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Themes From Return Of The Aryans Ch 17
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Thursday, Feb 18, 2010
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THEME 17 - Aryans Everywhere – Aryans of Bharat Varsha in Persian Gulf, Iraq And Elsewhere - 5,005 BCE
Selected extracts from Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani, published by Penguin Books, India, ISBN 0-14- 024053 - 5
(Main Reference: Main Reference: page 739 to page 7493 from Return of the Aryans)
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"God is not a law-giver. He wills a rich harmony; not a colorless uniformity; God does not decree one, single common creed; He demands no worship in fixed form; He excludes none from His scheme of salvation; He is an all-loving, universal God; for Him, every individual is worthy of reverence. . . . . ."
- (Sumaran, Aryan Leader in Iraq -5005 BCE - See page 747, Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani) -
"Where was the Land of the Pure then? Where has all our wandering led us! To what useless, senseless inconsequence!"
- (The Question troubling the minds of Aryans of Bharat Varsha -5005 BCE- See page 747, Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani) -
". . . . . And they(Aryans of Bharat Varsha) established their camps and settlements in Sumer (Iraq) at places, still known by the names they gave them - Hindiya, Hari Nath, Ramaji and Sumaran and fourteen others . . . . .'
- (From the account of a later narrator of events of 5005 BCE- See page 737, Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani) -)
"There is no honor among priests"
(Remark by Sumaran, the Aryan leader who once was a priest -5005 BCE- See page 749, Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani) -)
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Several Aryan contingents from Bharat Varsha reached the coastline of the Persian Gulf by boat and thence went to Sumer between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. But even from Iran, some moved along the Zagros range through the rugged, forbidding ridges and narrow gorges into the plains of Sumer (Mesopotamia).
The Aryans, here, did not have the kind of problems they faced in Hari Haran Aryan. The land had no organized bandit-chiefs or robber-lords. But they had something worse in the shape of priests who ruled the land and people.
The priest's control was total in each area. People could not leave their area to reside elsewhere, unless priests of both areas agreed and appropriate payments were made.
The priest had no army to enforce his will. He did not need it. His word was law. At his bidding, everyone would move and the offender would be stripped, strangled or hanged - whatever the priest willed.
The priest was prosperous. For the rest, there was widespread poverty, over-reliance on hunting, death often by starvation and animal attacks.
The priest was entitled to a portion of the hunt, produce and goods made by artisans and it was left to him to determine his portion. On the death of a person, all his worldly goods were supposed to belong to the gods and thus went to the priest, who would determine if a part of those goods be given to the survivors of the deceased.
Priesthood was hereditary (unlike Bharat Varsha where a priest was appointed for a term and Brahmins as a caste did not exist). On the priest's death, his eldest son succeeded, though occasionally a priest would divide the area so as to favor his other sons as well.
Before the Aryans reached a village in Sumer, they met a few individuals who had fled from their priests' tyranny. These unfortunates were outside the pale of law. Everyone was encouraged to hunt down such renegades; and none could have social contact with them.
From these outcasts, the Aryans understood the power of the priests, though the language-barrier often led to exaggerated gestures and signs.
Yet when the Aryans reached a village, they thought, at first, that their fears had been baseless. The priest welcomed them with delight. The land was endless, but people were few; and the power and prestige of the priest rested on the number of people under him. From a gestured conversation with the Aryans, the priest realized that many of them were hardworking and skilled and he pointed to his vast land to say, 'All this land is yours; make of it what you will.' Some Aryans he sent back, with instruction to guide any more arriving Aryan bands to his own area.
The task assigned to the first Aryan group was to raise an artificial mountain (Ziggurat - a man-made stepped tower.) The Ziggurat was a pile of towers, each a little smaller than the one on which it rested, and the effect form a distance was that of a stepped pyramid. The topmost tower had a small room with a large comfortable bed, perfumed incense and a platform outside the room.
Each priest would want his Ziggurat to be the largest and highest - and some priests, wishing to divide their areas to provide for all their sons, wanted more Ziggurats.
To the Aryans, it appeared like a miniature temple on the inspiration of Mount Meru, which in the Hindu mind was conceived as the mythical seat of the gods. They went about the task of building the Ziggurat with enthusiasm. It was to be their pride and delight.
The gratified priest gave the Aryans every encouragement and saw to it that everyone in the area brought food for them.
