Date: March 29, 2023
Location: Chamber Theta, Restricted Zone – Bodh Gaya Site
---
I woke up with soil in my mouth.
Not metaphorically. Not as a symbol. Actual black soil, like grave earth, packed between my molars.
The medic—Chitra—checked me for seizures. No neurological episode, she said.
But my gums were bleeding. My tongue had glyphs on it.
Bhantaragya's glyphs.
They faded before anyone else could see them.
Maybe I imagined it.
Maybe not.
---
We spent the day deciphering Scroll Theta-7 and Tablet Sigma, with the help of Krishnan (linguistics), Lu (symbolic anthropology), and one of the interns—Rukmini, who seems to understand the metered chants more intuitively than anyone else. Her Sanskrit is impeccable, almost too fluid. Like she's spoken it all her life.
But it wasn't just language.
The scrolls are layered.
They seem to shift meanings—almost like living text.
When lit by torchlight, they say one thing.
Under UV, they reveal entirely new passages. Inverted, obscured, sealed beneath what we thought was ash staining.
This isn't scripture.
This is ritual code.
---
Bhantaragya was not seeking Nirvana in the traditional sense.
From what we've reconstructed, he was once the head monk of an obscure tantric sect that existed on the fringes of Mahayana Buddhism around the 6th century.
He believed Nirvana was not a passive release, but an active force—a river that could be driven backward, channeled through suffering, and converted into power.
His writings call this "Nirvāṇa Vakra" – the Crooked Liberation.
To reach it, he practiced soul inversion:
Meditation in burial chambers.
Fasting beyond physical degradation.
Ritual murders of those closest to him, believing their death opened a "mirror gate."
Each time, he recorded visions.
Each time, he bled symbols.
Each time, he etched those symbols into scrolls and stone, trapping echoes of his own descent.
The closer he came to transcendence, the less human his writing became.
Eventually, his disciples tried to stop him.
Only five stayed.
They became his Vessels.
They helped him bind his soul to the chant—to exist between deaths.
To outlive death.
To haunt memory.
---
We believe the Opposition Rite we uncovered was not successful.
It wasn't a sealing—it was a stalling.
Bhantaragya was never defeated.
Only paused.
And now, we've re-uttered his chant.
Re-lit the spiral.
Zhang... he's deteriorating. Rapid mutism. Pupil dilation. His skin is changing—cracked, but not like dryness. Like stone.
We've bound him in the medical tent. I don't know how long we'll keep him human.
Hiroshi confessed he made digital copies of the chant. He wanted to "run simulations" back in Tokyo.
We've erased them from every known drive, but...
Data has echoes.
---
The site won't let us leave.
We tried again. East ridge. Then west.
Nothing but repeating terrain.
Each direction loops.
Even the stars don't match any known constellations tonight.
We've started to suspect this isn't just isolation.
It's containment.
We're not just at the site.
We're inside Bhantaragya.
His tomb is not underground. It's spiritual. Dimensional.
And we are now his heartbeat.
---
Tomorrow we begin decoding Tablet Gamma, which may contain the last rites of his dissenters.
If anyone ever did stop him, even briefly—it's buried there.
I've instructed Rukmini and Devraj to focus solely on those fragments.
I've isolated Zhang.
And I've hidden the chant.
If I begin speaking in verses, cut my tongue.
I mean it.
We don't
need another vessel.
We need a way out.
~Advait Sen
Senior Archaeologist
Recording now, not for posterity, but survival.