Chapter 62 - The Shape Energy

—---------------------------Codes of Jalpa—----------

According to Nayashastra ( an ancient book on the regulations of debates), the two debaters having a Jalpa has to follow five codes, which are—

1. A debater must be given half ghadi (12 minutes) to come up with an answer. 

2.  Each answer must be written on a Bhojapatra ( dry birch leaf), and given to the All-Knowing -Eye for validation. 

3. If a debater fails to give an answer in the allotted time, he will lose a point. 

4. If a debater's answer is found invalid by the All-knowing -Eye, he will lose two points 

5. if a debater is unable to answer his own question, he will lose his two chances to raise a question.

6  . Once a debater loses five points, he will be considered a loser.

7. If a debater accepts his defeat before he loses five points, the jalpa will be terminated. The other debater will be the winner. 

***********

"How did he do it?" Durjaya said with a grim face. 

"What?" His fellow apprentice asked. His name was Vira. Both Vira, and Durjaya were under the tutelage of the same master smith. 

"Fooling  All-Knowing-Eye," Durjaya voiced out the suspicion of many apprentices. With a loud ding from the Vada gong, the crowd had calmed down. The debate was about to begin. 

"It's not possible. Mitra's eye can't be tricked." Vira replied. He couldn't help but sigh. His friend hatred for Ishit was no secret to him. However, Durjaya never shared the reason. 

" Then did you really think they are on equal ground?" Durjaya asked. 

"Yes, If All-Seeing Eye says so. "

"But how is it possible? I mean. He had been in a three-year-long coma. He hasn't seen the gate of the spirit school. Above all, he was unable to wield spirit.  " said Durjaya, staring at Ishit who was now on the podium with sullen-faced Viswa. Apparently, the master smith was also having a hard time accepting the fact. 

"Then was he telling the truth?" Durjaya spoke again.

"What?" 

"That the dream-fairy taught him the ways of wielders."

"This!  I don't know. "Vira said,

"Though Nimohis of Occum Shrine claim that dream fairy exists, spiritualists say the queen of the dreamland is just a mind's creation, a fantasy and nothing else. As a spirit wielder, I'm more inclined to believe the spiritualist." 

Vira seemed to hesitate for a while, then he said in a whisper, 

"You really wanted to find out. Visit the Phantom tower.  " 

Durjaya gave his friend a scrutinizing look and nodded. 

****

In the meantime, Karni, the middle-aged man with a heavy stubble beard, guided both debaters about the codes of Jalpa.

the keeper of the symposium called his two assistants to inscribe answers of the debaters. When all the five men sat down on the podium in their respective seats, with the second loud ding, the debate started. 

As per the codes, Ishit, as a challenger allowed to ask the first question. 

The crowd, who had yet to accept the absurd happening, stared at his face expectantly, as if longing to hear his voice. 

***

Having so many eyes fixed on him Ishit felt nervous. Though he had attended the public gatherings, with his father before, none of them had involved him addressing or debating with some master smith.

Ishit felt his hands sweating, and his stomach churning. Viswa was looking at him with a grim face. 

Ishit knew he couldn't afford nervousness, not if he wanted to win this duel. So he took a deep breath and remind himself that even the All-Knowing-Eye thought his understanding of Astra was as deep as the man before him. So there was nothing to fear. However, it didn't help much.  So, he decided to ignore the sickening feeling and took a deep breath. 

"How does Astra identify its master? In other words, why can't a wielder use other's Astras?"  Ishit decided to start with the most basic question. 

Hearing such a simple question the crowd didn't know how to react. Even a school pass out could answer this. 

Did All-Knowing Eye really make a mistake this time? or Had The boy really conned the mirror? 

However, Viswa was not thinking like this.  There was something strange about the boy; he had no spirit ripple, no aura of the wielder. It was like he was just a commoner, but his passing the shield and ringing the Vada gong was telling otherwise.

He even doubted that Oman had sent the boy to challenge him. He knew the Yoddha too well. He was too prideful to do this. 

As for the boy pulling the wool over  Mitra's eye, Viswa simply rejected the thought. Only one person in the history of Mazia was capable of such a feat. He was long dead. 

So even hearing such a basic question, Viswa didn't take the boy lightly. There were too many mysteries about the lad to make any judgement so soon. He decided to play along with the boy. 

