The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
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The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
PREFACE. | 1 |
The Dawn and the Day | 6 |
BOOK I. | 6 |
BOOK II. | 18 |
BOOK III. | 27 |
BOOK IV. | 39 |
BOOK V. | 47 |
BOOK VI. | 55 |
BOOK VII. | 62 |
BOOK VIII. | 71 |
83 | |
83 | |
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm | 88 |
88 |
When Humboldt first ascended the Andes and saw the trees, shrubs and flora he had long before studied on the Alps, he had only to look at his barometer, or at the sea of mountains and hills below, the rocks and soil around, and the sun above, to understand this seeming marvel of creation; while those who knew less of the laws of order and universal harmony might be lost in conjectures about pollen floating in the upper air, or seeds carried by birds across seas, forgetting that preservation is perpetual creation, and that it takes no more power to clothe a mountain just risen from the sea in appropriate verdure than to renew the beauty and the bloom of spring.
Max Mueller, who looks through antiquity with the same clear vision with which Humboldt examined the physical world, when he found the most ancient Hindoos bowing in worship before Dyaus Pitar, the exact equivalent of the Zeus Pater of the Greeks and the Jupiter of the Romans, and of “Our Father who art in the heavens” in our own divinely taught prayer, instead of indulging in wild speculations about the chance belief of some ancient chief or patriarch, transmitted across continents and seas and even across the great gulf that has always divided the Aryan from the Semitic civilization and preserved through ages of darkness and unbelief, saw in it the common yearning of the human soul to find rest on a loving Father’s almighty arm; yet when our oriental missionaries and scholars found such fundamental truths of their own religion as the common brotherhood of man, and that love is the vital force of all religion, which consists not in blood-oblations or in forms and creeds, but in shunning evil and doing good, and that we must overcome evil by good and hatred by love, and that there is a spiritual world and life after death embodied in the teachings of Buddha—instead of finding in this great fact new proof of the common Father’s love for all His children, they immediately began to indulge in conjectures as to how these truths might have been derived from the early Christians who visited the East, while those who were disposed to reject the claims of Christianity have exhausted research and conjecture to find something looking as if Christianity itself might have been derived from the Buddhist missionaries to Palestine and Egypt, both overlooking the remarkable fact that it is only in fundamental truths that the two religions agree, while in the dogmas, legends, creeds and speculations which form the wall of separation between them they are as wide asunder as the poles.
How comes it on the one theory that the Nestorians, whose peculiar creed had already separated them from the balance of the Christian church, taught their Buddhist disciples no part of that creed to which they have adhered with such tenacity through the ages? And on the other theory, how comes it, if the Divine Master was, as some modern writers claim, an Essene, that is, a Buddhist monk, that there is not in all his teachings a trace of the speculations and legends which had already buried the fundamental truths of Buddhism almost out of sight?
How sad to hear a distinguished Christian scholar like Sir Monier Williams cautioning his readers against giving a Christian meaning to the Christian expressions he constantly met with in Buddhism, and yet informing them that a learned and distinguished Japanese gentleman told him it was a source of great delight to him to find so many of his most cherished religious beliefs in the New Testament; and to see an earnest Christian missionary like good Father Huc, when in the busy city of Lha-ssa, on the approach of evening, at the sound of a bell the whole population sunk on their knees in a concert of prayer, only finding in it an attempt of Satan to counterfeit Christian worship; and on the other hand to see ancient and modern learning ransacked to prove that the brightest and clearest light that ever burst upon a sinful and benighted world was but the reflected rays of another faith.
And yet this same Sir Monier Williams says: “We shall not be far wrong in attempting an outline of the Buddha’s life if we begin by assuming that intense individuality, fervid earnestness and severe simplicity, combined with singular beauty of countenance, calm dignity of bearing, and almost superhuman persuasiveness of speech, were conspicuous in the great teacher.” To believe that such a character was the product of a false religion, or that he was given over to believe a lie, savors too much of that worst agnosticism which would in effect deny the universality of God’s love and would limit His care to some favored locality or age or race.
