Kausambi's gates soared like segmented code, each turret a module of defense. Merchants from Gandhara, fishermen from the delta, ascetics with glimmering beads—all moved through the arches in overlapping loops of barter and prayer. My outsider's gait was measured; I cataloged everything:
Population density: Nodes per city block far exceeded my village grid.
Trade flows: Spices, textiles, manuscripts—every good had its own packet-switched route.
Information channels: Temple proclamations, tavern gossip, and scribes offering letter-writing services.
As I crossed the threshold, a rope-pulled drawbridge clicked and locked behind me. The city's security protocol impressed me: one controlled ingress, multiple surveillance layers—guards who memorized faces, priests who noted omens.
I had arranged lodging through Sadananda's contacts: a modest inn near the riverbank. The owner, Mahavira the porter, sized me up skeptically.
"Just a scholar?" he asked, checking my satchel.
"Yes," I replied. "And a curious one."
He grunted but gave me a room—dark, stone-floored, smelling of stale rice and candle smoke. I unpacked my essentials: the white breakpoint-stone from the hermit, notes on soil and wind, a fresh palm-leaf notebook, and a sharpened stylus.
Before dusk, I took my first river survey: Y-shaped channels, each sluice gate a control valve in the city's water management system. Irrigation for fields outside, urban wells inside. I glimpsed merchants bargaining for grain inventories; soldiers marching patrol patterns; beggars querying passersby like ping-requests in a network.
Kausambi was alive in packets: currency changing hands, glances exchanged, data of every social exchange logged in invisible registers. My algorithmic mind quivered with anticipation.
At the primary ghat—steps leading into the Yamunā's wide current—I saw three groups:
Merchant Guilds: Clad in saffron robes, ornate pouches, authority derived from commerce.
Brahmin Councils: White-robed, faces powdered, reciting Vedic hexagrams.
Military Commanders: Bronze-armored, silent, scanning for dissent.
Each faction played a game: merchants seeking low buy-prices and high sell-prices; priests seeking ritual purity and temporal influence; commanders maintaining order and projecting strength. Alliances formed, dissolved, reformed—a dynamic equilibrium that mirrored a multi-player repeated game.
I scribbled pay-off matrices in the dirt:
I recognized unstable loops: when merchants colluded, prices fell—profit collapsed, leading to priest intervention. Troop deployments then restored order, but angered merchants, who bribed priests, and on, in endless cycles.
For the first time, I saw warlike potential in a market stall and holy intrigue in a temple sermon.
Word of the "strange potter's son who scribbles numbers" reached the Giriśa Ashram, a hilltop enclave where logic and dharma converged. Scholars there debated metaphysics through syllogisms and sutra recitations. One invited me inside, after testing my familiarity with the Nyāya Sutras.
I lacked formal training but compensated with raw insight:
Giriśa: "What is the nature of knowledge?"I: "It's information structured for decision-making under uncertainty."
They blinked. I had reframed their question in Bayesian terms.
The head scholar, Vācaspati, offered me a seat among them—an unprecedented gesture for a shudra. For three days, I listened and countered:
On Vedic Epistemology: I mapped pramāṇa (means of knowledge) to validation metrics.
On Causality vs Karma: I argued karma was a feedback function, not a punitive decree.
On Liberation (mokṣa): I likened it to algorithmic convergence—error approaching zero but never reaching it fully.
They recorded my words. Some were uneasy; others intrigued. I collected their scrolls, digitizing them mentally for deeper analysis later.
Though I engaged with scholars, my overriding drive remained self-interest. I'd learned early not to risk my family's safety for abstract virtue. In Kausambi, I scoped for threats:
A band of masked thieves rumored to ambush caravan routes.
A local official — Kāvya: rumored to skim taxes and punish dissent.
A temple faction plotting to heirarchy-hack the merchant guild.
Whenever I saw undue hardship on merchant traders, I considered offering silent aid—information leaks, route adjustments—only when a profit-share insured me a future advantage. Otherwise, I stayed aloof.
I was a rational agent. Every intervention required a cost-benefit analysis.
At the central bazaar, I set up a small stand selling clay glyph-tiles—notations for scripts I'd invented to map trading patterns. I charged a token fee. In return, I gained access to merchants' ledgers. I cross-referenced supply stocks, seasonal demand, and local crop yields.
Within days, I predicted a grain shortage. I stocked pulses and lentils at low cost. When the famine rumors hit, my stall thrived. I managed the proceeds to fund further travel.
My family's grain store back home also benefited—an opportunistic transfer from city surplus to rural safety.
Everything was data. Everything was leverage.
On the seventh day in Kausambi, I was summoned—not by request, but by protocol. Brahmin General Vṛṣṇi arrived to inspect city defenses. I observed his convoy: disciplined ranks, concealed elephants, and an entourage of astrologers checking omens at every rest stop.
He entered the bazaar, and I approached under the guise of selling glyph-tiles. He peered at my notes:
"You map our moves," he stated, voice calm but firm.
"I study systems," I replied.
He tested me with rapid questions on troop deployments vs river flow rates—a direct query into my mental models.
When I answered precisely, he offered me a chance: travel with his retinue as an ad-hoc advisor on logistics. In return, I would pledge loyalty to his banner—for a price.
I accepted in principle, negotiating a clause: my loyalty only extended to protecting my family's interests, not blind fealty.
He smiled. "A useful qualifier."
That evening, I sat by the riverside, tallying input streams:
Merchant trades
Scholarly knowledge
Security intel
Military logistics
All flowed into my private data matrix. I had become a node of unprecedented information bandwidth—more than any local sage, more than most kings' ministers.
And yet…
In the ripples of the Yamunā, I saw a reflection of my own self-interest. Was I any better than Duryodhana? Or just more calculated?
I closed my eyes. The breeze carried the distant echo of temple bells. Somewhere in the city, a chant repeated: "Perform your duty without attachment." Krishna's words again—Gita's directive to code-like action.
I wondered: Would I, too, one day override my own memory and vow to act without desire? Or was I forever bound to optimize selfishly?
My five-day stay in Kausambi concluded as planned. I packed my notes, the white breakpoint-stone, scripts on palm leaves, and a small pouch of surplus lentils sold at profit.
General Vṛṣṇi escorted me to the city gate. He paused.
Vṛṣṇi: "Remember, boy, you are a wildcard in our game. Use your power wisely—or you'll collapse the system you so admire."
I inclined my head in acknowledgment.
Me: "I exist to learn how the system runs. Not to save it. Not to break it. Just to understand its algorithm."
He let me pass, and the gates closed behind me with a resonant thud.
As I walked away from Kausambi, the city's architecture receded. The bazaar's hum faded. Only the road remained—a linear graph stretching toward distant horizons.
Behind me lay:
A city of commerce and code.
A temple of recursive logic.
A general testing my mettle.
Ahead lay:
New nodes to map.
New agents to observe.
New data to gather.
And always, the unspoken question:
In a world written as code, where does a living anomaly find its purpose?
I closed my eyes, breathed in the night air, and whispered:
"Next node: Prayāga, where rivers converge and fates collide."