THE KRISHNA KEY - mpraveenkumar.weebly.com

1 THE KRISHNA KEYA shwin Sanghi s first novel, The Rozabal Line, was self-published in 2007 under his pseudonym, ShawnHaigins. The theological thriller based upon thetheory that Jesus died in Kashmir was subsequentlypublished by Westland in 2008 in India under his ownname and went on to become a bestseller, remainingon national bestseller lists for several Sanghi s second novel, Chanakya s Chant,a political thriller with roots in ancient Mauryanhistory, shot to the top of almost every bestseller listin India within a few weeks of its launch. The novelwent on to win the Crossword-Vodafone PopularChoice Award 2010, and film producer UTV acquiredthe movie rights to the book. The novel continues todominate the fiction KRISHNA Key, Ashwin s third novel, is a furiouslypaced and riveting thriller that explores the ancientsecrets of the Vedic age and the is an entrepreneur by profession but writinghistorical fiction in the thriller genre is his passionand hobby.

2 Ashwin was educated at the Cathedral& John Connon School, Mumbai, and St Xavier sCollege, Mumbai. He holds a masters degree fromYale and is working towards a in CreativeWriting. Ashwin lives in Mumbai with his wife,Anushika, and his son, connect with Ashwin on email or social mediaplease visit his website at ltdVenkat Towers, 165, Road, Opp. Maduravoyal Municipal office, Chennai 600 (New ), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560 026 Survey No. A-9, II Floor, Moula Ali Industrial Area, Moula Ali, Hyderabad 500 04023/181, Anand Nagar, Nehru Road, Santacruz East, Mumbai 400 0554322/3, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002 First published by westland ltd/2012 Copyright Ashwin Sanghi 2012 All rights reserved10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN:Typeset by Art Works, ChennaiPrinted atThis book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade orotherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in anyform, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles orreviews) may be made without written permission of the S NOTEI am obliged to my wife Anushika and my sonRaghuvir, who ungrudgingly tolerated my persistentabsence from their lives while I was writing this are my inspiration, my life and my very am beholden to my parents, Mahendra andManju, who supported me in all my endeavours,including my writing.

3 Also, many thanks to mybrother and sister, Vaibhav and Vidhi, who picked upthe slack, at work, and at home, while I was workingon this aunt, Aparna Gupta, is my eternal friend andguide, but has never hesitated to critique my work. Iam thankful to her for playing the role of sounding-board while this novel was a work in am grateful to my editor, Prita Maitra, and mypublisher, Gautam Padmanabhan, without whomnone of my novels, including this one, would haveemerged from their manuscripts. In addition, I amthankful to Paul Vinay Kumar, Renuka Chatterjee,Anushree Banerjee and Satish Sundaram at Westlandwho have always supported me Ahlawat and Kunal Kundu deserve specialmention for the beautiful cover design as also VipinVijay for putting it all together. My thanks to RupeshTalaskar for the illustrations inside the pages of thisnovel. My gratitude, also, to Vishwajeet Sapan forthe key Sanskrit big thank you to Ameya Naik and KushalGopalka who helped create the audio track of thecentral shloka of this novel.

4 Finally, a special thanksto Hemal Mathija, Shalini Iyer and Saurabh Sharmafrom the Think Why Not team who helped createthe video am thankful to various authors and producersof original or derived works. A separate acknowledge-ments section at the end of the narrative lists thesein am fortunate to be the grandson of the late ShriRam Prasad Gupta and grandnephew of his brother,the late Shri Ram Gopal Gupta. Their blessings movethe fingers that hold my , I am deeply aware of the fact that whenI sit down to write, the words that flow from mind tomatter are merely through me, not from me. How doI convey my thanks to the real writer the formless,shapeless and endless Almighty for his blessings?Perhaps this book will answer that S NOTEviiWARNINGThis book uses several images to explain details within thestory. Flipping to the back of the book prematurely may resultin your inadvertently viewing some images that could act asplot-spoilers, hence this is not book is a work of fiction and should be read as such.

5 Noclaim regarding historical accuracy is made expressly orimplied. All names, characters, places and incidents used inthis book are the product of the author s , religious or mythological characters; historicalor legendary events; or names of places are always usedfictitiously. Best efforts have been made to attribute historical,mythological or theological material at the back of thisbook in the Acknowledgements & References section. Anyresemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, past eventsor historical locations, is entirely coincidental. Images andmaps are for illustrative purposes only and are presentedwithout any claim to OF KINGDOMS DURINGTHE MAHABHARATA ERAWho really knows, and who can swear,How creation came, when or where!Even gods came after creation s day,Who really knows, who can truly sayWhen and how did creation start?