The Aryans saw poverty, even starvation, among the people around them. Though at first glance they often found unhappiness, people laughed, joked and even made merry, certain in their faith that their time for 'great happiness in the great beyond' was to come. They believed it was simply their fate to suffer in their life on earth an on death they would rise to their starlit heaven. Their belief was that they were the fallen angels who for some heinous sin were sent on earth to suffer and so long as they obeyed Gods' commands (conveyed by the priest) on earth, they would, at the end, go back to their heavenly homeland. Meanwhile on earth, God's commands would often be stern, pitiless, demanding and dire, and yet they had to be obeyed without question or qualm, irrespective of personal or family feeling, for such commands were made 'only to test if they should go back as a bright or a dull star, or a star that is shot with deadly lightning that sends them back not to land, but below, into the bowels of the earth where there is no priest and therefore no ways to reach heaven.'
To them the whole of heaven was filled with human beings who had turned into stars, with 6,000 gods above them all, who appeared on earth in the garb of priests.
The multiplicity of the gods never bothered the Aryans. That gods could appear in the human shape was also close to their hearts. What they found peculiar was the belief that sorrows and sufferings were also the result of fate - and there was nothing that men could do to alter their destiny. They permitted no room for human will and felt that by total surrender to fate and the commands of the priests, their lives would be freed of impurities.
The Aryan belief in karma, on the other hand, was different. The belief simply was that karma in a previous life determined a person's initial social standing, fortune, happiness or misery in this life; but karma certainly excluded fatalism and man had enough freewill to rise above his condition to 'raise self by self', and not be a pawn of fate. By his own effort, it was open to man to transform his weakness into strength and his ignorance into illumination. How could the Aryan believe that life simply provided an unfolding of a passive, pre-arranged plan and total slavery to the whims of a priest! Surely, each individual should have the opportunities open to strive until he realized the divine destiny of salvation for which he was intended!
It was after all belief in Karma itself that tempted the Aryans to take destiny into their own hands, to go in search of a better land.
Besides, an Aryan, like any other Hindu believed that God was not only a Universal Spirit, but also a personal being, full of love for his creation; and for the Aryans, therefore, it was impossible to imagine that a loving just God would make the kinds of demands that priests made on their helpless, hapless people. Also, the Aryans found it impossible to accept that God would consign anyone to hell eternal.
The Aryans also believed that to despise another's faith was to despise the people themselves and they had come to love these simple people who shared every thing they had and were cheerful despite their adversity.
It was easy for the Aryans to be tolerant of others' faith, so long as a brutal, merciless assault was not made on them. Yet slowly, some silence even sullenness, entered into the Aryan soul as they saw the pitiable conditions the people lived in.
Their first sense of horror came when the priest's wife gave birth to a son. It was a day of celebration. Yet a baby born at the same time to another woman was crushed to death, lest its destiny - arising from the stars - rob the priest's son. Messages were also sent to priests of other areas to kill babies born at the same time. All the priests were honor-bound to comply.
What happens if a priest's wife has twins - would not one rob the other of his destiny - asked the Aryans. 'Of course,' was the answer? 'If the twins are a boy and a girl, the girl will be killed. If both are boys, one, weaker or stronger, will be killed. In any case one of the two has to be killed.'
The second shock to the Aryans came when they learnt that the Ziggurat on which they were working was a different kind of temple. On death, the body of a person was to be taken to the platform of the topmost tower and kept there for two days, so that the gods may view it from the heavens above, to assign the right kind of star.
The priest would also ascend the Ziggurat while the dead body was there. Following him, would be a virgin picked up by the priest from the people. But the 'virgin' could also be the wife of another - and the belief was that selection by the priest 'cleansed her of all prior sex and she came forth chaste, undefiled, shinning, like a child of God, and ready for deflowering by a god.' Below, another 'virgin-in-waiting' selected by the priest would be ready, just in case he needed another. After two days, the priest would send the body down, as by then its soul was supposed to have ascended the right star. The body would then be used as a bait to trap animals.
All this the Aryans heard second-hand. It was happening at another Ziggurat far away from the one they were building.
More Aryan boat-groups reached them. Many groups from Hari Haran Aryan also joined them. Their pleasure was dampened by the news of Iran - that the land was infested by bandit-lords. And the cheerless thought in their minds was that this land too was corrupted by bandit-priests. What was the difference? - Only that a bandit-chief robs with a sword-point at the throat, while a priest robs through terror in the soul! Where was the land of the pure then? Where had all their wandering led them! To what useless, senseless inconsequence!