How much more in harmony with the broad philosophy of such men as Humboldt and Mueller, and with the character of a loving Father, to believe that at all times and in all countries He has been watching over all His children and giving them all the light they were capable of receiving.
This narrow view is especially out of place in treating of Buddhism and Christianity, as Buddha himself predicted that his Dharma would last but five hundred years, when he would be succeeded by Matreya, that is, Love incarnate, on which account the whole Buddhist world was on tiptoe of expectation at the time of the coming of our Lord, so that the wise men of the East were not only following their guiding-star but the prediction of their own great prophet in seeking Bethlehem.
Had the Christian missionaries to the East left behind them their creeds, which have only served to divide Christians into hostile sects and sometimes into hostile camps, and which so far as I can see, after years of patient study, have no necessary connection with the simple, living truths taught by our Saviour, and had taken only their New Testaments and their earnest desire to do good, the history of missions would have been widely different.
How of the earth earthy seemed the walls that divided the delegates to the world’s great Congress of Religions, recently held in Chicago, and how altogether divine
The love which like an endless golden
chain
Joined all in one.
Whatever others may think, it is my firm belief that Buddhism and Christianity, which we cannot doubt have influenced for good such vast masses the human family, both descended from heaven clothed in robes of celestial purity which have become sadly stained by their contact with the selfishness of a sinful world, except for which belief the following pages would never have been written, which are now sent forth in the hope that they may do something to enable Buddhists and Christians to see eye to eye and something to promote peace and good-will among men.
While following my own conceptions and even fancies in many things, I believe the leading characters and incidents to be historical, and I have given nothing as the teaching of the great master which was not to my mind clearly authenticated.
To those who have read so much about agnostic Buddhism, and about Nirvana meaning annihilation, it may seem bold in me to present Buddha as an undoubting believer in the fundamental truths of all religion, and as not only a believer in a spiritual world but an actual visitor to its sad and blissful scenes; but the only agnosticism I have been able to trace to Buddha was a want of faith in the many ways invented through the ages to escape the consequences of sin and to avoid the necessity of personal purification, and the only annihilation he taught and yearned for was the annihilation of self in the highest Christian sense, and escape from that body of death from which the Apostle Paul so earnestly sought deliverance.
Doubtless agnosticism and almost every form of belief and unbelief subsequently sprang up among the intensely acute and speculative peoples of the East known under the general name of Buddhists, as they did among the less acute and speculative peoples of the West known as Christians; but the one is no more primitive Buddhism than the other is primitive Christianity.
While there are innumerable poetic legends—of which Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism” is a great storehouse, and many of which are given by Arnold in his beautiful poem—strewn thick along the track of Buddhist literature, constantly tempting one to leave the straight path of the development of a great religion, I have carefully avoided what did not commend itself to my mind as either historical or spiritual truth.
It was my original design to follow the wonderful career of Buddha until his long life closed with visions of the golden city much as described in Revelation, and then to follow that most wonderful career of Buddhist missions, not only through India and Ceylon, but to Palestine, Greece and Egypt, and over the table-lands of Asia and through the Chinese Empire to Japan, and thence by the black stream to Mexico and Central America, and then to follow the wise men of the East until the Light of the world dawned on them on the plains of Bethlehem—a task but half accomplished, which I shall yet complete if life and strength are spared.
A valued literary friend suggests that the social life described in the following pages is too much like ours, but why should their daily life and social customs be greatly different from ours? The Aryan migrations to India and to Europe were in large masses, of course taking their social customs, or as the Romans would say, their household gods, with them.
