A man laid down on a large ornate bed, his large body supported by a mattress containing feathers from a thousand of the finest geese.  There was a time when his bed was the ground, his blanket whatever clothes he happened to be wearing.  He laughed at the thought, a dry weezing sound, lacking the vigour and volume of his youth.  He looked around at the faces surrounding him. Wives, sons, brothers, sisters, friends, scribes. All here to hear the final words of their dying sovereign. To hear the true story, not the legend or the myth, but the autobiography of Jatendra, one of the greatest conquerors the world had ever known. The man opened his mouth, and the story began thus: