THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Olcott, Henry Steel
21. Q. Had the Prince luxuries and splendours like other Princes?
A. He had; his father, the King, built him three magnificent palaces—for the three Indian seasons—the cold, the hot, and the rainy—of nine, five, and three stories respectively, and handsomely decorated.
22. Q. How were they situated?
A. Around each palace were gardens of the most beautiful and fragrant flowers, with fountains of spouting water, the trees full of singing birds, and peacocks strutting over the ground.
23. Q. Was he living alone?
A. No; in his sixteenth year he was married to the Princess Yasodharā, daughter of the King Suprabuddha. Many beautiful maidens, skilled in dancing and music, were also in continual attendance to amuse him.
24. Q. How did he get his wife?
A. In the ancient Kshattriya or warrior fashion, by overcoming all competitors in games and exercises of skill and prowess, and then selecting Yasodharā out of all the young princesses, whose fathers had brought them to the tournament or mela.
25. Q. How, amid all this luxury, could a Prince become all-wise?
A. He had such natural wisdom that when but a child he seemed to understand all arts and sciences almost without study. He had the best teachers, but they could teach him nothing that he did not seem to comprehend immediately.
26. Q. Did he become Buddha in his splendid palaces?
A. No. He left all and went alone into the jungle.
27. Q. Why did he do this?
A. To discover the cause of our sufferings and the way to escape from them.
28. Q. Was it not selfishness that made him do this?
A. No; it was boundless love for all beings that made him devote himself to their good.
29. Q. But how did he acquire this boundless love?
A. Throughout numberless births and aeons of years he had been cultivating this love, with the unfaltering determination to become a Buddha.
30. Q. What did he this time relinquish?
A. His beautiful palaces, his riches, luxuries and pleasures, his soft beds, fine dresses, rich food, and his kingdom; he even left his beloved wife and only son, Rāhula.
31. Q. Did any other man ever sacrifice so much for our sake?
A. Not one in this present world-period: this is why Buddhists so love him, and why good Buddhists try to be like him.
32. Q. But have not many men given up all earthly blessings, and even life itself, for the sake of their fellow-men?
A. Certainly. But we believe that this surpassing unselfishness and love for humanity showed themselves in his renouncing the bliss of Nirvāna countless ages ago, when he was born as the Brāhmana Sumedha, in the time of Dīpānkara Buddha: he had then reached the stage where he might have entered Nirvāna, had he not loved mankind more than himself. This renunciation implied his voluntarily enduring the miseries of earthly lives until he became Buddha, for the sake of teaching all beings the way to emancipation and to give rest to the world.
33. Q. How old was he when he went to the jungle?
A. He was in his twenty-ninth year.
34. Q. What finally determined him to leave all that men usually love so much and go to the jungle?
A. A Deva[2] appeared to him when driving out in his chariot, under four impressive forms, on four different occasions.
35. Q. What were these different forms?
A. Those of a very old man broken down by age, of a sick man, of a decaying corpse, and of a dignified hermit.
36. Q. Did he alone see these?
A. No, his attendant, Channa, also saw them.
37. Q. Why should these sights, so familiar to everybody, have caused him to go to the jungle?
A. We often see such sights: he had not seen them, so they made a deep impression on his mind.
38. Q. Why had he not also seen them?
A. The Brāhmana astrologers had foretold at his birth that he would one day resign his kingdom and, become a BUDDHA. The King, his father, not wishing to lose an heir to his kingdom, had carefully prevented his seeing any sights that might suggest to him human misery and death. No one was allowed even to speak of such things to the Prince. He was almost like a prisoner in his lovely palaces and flower gardens. They were surrounded by high walls, and inside everything was made as beautiful as possible, so that he might not wish to go and see the sorrow and distress that are in the world.
39. Q. Was he so kind-hearted that the King feared he might really wish to leave everything for the world's sake?
A. Yes; he seems to have felt for all beings so strong a pity and love as that.
40. Q. And how did he expect to learn the cause of sorrow in the jungle?
A. By removing far away from all that could prevent his thinking deeply of the causes of sorrow and the nature of man.