What wonder, then, that the home as Tacitus describes it in the “Wilds of Germany” was substantially what Mueller finds from the very structure of the Sanscrit and European languages it must have been in Bactria, the common cradle of the Aryan race. There can scarcely be a doubt that twenty-five hundred years ago the daily life and social customs in the north of India, which had been under undisputed Aryan control long enough for the Sanscrit language to spring up, come to perfection and finally become obsolete, were more like ours than like those of modern India after the, many—and especially the Mohammedan—conquests and after centuries of oppression and alien rule.
If a thousand English-speaking Aryans should now be placed on some distant island, how much would their social customs and even amusements differ from ours in a hundred years? Only so far as changed climate and surrounding’s compelled.
I give as an introduction an outline of the golden, silver, brazen and iron ages, as described by the ancient poets and believed in by all antiquity, as it was in the very depths of the darkness of the iron age that our great light appeared in Northern India. The very denseness of the darkness of the age in which he came makes the clearness of the light more wonderful, and accounts for the joy with which it was received and the rapidity with which it spread.
Not to enter into the niceties of chronological questions, the mission of Buddha may be roughly said to have commenced about five hundred years before the commencement of our era, and with incessant labors and long and repeated journeys to have lasted forty-five years, when at about the age of eighty he died, or, as the Buddhists more truthfully and more beautifully say, entered Nirvana.
Henry T. Niles.
Toledo, January 1, 1894.
* * * * *
Since this work was in the hands of the printer I have read the recent work of Bishop Copelston, of Columbo, Ceylon, and it was a source of no small gratification to find him in all material points agreeing with the result of my somewhat extensive investigations as given within, for in Ceylon, if anywhere, we would expect accuracy. Here the great Buddhist development first comes in contact with authentic history during the third century B.C. in the reign of the great Asoka, the discovery of whose rock inscriptions shed such a flood of light on primitive Buddhism, while it still retained enough of its primitive power, as we learn from those inscriptions themselves, to turn that monarch from a course of cruel tyranny, and, as we learn from the history of Ceylon, to induce his son and daughter to abandon royalty and become the first missionaries to that beautiful island.
H.T.N.
Introduction.
The golden age—when men were
brothers all,
The golden rule their law and God their
king;
When no fierce beasts did through the
forests roam,
Nor poisonous reptiles crawl upon the
ground;
When trees bore only wholesome, luscious
fruits,
And thornless roses breathed their sweet
perfumes;
When sickness, sin and sorrow were unknown,
And tears but spoke of joy too deep for
words;
When painless death but led to higher
life,
A life that knows no end, in that bright
world
Whence angels on the ladder Jacob saw,
Descending, talk with man as friend to
friend—
That age of purity and peace had passed,
But left a living memory behind,
Cherished and handed down from sire to
son
Through all the scattered peoples of the
earth,
A living prophecy of what this world,
This sad and sinful world, might yet become.
The silver age—an age of faith,
not sight—
Came next, when reason ruled instead of
love;
When men as through a glass but darkly
saw
What to their fathers clearly stood revealed
In God’s own light of love-illumined
truth,
Of which the sun that rising paints the
east,
And whose last rays with glory gild the
west,
Is but an outbirth. Then were temples
reared,
And priests ’mid clouds of incense
sang His praise
Who out of densest darkness called the
light,
And from His own unbounded fullness made
The heavens and earth and all that in
them is.
Then landmarks were first set, lest men
contend
For God’s free gifts, that all in
peace had shared.
Then laws were made to govern those whose
sires
Were laws unto themselves. Then
sickness came,
And grief and pain attended men from birth
to death.
But still a silver light lined every cloud,
And hope was given to cheer and comfort
men.
The brazen age, brilliant but cold, succeeds.
This was an age of knowledge, art and
war,
When the knights-errant of the ancient
world,
Adventures seeking, roamed with brazen
swords
Which by a wondrous art—then
known, now lost—
Were hard as flint, and edged to cut a
hair
Or cleave in twain a warrior armor-clad
And armed with shields adorned by Vulcan’s
art,
Wonder of coming times and theme for bards.[1]
Then science searched through nature’s
heights and depths.
