“On the last day of her life, when she was two hundred and forty-seven years old, the blind poet, miracle worker, and prophetess Pampa completed her immense narrative poem about Bisnaga and buried it in a clay pot sealed with wax in the heart of the ruined Royal Enclosure, as a message to the future. Four and a half centuries later we found that pot and read for the first time the immortal masterpiece and the Jayaparajaya, meaning “Victory and Defeat,” written in the Sanskrit language.”
Pampa Kampana's long lifespan surmises that she is not a normal human being. Her writings were instrumental in the preservation of the history of an Empire. The future generations would get an accurate account of how the Bisnaga Empire found victory and later was defeated. The written poem is more reliable than the recollection of individuals that may be distorted through time. Her long poem comprises 24,000 verses and covers unknown details regarding the empire.
“The story goes that the women of the tiny, defeated kingdom, most of them recently widowed as a result of the no-name battle, left the fourth-rate fortress, after making final offerings at the fifth-rate temple, crossed the river in small boats, improbably defying the turbulence of the water, walked some distance to the west along the southern bank, and lit a great bonfire and committed mass suicide in the flames. Gravely, without making any complaint, they said farewell to one another and walked forward without flinching.”
The women choose to commit mass suicide as an act of solidary with their husbands who were murdered during the war. They face their deaths courageously because they do not scream when the fire consumes their flesh. Pampa Kampana's mother is among the women that commit mass suicide. She witnesses how her mother walks into the fire, and the memories torture her for a long. The women depict the dangers of groupthink; they engage in massive destruction without weighing the repercussions of their actions. Their mass suicide is the final shove in the empire's collapse.
“Then life began, and hundreds—no, thousands—of men and women were born full-grown from the brown earth, shaking the dirt off their garments, thronging the streets in the evening breeze. Stray dogs and bony cows walked the streets, trees burst into blossom and leaf, and the sky swarmed with parrots and crows."
Bukka and Hukka perform the miracle of creation using the seeds that Pampa had given them. The miracle transpires at the site where women had killed themselves suing the fire. Pampa has given them a blessing for them to build their city. After scattering the blessed seeds, a city emerges from the ground. Eventually, the city is filled with life. The existence of humans and vegetation is imperative for the city to be fully functional. The creation described in the passage is an allusion to the Biblical tales regarding how the world manifested nothing due to God’s omnipotence.