But the greatest shock was yet to come. News came to the priest that someone had died. He gave instructions for the body to be bathed before being taken to the Ziggurat. There and then, he picked up a woman from his people as the 'virgin' to follow him. She was married and even had two children but the benediction 'cleansed' her of all prior sex. The priest was about to leave when suddenly the desire to taste fresh flesh came over him. He pointed to an Aryan girl, thirteen years old. She understood nothing when the priest pointed at her and simply smiled. But an older Aryan understood and shouted 'No!'
The old Aryan tried to shield the girl. Other Aryans came up. They stood, frozen with fear. Their numbers were large and if they were to put up a fight, there was little the priest could do, yet, fear of the priest held them back.
The priest regarded himself as a kind, benevolent man, who had always been gracious to these new-comers. He was ready to forgive the foreign fool who had shouted at him. He even regretted his hasty decision to pick up a 'virgin in waiting' from the Aryans. The girl was thin; she hardly had full breasts. But the decision was now unalterable; to change it would mean losing face; and would cast its shadow on future relations with these new-comers who had to be taught unquestioning obedience.
Quietly, the priest asked his people to take the girl; he asked them to leave alone the foolish Aryan, who had shielded her. This was well within their tradition: that a madman not is harmed.
The priest's men started moving to escort the girl. They would have done so, even if such an order was about one of their own children.
Dhrav, one of the Aryans who had come from Iran after a brush with the bandit-chiefs, hastily took out his dagger.
But old Sumaran who had led the first batch of Aryans by the sea-route and was regarded as leader of all the Aryans in this land, put up his hands in a placatory gesture.
Respectfully, Sumaran called out, 'Gracious Lord Priest! - A moment please, for a word in your kind ear, if your lordship permits.'
'What is it?' the priest asked. Everyone stopped. Sumaran walked to the priest and bowed low, 'for your ears alone, gracious Lord Priest.'
The priest glared at his men so that they moved far back, out of the earshot. Sumaran spoke quietly, his attitude clearly humble, his face wearing the smile of a slave speaking to a great lord, 'Listen Lord Priest and hear it good. If anyone dares take our girl, I shall personally cut out your testicles with the chisel with which I carve figures on your Ziggurat. And that goes for each member of your family. I swear it on your gods and mine.'
Never, in his wildest nightmares even, had the priest heard anything resembling a threat - neither from the gods nor from man. Fear gripped him. His eyes went to the chisel in Sumaran's hand. Yet how could he recall the order. He stammered, 'But I have already spoken!'
'So be it, Lord Priest,' Sumaran said. 'Let our girl be considered a "virgin-in-waiting". We shall be the ones to bathe and dress her. You may so announce. But if you really send for her, do take the trouble to cut out your own testicles, as my method may not be as painless.'
At last the priest nodded. To his people, he announced, 'They beg to bathe and dress the "virgin-in-waiting" with holy water of their own gods brought by them to do greater honor to our gods. So be it.' If he voice trembled, obviously his men thought that it was in joy that these new-comers should wish to honor the priest's gods.
Sumaran walked back with a low, respectful bow to the priest. Dhrav, Aryan veteran from Iran, was now waiting to stab Sumaran, for all he understood was that the girl was to be bathed by them, to be made ready for sex with priest. It is difficult to argue with a hot-headed man brandishing a dagger; deftly, old Sumaran twisted young Dhrav's hand, hit his legs with his own and lifted him on his back. Dhrav's dagger fell. Dhrav also fell, crashing headlong, on to the ground. Quietly then Sumaran explained.
From a distance, the priest's people watched in dismay. Violence was alien to these gentle people. Even when they killed a man, it would be at the command of the priest, and they would do it swiftly, with mercy and without anger. An animal, ready for the kill, would be treated with gentleness. Only a powerful man was permitted to kill a trapped animal and he was expected to kill it with one blow, so that the animal, unaware, suffered neither fear nor pain. Large, trapped animals would often be fed with herbs mixed with their food, so as to dull their pain from the blow. After the animal's death, the killer and others would bow and pray to the spirit of the departed animal.