Heaven’s canopy thick set with stars
was mapped,
The constellations named, and all the
laws searched out
That guide their motions, rolling sphere
on sphere.[2]
Then men by reasonings piled up mountain
high
Thought to scale heaven, and to dethrone
heaven’s king,
Whose imitators weak, with quips and quirks
And ridicule would now destroy all sacred
things.
This age great Homer and old Hesiod sang,
And gods they made of hero, artist, bard.
At length this twilight of the ages fades,
And starless night now sinks upon the
world—
An age of iron, cruel, dark and cold.
On Asia first this outer darkness fell,
Once seat of paradise, primordial peace,
Perennial harmony and perfect love.
A despot’s will was then a nation’s
law;
An idol’s car crushed out poor human
lives,
And human blood polluted many shrines.
Then human speculation made of God
A shoreless ocean, distant, waveless,
vast,
Of truth that sees not and unfeeling love,
Whence souls as drops were taken back
to fall,
Absorbed and lost, when, countless ages
passed,
They should complete their round as souls
of men,
Of beasts, of birds and of all creeping
things.
And, even worse, the cruel iron castes,
One caste too holy for another’s
touch,
Had every human aspiration crushed,
The common brotherhood of man destroyed,
And made all men but Pharisees or slaves.
And worst of all—and what could
e’en be worse?—
Woman, bone of man’s bone, flesh
of his flesh,
The equal partner of a double life,
Who in the world’s best days stood
by his side
To lighten every care, and heighten every
joy,
And in the world’s decline still
clung to him,
She only true when all beside were false,
When all were cruel she alone still kind,
Light of his hearth and mistress of his
home,
Sole spot where peace and joy could still
be found—
Woman herself cast down, despised was
made
Slave to man’s luxury and brutal
lust.
Then war was rapine, havoc, needless blood,
Infants impaled before their mothers’
eyes,
Women dishonored, mutilated, slain,
Parents but spared to see their children
die.
Then peace was but a faithless, hollow
truce,
With plots and counter-plots; the dagger’s
point
And poisoned cup instead of open war;
And life a savage, grim conspiracy
Of mutual murder, treachery and greed.
O dark and cruel age! O cruel creeds!
O cruel men! O crushed and bleeding
hearts,
That from the very ground in anguish cry:
“Is there no light—no
hope—no help—no God?”
[1]See Hesiod’s description of the shield of Hercules, the St. George of that ancient age of chivalry.
[2]See the celebrated zodiac of Denderah, given in Landseer’s “Sabaean Researches,” and in Napoleon’s “Egypt.”
or
The Buddha and the Christ.
Northward from Ganges’ stream and
India’s plains
An ancient city crowned a lofty hill,
Whose high embattled walls had often rolled
The surging, angry tide of battle back.
Walled on three sides, but on the north
a cliff,
At once the city’s quarry and its
guard,
This stream, guided by art, now fed a
lake
Above the city and behind this cliff,
Which, guided thence in channels through
the rock,
Fed many fountains, sending crystal streams
Through every street and down the terraced
hill,
And through the plain in little silver
streams,
Spreading the richest verdure far and
wide.[2]
Here was the seat of King Suddhodana,
His royal park, walled by eternal hills,
Where trees and shrubs and flowers all
native grew;
For in its bounds all the four seasons
met,
From ever-laughing, ever-blooming spring
To savage winter with eternal snows.
Here stately palms, the banyan’s
many trunks,
Darkening whole acres with its grateful
shade,
And bamboo groves, with graceful waving
plumes,
The champak, with its fragrant golden
flowers,
Asokas, one bright blaze of brilliant
bloom,
The mohra, yielding food and oil and wine,
The sacred sandal and the spreading oak,
The mountain-loving fir and spruce and
pine,
And giant cedars, grandest of them all,
Planted in ages past, and thinned and
pruned
With that high art that hides all trace
of art,[3]
Were placed to please the eye and show
their form
In groves, in clumps, in jungles and alone.
