by Vilas Sarang
Shuddodan shouted: ‘Tell that shirker son to present himself before me at once!’
A servant ran outside to convey the message to Siddharth. Siddharth calmly continued to walk with his alms bowl.
Shuddodan continued to walk up and down in the hall. With each minute, his temper rose further.
Siddharth completed his usual round with the alms bowl and then he turned towards the palace.
‘Greetings, father!’ Siddharth touched his father’s feet.
‘Sit down there, son.’
Siddharth calmly kept down his bowl and sat on the bare floor instead of the feather-filled mattress his father had pointed to.
‘You come home after eight years and what is the first thing you do? You parade in front of everybody, a beggar! You humiliate me!’
‘Father, I did not do it on purpose. Or you have mistaken the purpose. It is the custom of us sramans to live on alms.’
‘I don’t understand all that. I am concerned with how a prince should behave.’
‘Father, I am unable to satisfy you on that count. I regret it.’
‘Anyway, do you want to see your son, Rahul?’
‘Yes, father. I do.’
‘And your wife of many years, Yashodhara?’
‘If she wishes to see me, I have no objection.’
All this while, Yashodhara and Rahul had been listening in an inner room, Yashodhara’s heart pounding all the time.
Shuddodan sent word with a maid.
Yashodhara pushed Rahul ahead of herself. Rahul’s first instinct was to run and hug his father. There were so many things he had thought of telling his father. All that evaporated now.
He came in, and touched his father’s feet.
‘Pranam, father.’
‘Bless you, son.’
Siddharth asked Rahul a few questions about his studies.
Yashodhara then came out. She touched Siddharth’s feet.
‘Pranam, my lord.’
Siddharth made a gesture of blessing, but did not say a word. Mother and son went inside.
‘Well, Siddharth, you have come home after so many years. You must come to the palace for a meal.’
‘But my monks must be invited, too.’
‘If you insist, they are invited. When will you come?’
‘Next week on the same day.’
Yashodhara’s heart was buffeted by contrary winds. After much time, she seemed to have made up her mind. She knew that Kaludayin, as a monk, had accompanied Siddharth. She called a servant and asked him to go to Buddha’s camp in the Nigrodh grove. ‘There, you will find Kaludayin, a monk. Tell Kaludayin to come and see me in my chamber.’
Kaludayin got the message. He had one slight difficulty. As a monk, he was not allowed to see a lady alone. He thought about it. Sariputta and Moggallana, old friends of Kaludayin, had also joined Buddha’s retinue. He went and greeted Moggalana. Moggallana agreed to come with Kaludayin.
The two entered Yashodhara’s chambers.
‘Welcome.’ Then, a bit hesitantly, ‘I wanted to talk to you alone, Udayin.’
‘Oh, Yashodhara, Moggallana is an old friend. Old and trusted. You can talk freely before him.’
‘Udayin, I want to entrust an important task to you.’
‘What is it, Yashodhara?’
‘I want to catch Siddharth in private, and I want you to tell him that I want to see him alone tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Okay, I will try. It may be difficult. And we two will have to accompany him. A monk must always be accompanied by two other monks.’
‘We will see about that,’ Yashodhara said.
Yashodhara always used to wear a kashay vastra, a symbol of her being bereft of husband and family. But on that day, she wore a white silk sari and a pearl necklace. She sent Rahul to play with Sarika. Then she waited.
Udayin sent word that Siddharth had come.
The three of them entered the main chamber.
‘Pranam, my lord.’ Yashodhara touched Siddharth’s feet. ‘I want to talk to you alone,’ she said.
Before Siddharth could say anything, Udayin said: ‘The two of us will wait in the antechamber.’
And they quietly went out.
Yashodhara and Siddharth were alone.
‘Are you afraid to talk to me, lord?’
‘It is always dangerous to talk to a woman.’
‘Siddharth, think of me. For eight years, I have denied myself.’
Silence.
‘You want to keep away from passion. But what about a little bit of compassion?’
Silence.
‘I want to touch you, Siddharth.’
‘The body is impermanent, ephemeral. Why give it such importance?’
