PEACE PAGODA

A VISIT TO THE PEACE PAGODA...

I had written a poem titled as" An account of a transformation" after coming back from Dhauli. As we all know, this is the site where emperor Ashoka shed down all his weapons and embraced Buddhism. 

               So here is the poem....

                               

                            -   AN ACCOUNT OF A TRANSFORMATION -

               Atop the hill,

             amid tranquility,

             clad in serenity,

           lies the "Peace Pagoda".

    And beneath that great White Pagoda,

        flows a tender river-"Daya",

 The river long turned dumb witnessing that holocaust,

 But each sand on the river bed speaks of a story,

 The story of a bloodshed,

 The story of a ghastly war.

                          - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 An emperor haughty and proud,

  with audacity and stealth,

To conquer the unconquered, 

  he set fire and spilt blood,

     Each standing man,

       wise and old,

    woman and child,

  hacked down to the ground.

   The river and the sand

     all turned fiery red.

                          - - - - - -  - - - - - -  -  -- - - - - - - - - - - - -  - - - - - - 

   Amid those war cries, 

   and heaps of corpses,

  the scavenging vultures

    and grieving wives

The great Maurya sees the vanity of his desire,

The fragility of his pursuit,

Dejected with victory of his,

 he throws his armouries.

In his ear echoed those lines " Buddham Saranam Gachhami...."

And on that very river bed 

the cruellest of the man changed to the noblest.

" Chandashoka turned Dharmashoka"