Here all a forest seemed; there open groves,
With vine-clad trees, vines hanging from
each limb,
A pendant chain of bloom, with shaded
drives
And walks, with rustic seats, cool grots
and dells,
With fountains playing and with babbling
brooks,
And stately swans sailing on little lakes,
While peacocks, rainbow-tinted shrikes,
pheasants,
Glittering like precious stones, parrots,
and birds
Of all rich plumage, fly from tree to
tree,
The whole scene vocal with sweet varied
Here on a hill the royal palace stood,
A gem of art; and near, another hill,
Its top crowned by an aged banyan tree,
Its sides clad in strange jyotismati grass,[7]
By day a sober brown, but in the night
Glowing as if the hill were all aflame—
Twin wonders to the dwellers in the plain,
Their guides and landmarks day and night,
This glittering palace and this glowing
hill.
Within, above the palace rose a tower,
Which memory knew but as the ancient tower,
Foursquare and high, an altar and a shrine
On its broad top, where burned perpetual
fire,
Emblem of boundless and eternal love
And truth that knows no night, no cloud,
no change,
Long since gone out, with that most ancient
faith
In one great Father, source of life and
light.[8]
Still round this ancient tower, strange
hopes and fears,
And memories handed down from sire to
son,
Were clustered thick. An army, old
men say,
Once camped against the city, when strange
lights
Burst from this tower, blinding their
dazzled eyes.
They fled amazed, nor dared to look behind.
The people bloody war and cruel bondage
saw
On every side, and they at peace and free,
And thought a power to save dwelt in that
tower.
And now strange prophecies and sayings
old
Were everywhere rehearsed, that from this
hill
Should come a king or savior of the world.
Even the poor dwellers in the distant
plain
Looked up; they too had heard that hence
should come
One quick to hear the poor and strong
to save.
And who shall dare to chide their simple
faith?
This humble reverence for the great unknown
Brings men near God, and opens unseen
worlds,
Whence comes all life, and where all power
doth dwell.
Morning and evening on this tower the
king,
Before the rising and the setting sun,
Blindly, but in his father’s faith,
bowed down.
Then he would rise and on his kingdom
gaze.
East, west, hills beyond hills stretched
far away,
Wooded, terraced, or bleak and bald and
bare,
Till in dim distance all were leveled
lost.
One rich and varied carpet spread far
south,
Of fields, of groves, of busy cities wrought,
With mighty rivers seeming silver threads;
And to the north the Himalayan chain,
Peak beyond peak, a wall of crest and
crag,
Ice bound, snow capped, backed by intensest
blue,
Untrod, immense, that, like a crystal
wall.
In myriad varied tints the glorious light
Of rising and of setting sun reflects;
His noble city lying at his feet,
And his broad park, tinged by the sun’s
slant rays
A thousand softly rich and varied shades.
Still on this scene of grandeur, plenty,
peace
And ever-varying beauty, he would gaze
With sadness. He had heard these
prophecies,
And felt the unrest in that great world
within,
Hid from our blinded eyes, yet ever near,
The very soul and life of this dead world,
Which seers and prophets open-eyed have
seen,
On which the dying often raptured gaze,
And where they live when they are mourned
as dead.
This world was now astir, foretelling
day.
“A king shall come, they say, to
rule the world,
If he will rule; but whence this mighty
king?
My years decline apace, and yet no son
Of mine to rule or light my funeral pile.”
One night Queen Maya, sleeping by her
lord,
Dreamed a strange dream; she dreamed she
saw a star
Gliding from heaven and resting over her;
She dreamed she heard strange music, soft
and sweet,
So distant “joy and peace”
was all she heard.
In joy and peace she wakes, and waits
to know
What this strange dream might mean, and
whence it came.
