly on her veena. "He does not abolish them—he tethers them to service and stewardship. That is a delicate rāga."
Lakṣmī smiled faintly.
"He understands wealth in a way many kings never did," she said. "Land is no longer his coin; trust is. When he tells a lord, 'this forest is not your toy; it is your responsibility', he moves my river in the right channels."
Pārvatī's eyes lingered on the scene of the Sarva-Dharma Sabha.
"And when he speaks of Sanātana dharma," she said softly, "he does not speak as a sectarian. He speaks as a custodian of an unbroken thread, strong enough to hold many beads. That is why we trusted him with our first soul."
In another sky, in the ruins of an ancient city in Mesopotamia, an Eternal knelt in the dust of a fallen ziggurat.
Ajak ran her fingers over worn carvings, feeling the echo of a people who had once looked to her for guidance. Civilisations had risen and fallen under her quiet watch, feeding Tiamut and other ancient designs. Now, with the Emergence stopped in another branch of time, her steps were freer, her duty… altered.
One of her fellow Eternals, Kingo, leaned against a broken pillar, dust on his bright clothes.
"You're thinking again," he said. "It's dangerous when you do that."
"Always," she replied, lips curving. Her gaze lifted eastward, as if she could see beyond deserts and seas to the plateau of the Deccan.
"South India?" Kingo guessed. "You went there once, long ago. Before the Mughals. You said their temples sang differently."
Ajak smiled, memories of stone chariots and carved pillars flickering in her mind.
"They still do," she said. "And now, there is… a disturbance. Not of the Celestials, but of another kind."
She showed him, with a gesture, images she had glimpsed in the cosmic stream: a lion-banner over Kurnool-Kesarinagara; a king drafting constitutions; nobles signing away land with only moderate sulking; mobs breaking apart under the weight of one man's words; a new Mandala tracing lines of power not in London or Paris, but in Kurnool and Madurai.
"This one," Ajak murmured, focusing on Narasimha, "is an anchor. The gods of this land have laid hands on him. The Vishanti glance his way. Even certain… darker entities watch."
Kingo whistled.
"So Earth finally grows a leader who thinks in centuries and not just in elections," he said. "About time. You want to meet him?"
"Yes," Ajak said simply. "I have seen too many empires collapse under the weight of their own arrogance. This one is trying something else. I want to walk his cities, feel his people's minds, see if this Mandalic Federation can endure the storms that are coming—from Europe, from Hydra, from… elsewhere."
Kingo grinned.
"And perhaps," he said, "you just miss good South Indian food."
Ajak laughed, the sound like a small bell in the dusty air.
"Perhaps," she admitted. "In any case, I will go. Quietly. As healer, as wanderer. I will see if this Lion King is truly what the gods believe he is."
She rose, brushed sand from her robe, and turned east. Somewhere, in the unseen layers of reality, a thread tugged gently toward Bharat.
VII. Children of One Land
On an evening when the sky glowed purple and gold, Kesarinagara gathered at the edge of a new sarovar.
The tank, wide and stone-stepped, lay on the city's outskirts. At its northern end stood a simple shrine with a carved flame, not dedicated to any one deity but to jyoti itself. At the southern end, a low building waited to serve as clinic and school. Around its banks, men and women of every faith stood talking, watching their children dart along the steps.
Rudrama Devi and Rajendra skirmished with wooden swords near the water's edge until Kaveri gave them both a single identical glare. They promptly sat down side by side, muttering.
"This," Kaveri said to Narasimha, gesturing at the sarovar, "is what happens when you make nobles donate land and merchants donate coin under the same Trust. An old Mysore hunting grove paid for the stone. A coastal Muslim shipping family paid for the clinic. A Jain guild paid for the school roof. A temple trust pays the teachers' salaries. And no one is allowed to put their own name larger than 'Mandalic Dharmic Federation' on the plaque."
Narasimha watched as a former local Thākura, now a trustee of a Kuladhana Trust, supervised the lighting of lamps with the same meticulous pride he had once reserved for reviewing his personal guard.
"He complained so much when we took his revenue rights," Narasimha murmured. "Now look at him. Counting lamps instead of coins."