Now the locals were shocked as they saw old and respected Sumaran threatened by a dagger and Dhrav with a bleeding head, while the rest of the Aryans shouted. But the priest explained, 'That young lunatic was against treating their own gods lower than our gods by bathing my "virgin-in-waiting" with their holy water.'
The priest's explanation, they saw, was absolutely correct, as Dhrav was kneeling to Sumaran in obvious apology and Sumaran was even embracing him. It even raised Sumaran in their estimation, that he treated a madman like Dhrav with affection. In their own belief too, a mad person was supposed to float in the higher reaches of god's angels.
Also, there was joy in their hearts - that their own gods were rated higher by these Aryans. But initially, there was surprise too; how could one god be lower or higher than another? Someone put a timid question but the priest had no difficulty - 'Their gods are false gods. They are devils!' This opened the floodgates of astonishment and against his better judgment, a local asked, 'But, my lord, they are working on our Ziggurat!'
Contemptuously, the priest answered, 'You understand nothing! They are performing a penance. It is God's will!' Now their hearts went out to the Aryans - a sinner who repented was surely to be admired; and how much these poor Aryans must have suffered under their false gods!
The priest went up his Ziggurat. The married 'virgin' he had selected followed. The Aryan girl, perfumed and decked in flowers, waited below with the Aryans, as if ready for the priest's summons. But she was not summoned. Ignoring the 'virgin-in-waiting' was common, for often the priest needed none else to 'satisfy the gods' and selection of a 'virgin-in-waiting' was more an honour. But some speculative minds were at work among the locals. Maybe, the Priest did not want a girl who once belonged to false gods until the penance by her people was complete. Their respect for their priest and sympathy for the Aryans, increased.
After the Priest descended from the Ziggurat, Sumaran approached him, 'Gracious lord, we seek permission to leave.' True, the Aryans could leave without permission; their numbers were large and the Priest was powerless to stop them. But they could then be outside the pale of law. No priest anywhere would give them passage. No locals would speak to them. It would be the sacred duty of all to hunt them down. So why go into an uncertain future, in an alien land, and invite an era of bloodshed!
The Priest understood that too. He himself did not want these people any more. Clearly, he foresaw trouble and treason, in the times ahead, from such crude, coarse people who would go to the extent of threatening his sacred, inviolable person. If they raised such a fuss over a plain girl with stunted breasts, how much would they fight if their property was threatened! And they would corrupt the attitude of his own people!
But there was something that the Priest wanted more terribly than his self-esteem; and he said, 'You behave as if you are a law unto yourself. Why don't you, then, go on your own, without my permission?'
'Go we will, with or without permission,' Sumaran said, 'though we prefer to go with your blessing.'
'My blessing has to earn.'
'Ask what you will.'
'First, none of you shall speak of what we spoke the other day.'
'I promise,' Sumaran said.
'Second, you shall not serve any other priest.' Obviously the priest did not want these useful workers serving another area.
Sumaran agreed.
'Third, you will not entice anyone from the area to follow you.'
Sumaran agreed.
The priest continued, 'Fourth, while you prepare to leave, you will speak to none of my people here, even if they address you.' Obviously, the priest wanted no corrupting influence on his people.
Sumaran agreed. Now, the priest came to what was nearest to his heart - 'Finally, you will leave after the Ziggurat is ready.'
Sumaran hesitated, 'That will take time.'
'I have time,' said the priest, ending the discussion.
The Aryans debated furiously. Dhrav said nothing but the others who came from Iran favored leaving immediately. 'We did not join the bandit-chiefs there. Why do we need the blessing of a bandit-priest here?'
The difference was explained to them - bandit-chiefs in Iran terrorized people; here the people were behind their priest. But the Iran-veterans argued, 'What can they do to us? They are not fighters!'
And Sumaran asked, 'Are we fighters? Is it to fight that we left our land?' It was then that Dhrav spoke, 'If fight we must, fight we shall. One lives with the conditions that life offers.'
'Really! Then why did we not remain in Bharat Varsha to live within the conditions that life offered there?' Sumaran asked.
'We left to escape the unjust, and here you ask that we associate with the unjust! I say, we go!'
'Go where? From nowhere to nowhere! And leave a trail of blood, everywhere they find us!'
'It won't be our blood!'
'And their blood is cheap?'