Drums, shells and trumpets sound for joy,
not war;
The streets are swept and sprinkled with
perfumes,
And myriad lamps shine from each house
and tree,
And myriad flags flutter in every breeze,
And children crowned with flowers dance
in the streets,
And all keep universal holiday
With shows and games, and laugh and dance
and song,
For to the gentle queen a son is born,
To King Suddhodana the good an heir.
But scarcely had these myriad lamps gone
out,
The sounds of revelry had scarcely died,
When coming from the palace in hot haste,
One cried, “Maya, the gentle queen,
is dead.”
Then mirth was changed to sadness, joy
to grief,
For all had learned to love the gentle
queen—
But at Siddartha’s birth this was
foretold.
Among the strangers bringing gifts from
far,
There came an ancient sage—whence,
no one knew—
Age-bowed, head like the snow, eyes filmed
and white,
So deaf the thunder scarcely startled
him,
Who met them, as they said, three journeys
back,
And all his talk was of a new-born king,
Just born, to rule the world if he would
rule.
He was so gentle, seemed so wondrous wise,
They followed him, he following, he said,
A light they could not see; and when encamped,
Morn, noon and night devoutly would he
pray,
And then would talk for hours, as friend
to friend,
With questionings about this new-born
king,
Gazing intently at the tent’s blank
wall,
With nods and smiles, as if he saw and
heard,
While they sit lost in wonder, as one
sits
Who never saw a telephone, but hears
Unanswered questions, laughter at unheard
jests,
And sees one bid a little box good-by.
And when they came before the king, they
saw,
Laughing and cooing on its mother’s
knee,
Picture of innocence, a sweet young child;
He saw a mighty prophet, and bowed down
Eight times in reverence to the very ground,
And rising said, “Thrice happy house,
all hail!
This child would rule the world, if he
would rule,
But he, too good to rule, is born to save;
But Maya’s work is done, the devas
wait.”
But when they sought for him, the sage
was gone,
Whence come or whither gone none ever
knew.
Then gentle Maya understood her dream.
The music nearer, clearer sounds; she
sleeps.
But when the funeral pile was raised for
her,
Of aloe, sandal, and all fragrant woods,
And decked with flowers and rich with
rare perfumes,
And when the queen was gently laid thereon,
As in sweet sleep, and the pile set aflame,
The king cried out in anguish; when the
sage
Again appeared, and gently said, “Weep
not!
Seek not, O king, the living with the
dead!
’Tis but her cast-off garment, not
herself,
That now dissolves in air. Thy loved
one lives,
Become thy deva,[9] who was erst thy queen.”
This said, he vanished, and was no more
seen.
Now other hands take up that mother’s
task.
Another breast nurses that sweet young
child
With growing love; for who can nurse a
child,
Feel its warm breath, and little dimpled
hands,
Kiss its soft lips, look in its laughing
eyes,
Hear its low-cooing love-notes soft and
sweet,
And not feel something of that miracle,
A mother’s love—so old
yet ever new,
Stronger than death, bravest among the
brave,
Gentle as brave, watchful both night and
day,
That never changes, never tires nor sleeps.
Whence comes this wondrous and undying
love?
Whence can it come, unless it comes from
heaven,
Whose life is love—eternal,
perfect love!
From babe to boy, from boy to youth he
grew,
But more in grace and knowledge than in
years.
At play his joyous laugh rang loud and
clear,
His foot was fleetest in all boyish games,
And strong his arm, and steady nerve and
eye,
To whirl the quoit and send the arrow
home;
Yet seeming oft to strive, he’d
check his speed
And miss his mark to let a comrade win.
In fullness of young life he climbed the
cliffs
Where human foot had never trod before.
He led the chase, but when soft-eyed gazelles
Or bounding deer, or any harmless thing,
Came in the range of his unerring dart,
He let them pass; for why, thought he,
should men
In wantonness make war on innocence?
