अलेक्झांडर-द- ग्रेट, तुम्ही पुन्हा जन्माला या....Alexander the great and Cleopatra

सध्या (डिसेंबर २०१७) पोरस यांच्या जीवनावर सोनी टीव्ही वर सिरीयल चालू आहे. पोरस आणि अलेक्झांडर यांच्यातील हायडासपीसची लढाई (Battle of Hydaspes) प्रसिदध आहे. त्या सगळ्यावरून आलेले विचार...

असे म्हणतात की महाराष्ट्रा वर सातवाहनांनी इतके चांगले राज्य केले की त्यांची आठवण लोक सातवाहन सत्ता नष्ट झाल्यानंतर जवळजवळ १००० वर्षे- म्हणजे साधारण सन १२०० पर्यंत-  काढत असत.

२१व्या शतकात महाराष्ट्रातले सर्व राजकीय नेते शिवाजी महाराजांच्या नावाचा गजर करत असतातच पण सामान्य माणसाला तर शिवाजी महाराजांबद्दल इतका आदर आहे की जगात काय, स्वर्गात सुद्धा त्यांच्या इतका चांगला मनुष्य, राजा  नसेल अस त्याला वाटत आणि म्हणूनच महाराष्ट्रात राहणाऱ्या , मराठी येणाऱ्या,  माणसाने आजपर्यंत एकदा तरी हे आवाहन नक्कीच वाचले आहे: "राजे, तुम्ही पुन्हा जन्माला या."

२०१७च्या सप्टेंबर मध्ये, महाराज वारले त्याला ३३७ वर्षे झाली.

कुरुक्षेत्र केंव्हा झाले याचे अंदाज ख्रिस्त पूर्व ५५६१ पासून ख्रिस्त पूर्व ९५० पर्यंतचे आहेत. ट्रॉय चा पाडाव ११९४-११८४ ख्रिस्त पूर्व वर्षात झाला. अलेक्झांडर द ग्रेट ३२३ ख्रिस्त पूर्व वर्षात वारले. क्लिओपात्रा ख्रिस्त पूर्व ५१साली सत्तेवर आल्या, ११३८ आणि २७२ वर्ष त्या दोन घटनांनंतर.

जसे शिवाजी महाराज आणि महाभारत आपल्या जीवनाचा आजही भाग आहेत तसेच ट्रॉय चा पाडाव ही घटना आणि अलेक्झांडर-द-ग्रेट क्लिओपात्रांच्या जीवनाचा होते.

खालील दोन परिच्छेद वाचा.

"The legitimacy of the Ptolemaic dynasty would rest on this tenuous connection to the most storied figure in the ancient world, the one against whom all aspirants measured themselves, in whose mantle Pompey had wrapped himself, whose feats were said to reduce Caesar to tears of inadequacy. The cult was universal. Alexander played as active a role in the Ptolemaic imagination as in the Roman one. Many Egyptian homes displayed statues of him. So strong was his romance—and so fungible was first-century history—that it would come to include a version in which Alexander descended from an Egyptian wizard. Soon enough he was said to have been related to the royal family; like all self-respecting arrivistes, the Ptolemies had a gift for reconfiguring history. Without renouncing their Macedonian heritage, the dynasty’s founders bought themselves a legitimacy-conferring past, the ancient-world equivalent of the mail-order coat of arms. What was true was that Ptolemy descended from the Macedonian aristocracy, a synonym for high drama. As a consequence, no one in Egypt considered Cleopatra to be Egyptian. She hailed instead from a line of rancorous, meddlesome, shrewd, occasionally unhinged Macedonian queens, a line that included the fourth-century Olympias, whose greatest contribution to the world was her son, Alexander the Great. The rest were atrocities."

"At the same time, the centuries felt closer than they do to us today. Alexander the Great was further from Cleopatra than 1776 is to our century, yet Alexander remained always vividly, urgently present. While 1,120 years separated Cleopatra from the greatest story of her time, the fall of Troy remained a steadfast point of reference. The past was at all times within reach, a nearly religious awe aimed in its direction. This was especially true in Egypt, which had a passion for history, and which for two millennia already had kept a written record. For the bulk of those years the insular, inaccessible country had changed little, its art barely at all. There was good reason why Cleopatra’s subjects viewed time as a coil of endless repetitions. Recent events only reinforced that notion. Ptolemaic advisers had persuaded earlier boy-kings to murder their immediate families. Previous queens had fled Egypt to muster armies. Much that could be said of the conquering Romans in 47 could have been said three centuries earlier of Cleopatra’s Macedonian ancestors, a parallel by no means lost on her."

(Stacy Schiff, 'Cleopatra: A Life', 2010)

क्लिओपात्रांच्या काळात घोड्यांच्या रथांच्या मागे कदाचित लिहले जात असेल: "अलेक्झांडर-द- ग्रेट,  तुम्ही पुन्हा जन्माला या"....

Alexander the great,

 courtesy: Wikipedia