Back and forth went the argument. At last no one had anything to say. In silence, they waited for Sumaran to give the decision. They knew he hated to decide when views were divided. Still, that was his task. Suddenly, with a flourish Dhrav took out his dagger and said, 'Brother Sumaran, I may not be a great fighter against you but I challenge you that I am a better builder. Will someone please accept my excellent dagger in exchange for a good hammer to work on the Ziggurat.
There was laughter but no need for a formal decision. The only question was whether the work on the Ziggurat began right then or the next morning. They began that evening it.
Fires were lit every night for work to press on. The priest assigned more locals to assist the Aryans. True to Sumaran's promise, the Aryans did not speak to the locals. It shocked the locals. The Priest explained - the Aryans are in the final phase of penance to complete the Ziggurat during which they cannot speak to the people of the true gods.
Again, their hearts went out to the Aryans - how much these poor unfortunates must endure to get away from their false gods!
The locals even prayed to their Priest to ease the Aryans penance but he was stern and said, 'The flaming wrath of our righteous gods is roused against their false gods who abominate the earth. Ask for no mercy, no charity for those that once served false gods, lest you too be defiled!'
The Aryans moved out after eleven months of back-breaking labour. The Ziggurat, when complete, was not as tall or ornate as originally hoped. Yet it was the tallest pyramidal towers of Sumer.
There was no pride of achievement, no thrill of accomplishment.
Sumaran spoke for his entire Aryan contingent when he said, 'I wish I could smash this Ziggurat to bits. It is the tower of evil.' To Dhrav he said, 'You were right; one lives in the condition that life offers. We leave behind this monument of evil that will outlast you and me.'
Dhrav understood Sumaran's anguish, 'Evil would have remained, neither more or less, whether we built this monument or not.'
'Yet we left our land to be away from evil and here we participated in it!'
Dhrav did not respond but said, as if speaking to himself, 'Purus said to us in Iran - none can flee evil by fleeing his land.'
They were silent. Each had a question in his heart. Each dreaded the answer.
The priest had given Sumaran information on the layout of the land to reach areas outside the control of any priest. Apparently there were many such areas - wild, barren and uncleared. Nothing prevented a priest from extending his area, so long as it was unoccupied by another priest, but with a limited population and vast area, priests rarely ventured into lands that offered nothing but required great effort.
Some say that the priest gave such information so that the Aryan bands did not serve another priest and make him great and strong. Others say, it was to protect other priests from the corrupting Aryan influence.
The Aryans moved on. In the areas they crossed, they would be known as 'Aryans of the Clay Tablet', as they carried a tablet of clay from the priest whom they left. It was a kind of an 'exit visa' that repressive governments of the twentieth century would rediscover. The tablet permitted the Aryans to leave the priest's area and go elsewhere; second, it obliged all other priests to permit them to cross their land, unless the Aryans agreed to serve another priest, in which case the original priest decided on the payment he was to receive; third, the Aryans could settle in areas unoccupied by a priest, though a priest could enter that land at any time, in which case the Aryans would either have to leave or serve the new priest, with a payment being made to the original priest; fourth, none, on death, would be honored with exposure on a Ziggurat since that would abominate the true gods; but their bodies could serve as bait to trap animals; but here again, those animals would be sacrificed to the gods; fifth, the Aryans would have to send to the original priest a share of their hunt, produce, and goods as decided by the priest; sixth . . . . . . . . .
The list went on. And so, the idea of this plain clay tablet, with a single graven image, was that sovereignty of the original priest continued, and there was no place to run and hide for ever.
Dhrav commented, 'Priests here are masterly in making laws. Do they know as much about their gods?'
'How can you know such laws and gods at the same time?' Sumaran countered. 'Laws were intended to subvert the gods and exploit the exploited.'
'Surely, there are God's laws too!'
'God is not a law-giver. He wills a rich harmony; not a colorless uniformity; God does not decree one, single common creed; He demands no worship in fixed form; He excludes none from His scheme of salvation; He is an all-loving, universal God; for Him, every individual is worthy of reverence. . . . . .'
'Brother Sumaran, you should have been a priest.'
'I was.'
Dhrav laughed, 'No wonder you could fool the priest here into giving the "clay tablet." Truly, a priest alone can outwit another priest!' But then seriously, he asked, 'What made you to leave Bharat Varsha?'
'My son and my wife.'
'Where are they?' Dhrav asked.
'My son died years before we left. He had joined Jalta's command to free slaves. He died the next day. My wife died in shipwreck, on our way to this land.'