Kaveri smiled.
"Men like him needed to be told how to serve in this age," she said. "You told them. They can no longer command troops, so they command scholarships. They can no longer tax fields, so they endow libraries. Their names will live as long as the buildings do, not as long as the grudges."
Down on the steps, a small incident unfolded.
A boy sat alone, watching the water with a scowl. Rudrama plopped down beside him.
"Why are you sulking?" she asked.
He glared.
"My father says this tank is not for people like us," he muttered. "He says it's a showpiece for big families and temple people. We just dug it."
Rudrama raised an eyebrow.
"My father made me help with the first map," she said. "I drew such a crooked shape that Rama Sastry nearly had a stroke. If that was 'for big families', it was a terrible compliment. And who do you think approved the funds? The Council of Commons. Where farmers and merchants sit. Your father's hands are in this water as much as mine."
The boy hesitated.
"We are Muslims," he said, as if confessing to a crime.
Rudrama shrugged.
"So?" she said. "The water doesn't care. It gets drunk by cows, priests, maulvis, and idiots equally. That is its dharma. If your father prefers to be thirsty, that is his choice. You can choose otherwise."
Rajendra splashed water at them.
"Stop doing philosophy and come swim!" he yelled.
The boy looked at Rudrama.
"Will… will anyone mind?" he asked.
"If they do," she said cheerfully, "tell them the princess said you could. If that doesn't work, tell them the Sarva-Dharma Commission will come scold them."
He laughed, the sound breaking through his uncertainty, and dove in.
On the far side, the maulvi from the coastal town and the Tirupati scholar shared a moment by the shrine.
"So," the maulvi said, "your king limits how much land a noble can hold, protects our mosques from mobs, and jails imams who call for blood. He also forces zamindars to put their wealth into trusts so their useless sons cannot blow it in England."
The scholar adjusted his shawl.
"He is trying," he said. "He may not always succeed. But tell me, Maulviji—have you ever seen a ruler in any Empire do this much work to ensure that both your grandchildren and mine can drink from the same tank without thinking of each other as enemies?"
The maulvi smiled.
"No," he admitted. "In fact, if this continues, our sermons may become very boring. We will have to talk about God instead of politics."
Narasimha stood a little apart, taking it all in: nobles joking with merchants, priests discussing cricket with padres, children laughing as they shoved each other into the water, occasionally pulling each other back up.
For a heartbeat, the weight on his shoulders lightened.
"These children will think this is ordinary," he said quietly to Kaveri. "A world where a Grāmapati manages Trust accounts, a Mysore queen sponsors schools, a Muslim boy jumps into a tank built by temple funds, and the State does not care who worships what as long as no one is stabbed for it."
"That is the goal, Naatha," Kaveri replied. "If they grow up seeing unity as the standard, then even if trouble comes later—from British greed, Russian games, cosmic villains—they will have something worth defending other than flags and egos."
He looked toward the north.
"In another history," he murmured, "this land shatters along lines drawn by men in London. Trains full of corpses. Temples and mosques both burned. I have seen… echoes of it, in the edges of the cosmic pool. I do not know how much we can change. But here, at least, in this Mandala, I can plant different seeds."
"And you have," a familiar voice said.
Guru Venkanna had approached silently, as always. He watched the water, eyes reflecting lamps.
"You wrestle demons," the old sadhu said, "argue constitutions, bully nobles into founding schools instead of monuments, and lecture mobs on the street. In another age, you would be remembered as a righteous king. In this age, you must be more: a systems builder."
Narasimha laughed softly.
"Systems," he said. "Lines on paper. Trusts. Commissions. How did my fate, as a soul meant to be Manu, become 'eternally cursed to attend meetings'?"
"Because, child," Venkanna replied, eyes kind, "in Kaliyuga, meetings save more lives than miracles."
VIII. Ripples in Distant Courts
News of these reforms—Sarva-Dharma Commission, noble wealth caps and trusts, Mandala of the Unseen, Sarovar projects—did not just stay in Bharat.
In London, the Board of Directors of the East India Company read reports with growing unease.
