"Lord!" Brahma was petrified, "He unleashed such hell because his wife killed herself…and if we were to desiccate her corpse…" His eyes widened in horror at just the thought of it.

"Sigh…I have to do everything myself…" Vishnu muttered to himself sadly. To which Brahma couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Rising one of his four hands, his long distance weapon lightly activated. But he didn't release it.

"I won't help you this time just because you asked me to. You made a serious error and I want you to rectify it. There is still some time before Shiva's reign of terror will reach the Devlok. What I want you to do before is to lay the foundation for a new era. Even if I quell the chaos now, it will be useless if there is no one to take control of what is left of the human world. But I don't want the human world to be ruled by gods, for that will turn out just like before…."

Flipping his eyebrows, Brahma secretly rolled his eyes again. You want me to teach the unruly humans godly ways yet do not want the gods to go rule. My father, it is just like you to make such unreasonable demands of me!

"Don't make that face," Vishnu said in his light-hearted voice. "Am I not thinking of a solution too? Alright. Maybe not having any god to watch over them is over-ambitious. You can send one god at a time…meaning only one god can rule over the humans at any time." Brahma's frown released. This seemed easy enough.

"But there has to be correlation between the reign of each succeeding one."

Brahma's frown tightened again.

Vishnu shrugged helplessly. "You can't blame me. Your creation is highly disorganized. No culture is deeply rooted. This is the only way to create some rich history in order to strengthen its base and create a platform for shared wisdom."

"I know. Lord, but what kind of correlation are we talking about here?"

"I'm not sure…" the god drawled. "Whatever kind the humans prefer most…." Lazy as he was, Vishnu already forgot what he learnt about humankind.

"The humans prefer blood ties the most," Brahma answered with clarity.

"Then make these gods brothers," Vishnu said easily, as if saying, I'd like my eggs salted. "Lets say seven?" He added, "Plus one."

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"Seven plus one?" Brahma asked nonplussed. What's with the plus one?

"Seven successive gods who rule the earth in human form plus one human who will rise to be a god. These will be your eight seats and they will continue in a cycle. Meaning, at every eighth godly generation, a normal human king will grow to possess the wisdom of a god…when he dies he will ascend into a dormant godhood which you will secure in the heaven's vault. Which means, in order to produce one divine genius every eighth generation, the seven preceding gods would have to work pretty damn hard in uplifting humankind!"

That night after passing the medicine to Vajradhaara, Ashangi related to Kush in a sweet cooing voice. 'And those eight are the Adityas. Their name comes from their mother Aditi who was the goddess of Boundlessness, Might and Creativity, these three attributes. As such the rule of the Adityas heavily emphasizes freedom and personal strength which was also why the Little Prince Vajradandaka was so perplexed when you talked about slavery. The father of the Adityas on the other hand was a human ascetic. A rather popular one by the name of Sage Kasyapa. Their special lineage was one of the reasons why Brahma selected them. The Adityas are gods whose main association is Ṛta, which is also why this country is called Rtadhara, meaning the land where Rta flows.

'Rta itself is the principle of natural order which coordinates the universe. But the depth of its meaning is so much more. In order to uphold Rta, Dharma is born. An individual's actions in relation to the ordinances prescribed by Dharma will in turn produce his Karma. The Adityas are overseers of all this in the human world. Though only one of them will rule at one time, the wisdom of all is applied as they are brothers and share a close relationship with each other.

The Adityas are said to be pure and untouched by the filth of this world. Much like the two brothers you saw back there. The laws they implemented were just and seamless. Each Aditya has a different personality, yet each reign integrated into the previous one with ingenuity. This created deep history for the Aryan people. Even back when our people were nomads, they still conducted themselves with the precepts of Dharma and delved deep into mysteries of the universe. This was thanks to the laws and commandments created by the successive reigns of Adityas…

They are said to be the first rulers under which the human civilization had truly flourished and taken the form that we know of today.'

With a disbelieving stare little Chandra Kush couldn't help but ask, 'Teacher, are you saying that this remote little country in the arid lands is actually the cradle of human civilization?"

His teacher had a mild expression on her face. "It wasn't so remote before, neither were these lands so arid. Little Kush, you must know the history I spoke spans a minimum of four thousand five hundred years. Back then, the Aryans had not even set foot on these lands yet."

'But teacher, there are so many gods who give their divine sanction to kings who rule the lands now. According to the story you told me, that wasn't the agreement between the two great gods.'

'Indeed. After a certain time period when the human civilization was stabilized after a few cycles of the rule of the Adityas, Vishnu himself took birth as a human. In that generation, he took the place of the eighth Aditya and was the little brother of Indra. This was also the first time the rest of the gods have come to know of a supreme personage like Vishnu.'