‘I don’t care for your philosophy. I want to hug you.’
Yashodhara passionately held him close. Soon she began kissing him all over.
Siddharth lay on the carpet. He did not respond, nor did he resist. He seemed to be in a state of mindful trance.
Yashodhara clung to him and lay still.
After what seemed like hours to her—it was only a few minutes—she slowly rose. She adjusted her sari and Siddharth’s robe. That simple action indicated what tremendous insight she had gained into the nature of the man who had once been her husband.
‘Siddharth, dear.’ She helped him get up.
‘I was in the state between perception and non-perception. You did not touch anything except my skin.’
‘The skin is impermanent, I know. But that is all we have.’
‘You are talking like a Lokayata.’
‘I don’t understand your philosophy. But Siddharth dear, I am grateful to you. Henceforth, Siddharth, I promise that I will myself live like you, a mendicant.’
‘That will be good.’
Siddharth went out.
Two days later, Shuddodan sent for Yashodhara.
Since Siddharth had arrived, Shuddodan had been in a fidgety, distressed state of mind.
‘Daughter, what am I to do about my son? Since he received enlightenment, whatever that is, I thought he would come home to take charge of things. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. I tell you—tomorrow he and his retinue are coming for a meal. At that time, you tell Rahul to ask for his inheritance. Will you?’
‘I will, father-in-law.’
When the monks, along with the master, arrived for lunch, Shuddodan welcomed them coldly. After the meal, the monks thanked the host and left. Shuddodan told Siddharth how he was getting old, and how he was finding it difficult to go on with the affairs of the state. Siddharth heard him out silently.
At that moment, Yashodhara pushed Rahul into the hall.
Rahul said the words he was supposed to say, of which he did not understand the meaning: ‘Hail, father, what about my inheritance? Give me my inheritance!’
‘Yes, I will do something about it,’ Siddharth said.
He instructed his senior disciple Sariputta to accept the boy there and then as a sramaner, a novice sraman. Sariputta became Rahul’s preceptor. Siddharth took Rahul with him.
All this happened so suddenly that everybody was stunned.
Rahul was speechless. He wanted to cry out that he wished to stay with his mother and grandfather. Shuddodan, too, was for a moment speechless. Then, before Siddharth went out, he cried: ‘Wait a minute, Siddharth! What is all this? You are taking the law into your own hands. How can you give parivraja, ordination, to a boy of eight? Don’t you think you must take permission of his father and his mother?’
Siddharth halted. Then he said, ‘Father, what you say may be considered. We shall do so in future cases.’
Which meant that he would not let go of Rahul.
Siddharth went out with Rahul’s fingers tightly clutching his own. Rahul’s head was bent down. Once only he looked back at his mother; his mother was also looking at him, silently crying.
After Siddharth and his retinue had left, the palace of the Gautamas was absolutely silent. Lightn
ing had crashed upon the house.
Shuddodan was practically ill. He had no strength to move. The rajvaidya came and examined him; he advised the king complete rest.
In about a week, Shuddodan was a little better. He sent for Yashodhara.
Yashodhara arrived, in her kashay vastra. She silently touched her father-in-law’s feet and stood near the door, looking down.
Shuddodan looked at her silently. Then he spoke: ‘Daughter-in-law. How has all this happened?’ He spoke in a desolate tone. ‘The birth of my son was a tragedy.’
‘Don’t say such a thing, father-in-law,’ Yashodhara said.
‘When Siddharth was born, I thought I had an heir. Then he didn’t want to be in the family. I set the condition that he should produce a son. He did, so I allowed him to go. I thought Rahul would grow up and shoulder the burden of the state. I invited Siddharth with a clear conscience. He came, but he had a different plan. He picked up Rahul and disappeared.’
Shuddodan stopped his ruminations. Yashodhara remained silent, her eyes fixed on the floor. Then Shuddodan spoke again, ‘Now I understand the whole thing. He came to Kapilavastu only to pick up Rahul. He had not disclosed his mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had planned it as far back as last year.’