"Land ceilings?" one scoffed, slapping the paper. "He trims his own nobility. That leaves fewer allies for us."
"And he pacifies religious tensions," another fretted. "If Hindus and Muslims do not slaughter each other, we cannot walk in claiming to restore order. This 'Sarva-Dharma' nonsense makes them more… stable."
A third, more thoughtful, tapped his pen.
"Stability," he mused, "means they can devote more resources to trade, to navies, to espionage. There is mention here of noble family trusts investing in shipyards. If this continues, the southern king won't just be a local nuisance; he'll be a commercial competitor."
The British Foreign Office, reading the same reports, phrased it differently.
"An emerging constitutional monarchy with federated structures, multi-faith legal protections, and managed nobility," one analyst wrote. "Closer to a European state than to the usual despotism. Potentially attractive partner for rival European powers; potentially dangerous foe if fully industrialised."
In Paris, the Foreign Minister smiled thinly over a glass of wine.
"So the English have birthed a rival by accident," he remarked. "This southern Bharat treats its Muslims kindly—good for us with Algiers—and limits noble excess—good model for our own headaches. Perhaps we should send more traders, fewer missionaries."
In Istanbul, an Ottoman adviser presented a report to the Sultan.
"This Narasimha Reddy," he said, "allows Muslims under his rule to practice freely, punishes those who incite hatred, and writes dharma into law in a way that resembles our own attempt to balance Sharia and civil codes. He may be a Hindu king, but he is no enemy to the Faith."
The Sultan, weary of Russian pressure and internal strife, nodded.
"Better a Hindu who treats Muslims justly," he said, "than Christians who use them as pawns. Keep an eye on him. Perhaps one day we will send an embassy."
In Lahore, Maharaja Ranjit Singh—still alive in this timeline—listened to a summary from one of his envoys and chuckled.
"So, in the south," he said, "they have a king who tells pandits and maulvis to sit down and be quiet together, nobles who sign away land into Trusts, and a constitution that makes even the Chakravartin answerable. Hah. Perhaps the world is not entirely doomed."
He looked at a map of India, fingers tracing the Deccan.
"When the time comes for us to negotiate with the British again," he mused, "it may be useful to remind them that there is a whole region where they already lost."
In the courts of Rajputana, old warrior clans debated whether this Mandalic Federation was soft or strong. Some scoffed at the idea of nobles without private armies. Others, remembering famine years under greedy landlords, wondered if Trusts and land ceilings were not, in fact, an honourable evolution.
In Washington, a young republic read translations of the Mandalic Constitution with fascination.
"They have an elected emperor," one congressman remarked. "Weighted votes between commoners and nobles. Rights of faith. Land limits. It is as if someone combined our ideas with ancient kingdoms."
"Another experiment in freedom," another said. "On the far side of the world. Interesting."
Some American merchants, their eyes more on profit than philosophy, saw something else.
"If Britain loses full control of Indian ports," they said, "we could trade more directly with that southern Federation. Spices, textiles, maybe even steam engines in reverse."
Thus, Narasimha's internal decisions—lecturing mobs, reforming nobility, weaving dharma into law—sent small ripples outward, nudging the great powers' calculations a hair's breadth this way or that.
The Lion might never see all those ripples. But the universe did.
In the years to come, when new storms rose—from London's parliaments, from European trenches, from Hydra laboratories and cosmic portals—history would look back at 1844–45 as one of those quiet hinge-years:
When a king stood in a burning street and chose to defend humans before gods.When nobles traded tax ledgers for Trust documents.When tanks were dug not by caste lines, but by calloused hands of many kinds.When an Eternal turned her steps toward the Deccan, curious about a mortal who thought in aeons.
And somewhere, under a sky filled with the smoke of lamps over a sarovar, Narasimha Reddy, Lion of the South, watched his people laugh together and thought:
"This is what I am trying to protect.Not thrones. Not palaces.This simple, impossible sight—that we can all exist on this soil without tearing it apart."
He did not know yet how many wars, bargains, and cosmic games lay ahead.
But for now, the oath held.
✦ End of Chapter 56 – "The Sarva-Dharma Oath" ✦