"Lad, if you needed an elementary class on smithing, you should have joined the spirit school. There was no need for the Jalpa. " Viswa said,

"Even a commoner knows. When an Astra is forged, we smith imprint the aura of the wielder in its heart yantra. So when someone else tries to use it the yantra doesn't respond to him" 

Ishit shooked his head, ignoring the sneering crowd,

"You didn't get my question. Let me rephrase it. How does the yantra of a non-sentient Astra remember the aura of its master?"

Some master smith nodded their heads, looked at Ishit with interest.  If Ishit had really accepted the answer, they would have seized him and interrogated him how he had beguiled  Mitra's eye. 

Viswa, too, gave Ishit a deep look, as he replied, again.

"Though Yantra itself is not a sentient being. However, when the spirit run through it, it gives rise to feeble sentience, weaker than animal or insect but stronger than a tree. and thus enabling  Astras to memorise their master's aura."

The master smiths in the crowd nodded in agreement. 

Ishit smiled

"You again didn't get my question," 

Viswa, including the master smiths in the crowd, gave him a puzzling look. What Viswa just said was the secret of yantra's working. 

The spirit when passed through a well-defined path birthed sentiences of different levels, depending upon the quality of spirit, the complexity of yantra, and forging material. They all had seen it countless times, there was no denying of the self-proved proof. Even the spiritualists had approved of this theory. 

What the lad was getting at?

"My question is that how the spirit gives birth to sentience. It's not like that spirit checks the beautiful running track, become happy and bestows them"

Viswa didn't answer immediately. The crowd became silent except one or two apprentices or smiths. 

Ishit was not the first person who rose this question.  It was a puzzle that even the spiritualists hadn't been able to decipher so far. 

The questions had myriads of forms, like 

Why did uttering a few strange syllables of the spirit language (Sanskrit) make the spirit respond to their commands? If the spirit could really understand the language, it could learn a different one and respond to other languages too. 

Why did the spirit not respond to any random paths except Yantra? 

Of course, there were theories or so-called hypotheses to explain these enigmas but none was satisfactory. 

Precisely for this reason, when Viswa said he couldn't answer the question, no one jeered or thought less of him. They gave the smug boy a Now-you-give-the-answer look. 

Ishit took a deep breath, and told Karni's assistant to jot down the answer, for it would require validation from the eye. 

"As we all know a yantra consisted of three paths," began Ishit, using spirit-voice. 

1. The Yantric Contour

2. The Dot (BINDU)

3. The Elemental figures "

The crowd nodded in agreement.

The  Yantric counter was a group of lines that formed the outer perimeter of the yantra. It was responsible for preventing the energy loss generated in the core structure. 

The dots, formed as a result of the intersection of spirit paths,  were deposits of energy. 

And the elemental figures were the spirit diagrams to gather five basic elements —wind, water, earth, fire and ether. 

Each element had its unique spirit diagrams.

The Square or also called BHU-PURA  — represented the Earth tattva (element).

The lotus ( Padma) –represented the Wind tattva

Upward Triangle (Trikona)--- represented the  Fire tattva

Down triangle —-represented  the Water tattva

Circle —-represented the  Ether tattva

" All these geometrical figures together give a distinctive shape to a yantra. " Ishit went on, taking a deep breath, and ignoring the numbing sensation in his palms. 

"These well-defined structures are responsible for the birth of sentience. It has nothing to do with the spirit, which is just a kind of energy and nothing else. " an uproar erupted in the crowd, however, Ishit ignored it and added. 

"What I mean is that the shape or structure, which you have been thinking just a decoration or a tangle of lines, has a different kind of power called shape energy or form energy unknown to all of you. This energy has sentience of its own. It is like a house-anima. As a house built according to Vastu principles give birth to a guardian spirit, similarly a well-defined shape gives birth to sentience."

Ishit saw the crowd going frenzy.  He didn't blame them. His mind had also been blown away when he had first read the theory in Avida. 

Each figure or shape had a purpose to serve in nature.

Every geometry or shape emitted a specific vibration, a specific energy pattern. Some of these energies were evil and some of them were good.

This was the core principle of Glassain Astras. 

Amidst all the commotion, Karni again folded the birch leaf into the shape of a dove. And again it flew towards the mirror and got burned to ashes. 

For a moment,  nothing happened. The crowd had calmed down and every eye was fixed at the mirror. 

All of a sudden,  the flames in the eye flared up and a snow-white dove flew out of the mirror, chirping happily. 

A silence fell in the symposium, a pin drop silence. 

Don't worry the debate won't last long.