6 Did He will it? Or did He not?Only He, up there, knows, maybe;Or perhaps, not even He. Rig Veda 10:129 THE KRISHNA KEY1 Let me start at the very even beforeI was born. One of my ancestors was King was cursed by the sage Shukracharya forhaving been unfaithful to his wife, Devayani, whowas Shukracharya s daughter. The curse wasthat Yayati would grow old prematurely andthus be unable to enjoy the pleasures of hisyouth and potency. Later, Shukracharya relentedand softened the blow: Yayati would be sparedif one of his sons, Yadu or Puru, accepted theconsequences of the curse. The older son, Yadu,refused, but the younger, Puru, agreed to take iton himself. As a reward, Yayati chose Puru tosucceed him as king, in place of Yadu. The enragedYayati enlarged upon the punishment to his elderson. Neither you nor your descendants will everoccupy a throne!

7 He prophesied, in a fury. Theunlucky Yadu left his home and settled down inMathura where his lineage f lourished. Yadu sdescendants were the Yadavas, of which I was , since then, have been king-makers, butnever kings. Puru went on to become the patriarchof the kingdom of Hastinapur into which thefamilies of the Kauravas and Pandavas were SANGHI2 Anil Varshney did not know that he had less thantwelve minutes left to live. His modest house in theHanumangarh district of Rajasthan was deathly quietat this hour except for the humming of the desertcooler. Varshney loved the silence. It allowed him toimmerse himself entirely in the strange letterings andsymbols that lay before was meditation and prayer for India syoungest linguist and symbolist who had shot toinstant fame when he succeeded in deciphering severalancient hieroglyphs from the Indus Valley in over fifteen languages, Varshney had tenpublications to his credit including the most widelyused multilingual dictionary of Indian languages.

8 Hewas to ancient writing systems what Bill Gates wasto operating living space was fashionably disorganised,reflective of the eclectic genius that inhabited it. Thebedroom was rarely used because most of Varshney slife was spent at archaeological sites, particularlyKalibangan, the most important Indus Valley site inRajasthan. His living room had no furniture exceptfor a desk and a patterned-fabric couch that hadseen better days. The bare floor was littered withstacks of books, bundles of research papers, aswell as cardboard boxes filled with the objects ofVarshney s study seals, pottery fragments, scrollsand the desk before him lay a small rectangularseal, around 20 x 20 mm, apparently made of conchshell. The seal had a square peg in the back. Strangely,the peg had no hole for inserting a ring into, as wasusual with seals of this type.

9 Three ancient animalTHE KRISHNA KEY3motifs of a bull, unicorn and goat were engraved inan anticlockwise direction on the face of the seal. Andit was this frozen tableau that seemed to be the focusof Varshney s desk was strewn with papers on which he hadmade sketches and scribbles. A notebook computerstood open on a corner of the desk, its screen-saverhaving been triggered an hour earlier. A brushed-steeldesk lamp shone a single, wide beam of fluorescentwhite light on the seal and the papers surrounding , oblivious to everything else around him,was closely examining the images on the seal with aCarl Zeiss 20X magnifying s outward appearance was that of a geek:ill-fitting clothes, uncombed hair, and shirt pocketsstuffed with a variety of Rotring Isograph pens. Hisface was blemished with mild eruptions of acneand his personal hygiene left a lot to be desired.

10 Butgrooming, bathing and dressing were completelyinconsequential in his world. Varshney had spentseveral years at various Indus Valley sites includingthe recent one at Kalibangan painstakingly creatinga database of eight thousand semantic clustersfrom his lexicon of thirty Indian languages. For thefirst time since the excavations at Harappa in 1921,Varshney now seemed to have found a way to explainthe strange hieroglyphs on over five thousand sealsdiscovered at such was oblivious to his surroundings anddid not observe the shaft of light falling on the floorthat gradually widened as the main entrance door tohis house was quietly opened, the lock having beenexpertly picked. He did not notice the beam of lightASHWIN SANGHI4disappearing as the door was gently closed. He didnot hear the quiet footsteps of light rubber soles onthe ceramic-tiled floor, nor did he feel the breath ofthe stranger on his neck.