‘Father-in-law, let that pass. Let bygones be bygones. Let us not think ill of your son. After all, everyone agrees he is a great man.’
‘Great man indeed.’ Talking exhausted the old man. He lay down on the bed. Yashodhara called the servants in.
Yashodhara was more desolate than ever. For the last eight years, Rahul had been everything for her. For the last four or five years, he would even sleep beside her. But now he was gone and sleepless nights had become her fate. Siddharth did not ask her about taking Rahul with him. He did not ask Rahul whether he wanted to go with his father or stay with his mother.
In the contemporary world, perhaps the matter would have gone to court, and the judge would probably have ruled in the mother’s favour. But this was 2500 years ago. The husband and father was the overlord.
Rahul found the journey back to Rajagriha relatively enjoyable, as children usually find travelling exciting. Rahul rode on horseback, with a monk in control of the horse. Rahul had never before made a journey so distant, and he observed the villages, the huts, the changing scenery, with fascination.
But in Rajagriha, Rahul was subjected to the vigorous routine of a monastery. Now he missed his mother and the placid life of the royal palace. For such a small boy, the sudden and complete change was hard to take. Further, he could not voice his feelings. To tell his father, I want to go to my mother, was unthinkable. Buddha, through long training, had perfected the knack of coolly smothering the other person’s feelings and opinions. Before such a master tactician, the poor boy was helpless.
Sometimes, Rahul remembered his childhood friend Sarika. Her memory created a pain in his heart that he could not understand. And most of all, Rahul missed the storytelling he did. In the space of a year, his storytelling skills had blossomed amazingly. Sometimes, he told stories even to his mother, and she wondered at the power of his imagination. If he had grown up, unfettered, Rahul might have been a famous storyteller or a poet.
‘Might have been’—all might-have-beens were nipped in the bud. Buddha was especially hostile to all forms of art, to all expression of the imagination. He regarded them—not without reason—as inconducive to moral and spiritual life. So the father systematically throttled the son’s imaginative inclinations. The following dialogue, from a reliable source, is characteristic.
‘What do you think, Rahul? Is the eye, are visible forms, is eye consciousness permanent or impermanent?’
‘Impermanent, lord.’
‘Are the ear, the nose, the tongue, the sense of touch and the mind (as organs of thought), the corresponding objects and consciousnesses permanent or impermanent?’
‘Impermanent, lord.’
‘Is something that is impermanent painful or pleasant?’
‘Painful, lord.’
‘Would it be right to think concerning that which is impermanent, painful and subject to the law of change: “This is mine. I am this, this is myself”?’
‘No, lord.’
‘Rahul, when an attentive disciple realizes that, he turns away from the six senses, their objects and the corresponding consciousnesses. In this way he becomes passionless and free, and brings about the cessation of birth.’
This technique is typical. Outwardly the disciple is free to choose. But this is only seemingly so. The disciple is goaded on to the path the master has chosen. The disciple has been given the impression that it is his own free choice.
Plato, the Greek philosopher, was at a great geographical distance from Buddha, but not very remote in history. Buddha died in 483 BC, Plato was born in 428 BC. Plato had his disciples; Plato’s Dialogues are famous, and sometimes Plato used the technique of driving the disciple towards the intended conclusion.
There is more in common between the two great thinkers. Plato liked poetry but came to the conclusion that as far as ethical and socio-political issues are concerned, poetry is harmful to society. So Plato banished poets from his ideal republic. Buddha thought along similar lines: his objection was to the seductive quality of poetry—poetry arouses passions. Buddha speaks thus of not only poetry but all the arts. As a prince in his younger days, Siddharth had listened to a lot of music and had developed a taste for the arts. But as the mature Buddha, he opposed all the arts. He did not want his disciples to be enticed by the world of imagination; the dhamma seeks to penetrate the real world. The arts hinder spirituality and salvation.