Dhrav was silent. Yet there was a question in his eyes. Sumaran answered it, 'No we are not of slave-ancestry. I was a land-owner and wanted to be a hermit, but my wife's brother, who was a Council member, built a temple in my son's memory and I agreed to be its priest. When the cry came from some rya to be Aryan, my wife knew, and I knew, that our son wanted not a temple, but to protect the exploited. My wife demanded that we leave . . . . . . I am still following her. . . . .'
The Priest's clay tablet was certainly not invented by the Aryans. It had been in use for centuries in Sumer. That gave the Aryans joyful assurance. Obviously, many locals must be using such clay tablets with the connivance of priests to seek asylum in non-priestly areas.
In their long, tedious journey, they found some areas, though they were largely deserted, mostly barren; people there, outside priestly control, were a revelation to them. Their day-to-day activity was to hunt and gather food, but with concern for the weak, infirm and the orphaned. They had artists, singer's even hermits.
'Why do you not improve this land?' asked the Aryans.
'Because the priests will then come and take us over!' they countered. 'It is open to a priest to take over any non-priestly land. And what do we do then? Serve the priest? Run elsewhere? No, let the land remain unattractive and untempting to priests.'
'Why do you not unite against the priests?' asked the Aryans
'How do a few trees unite against a million locusts?'
The Aryans viewed the local hermits with respect. Some hermits were immersed in the calculation of time and angles; others, with astronomy, zodiac and its signs. A few were trying to evolve a method of writing through pictographs - an achievement that was just a step below the invention of writing already achieved in Bharat Varsha.
As it is, only a few Aryans, like Sumaran and Dhrav were fully familiar with the art of writing. Many were not.
How artistic these Sumerians were, with their music, painting, and sculpture! They made no idols, but figures of animals, birds, men and women with beautiful slender bodies and women suckling children. Local artists saw the seals that the Aryans carried and they made almost exact copies in clay, with every detail of engraving clearly visible.
'Why don't we all go together,' the Aryans asked these locals, 'and settle where the land will hold us all.'
'Send for us when you find such a land,' they replied. 'But if you don't find it, come back and be with us.'
The Aryans went on.
Later, these locals would find asylum in areas where the Aryans settled.
Hindiya is the first known site at which the Aryans established their largest camp. It is now known as Al Hindiya (map reference: 32.33n; 44.13e; south of Baghdad, Iraq).
The second largest Aryan camp was at Hari Nath. It is presently know as Hadithah (map reference : 34.07n; 42.23e).
Actually, though, there were many Aryan camps spread all over Mesopotamia, between Rama and Ramji on the Euphrates and the bend of Tigris below Sumaran.
In these camps, the Aryans encouraged locals to dyke rivers. In the south - dry, barren and rainless - the Aryans began artificial irrigation, bringing water to large stretches through a widely branching network of canals. The soil was fertile and with irrigation and proper drainage, it would soon become a land of plenty.
Thus began concentration of agriculture rather than hunting, with tree-farming, cattle breeding, weaving, date-palm cultivation, reed utilization, and later even quarrying of limestone and marble.
With local help, the Aryans built a huge granary consisting of six chambers, each holding a different kind of grain and lentil.
They even built a huge Ziggurat, not as a house of evil for misuse by a priest, but as real temple where people could pray. There was no platform for dead bodies and no priest at all.
In art and aesthetics, in culture and philosophy, the Aryans had as much to teach as learn from locals who had been uprooted by the priests.
The strange difference was that many of the locals, through earlier persecution, had become atheists, whereas the Aryans who had fled their land after witnessing persecution had achieved greater faith. Yet the locals and the Aryans delighted in this difference and it did not divide them. In fact, they all came to call themselves Aryans.
Many stories would be told of how Sumaran - the Aryan leader - obtained more and more land for the Aryans from the priests. Some speak of his negotiating skills. Others simply call it crude bribery. But the fact is that promises were given (and fulfilled) for untold wealth to priests, from time to time, if the priests left the Aryan areas undisturbed.
If more and more locals joined the Aryans, it hardly bothered the priests. Their compensating revenue rose. That priests pocketed these payments without regard to the established 'law' of compensating the original priest is understandable in terms of Sumaran's explanation - 'there is no honor among priests.'
Sumaran should know. He had once been priest himself.
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