There was a tendency to romance and fantasy in Rahul’s character which his father drove out as ‘lying’. Which reminds one of the words of the poet W.H. Auden: ‘The truest poetry is the most feigning.’ I want to enter a caveat here: when Buddha developed his philosophy, he lay great stress upon ‘a pluralistic view of the world’. He rejected Upanishadic monism. He stressed ‘the multiplicity of the world’. This laudable doctrine would have easily accommodated Buddha’s spirituality as well as his son’s artistic gift. Why did he smother Rahul’s talent then?
A comparison can be drawn between Buddha’s ‘long march’ from Rajagriha to Kapilavastu to Mahatma Gandhi’s long march to Dandi for the salt satyagraha. There is more to compare Gandhiji with Gautam Buddha. Both followed and insisted upon the path of non-violence. Parallels exist in their private lives, too. Buddha’s treatment of Yashodhara and Gandhiji’s treatment of his wife Kasturba, for instance. In both cases, the wives are human; the husbands supra-human. Gandhi ruled over his children with an iron hand and their growth naturally became stunted. Only one son, Harilal, rebelled and his life ended up being wayward and tragic. In the towering presence of his father, Rahul surrendered meekly. A great-rooted, wide-boled banyan tree is imposing to look at, but the other trees beneath it starve. Great men are sometimes tyrannical in the observance of their principles.
12
We will now revert to the story of Bimbisar, whom Siddharth met at the earliest stage of his spiritual search. It is not surprising that after reaching Buddhahood that the master should aim for the kingdom of Magadh. Buddha journeyed to Rajagriha, the capital, with his retinue of monks. When King Bimbisar heard that Buddha had camped in the capital, he himself went to welcome his guest, as he had done when Siddharth was just a sraman. Bimbisar welcomed Buddha warmly, voicing his own sense of fulfilment and rejoicing at Buddha’s achievement of glory. The king invited Buddha and his followers for a meal. King Bimbisar personally served his guest, which was a high honour.
Before departing from the capital, Buddha had made Bimbisar a convert. This gave a great fillip to Buddha’s teachings. Buddha’s personal qualities King Bimbisar had already seen in incipient form when Buddha had set out on his quest. These qualities were now in full bloom: the nobility had matured; the reticence of Buddha at the age of twenty-one had changed into secure eloquence and the
re was an unshakeable confidence which Bimbisar had not seen when he himself was twenty-four.
Bimbisar was a moody king, he did not care to weigh Buddha’s views or his ethical standards. He was sure of those. Bimbisar only felt Buddha’s magnetic quality, as have hundreds of other people since.
‘I remember,’ said the king in private. ‘You mentioned dukkha years ago. Now you have a complete philosophy based on it.’
Buddha was silent, as he was prone to be at such moments.
‘I have met so many holy men who promise happiness and the works. Fools. They don’t know what it is to be king for years together.’ Bimbisar was perhaps a reluctant king, keener on a life of the mind than one spent wielding the sceptre. It is little wonder then that the king soon converted to Buddha’s dhamma. This was news! It was not every day that the ruler of one of the most powerful kingdoms of the times changed religion. Courtiers and officials competed with each other to become followers of the new dhamma. Citizens devoted to their king decided that if the dhamma was good for the king, it was good for them. And certainly, Buddha’s ‘middle way’ was bound to appeal to a large population from various sections of society.
King Bimbisar’s end was a tragic one. Shakespeare’s proverbial saying, ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ fitted this Indian king perfectly. Banabhatt, a novelist of the sixth century AD, in his celebrated Kadambari, powerfully brings out the loneliness of a king:
He trusted only his own sword, though he had countless elephants and horses in his retinue; he filled the whole earth, though he stood in a small space of ground; he had large eyes, and yet saw the smallest things.
Who are the immediate assassins of a king? His sons, his relatives. This Elizabethan or Senecan drama was played out for King Bimbisar. His son Prince Ajatasatru made plans for his elimination. In this, he was egged on by the monk Devadatt. Devadatt had his own ambitions. He belonged to the sangh, and, what’s more, he was cousin and brother-in-law of Buddha himself. Devadatt observed Buddha carefully; how Buddha was getting on in years. He would have to begin making his moves if he was to jockey himself into a position of power. In this way, the prince and the prelate built up their medieval machinations.