One day the Prince Siddartha saw the grooms
Gathered about a stallion, snowy white,
Descended from that great Nisaean stock
His fathers brought from Iran’s
distant plain,
Named Kantaka. Some held him fast
with chains
Till one could mount. He, like a
lion snared,
Frantic with rage and fear, did fiercely
bound.
They cut his tender mouth with bloody
bit,
Beating his foaming sides until the Prince,
Sterner than was his wont, bade them desist,
While he spoke soothingly, patted his
head
And stroked his neck, and dropped those
galling chains,
When Kantaka’s fierce flaming eyes
grew mild,
He quiet stood, by gentleness subdued—
Such mighty power hath gentleness and
love—
And from that day no horse so strong and
fleet,
So kind and true, easy to check and guide,
As Kantaka, Siddartha’s noble steed.
To playmates he was gentle as a girl;
Yet should the strong presume upon their
strength
To overbear or wrong those weaker than
themselves,
His sturdy arm and steady eye checked
them,
And he would gently say, “Brother,
not so;
Our strength was given to aid and not
oppress.”
For in an ancient book he found a truth—
A book no longer read, a truth forgot,
Entombed in iron castes, and buried deep
In speculations and in subtle creeds—
That men, high, low, rich, poor, are brothers
all,[10]
Which, pondered much in his heart’s
fruitful soil,
Had taken root as a great living truth
That to a mighty doctrine soon would grow,
A mighty tree to heal the nations with
its leaves—
Like some small grain of wheat, appearing
dead,
In mummy-case three thousand years ago[11]
Securely wrapped and sunk in Egypt’s
tombs,
Themselves buried beneath the desert sands,
Which now brought forth, and planted in
fresh soil,
And watered by the dews and rains of heaven,
Shoots up and yields a hundred-fold of
grain,
Until in golden harvests now it waves
On myriad acres, many thousand miles
From where the single ancient seed had
grown.
Thus he grew up with all that heart could
wish
Or power command; his very life itself,
So fresh and young, sound body with sound
mind,
The living fountain of perpetual joy.
Yet he would often sit and sadly think
Sad thoughts and deep, and far beyond
his years;
How sorrow filled the world; how things
were shared—
One born to waste, another born to want;
One for life’s cream, others to
drain its dregs;
One born a master, others abject slaves.
And when he asked his masters to explain,
When all were brothers, how such things
could be,
They gave him speculations, fables old,
How Brahm first Brahmans made to think
for all,
And then Kshatriyas, warriors from their
birth,
Then Sudras, to draw water and hew wood.
“But why should one for others think,
when all
Must answer for themselves? Why
brothers fight?
And why one born another’s slave,
when all
Might serve and help each other?”
he would ask.
But they could only answer: “Never
doubt,
For so the holy Brahmans always taught.”
Still he must think, and as he thought
he sighed,
Not for his petty griefs that last an
hour,
But for the bitter sorrows of the world
That crush all men, and last from age
to age.
The good old king saw this—saw
that the prince,
The apple of his eye, dearer than life,
Stately in form, supple and strong in
limb,
Quick to learn every art of peace and
war,
Displaying and excelling every grace
And attribute of his most royal line,
Whom all would follow whereso’er
he led,
So fit to rule the world if he would rule,
Thought less of ruling than of saving
men.
He saw the glory of his ancient house
Suspended on an if—if he will
rule
The empire of the world, and power to
crush
Those cruel, bloody kings who curse mankind,
And power to make a universal peace;
If not this high career, with glory crowned,
Then seeking truth through folly’s
devious ways;
By self-inflicted torture seeking bliss,
And by self-murder seeking higher life;
On one foot standing till the other pine,
Arms stretched aloft, fingers grown bloodless
claws,
Or else, impaled on spikes, with festering
sores
Covered from head to foot, the body wastes
With constant anguish and with slow decay.[12]
“Can this be wisdom? Can such
a life be good
That shuns all duties lying in our path—
Useless to others, filled with grief and
pain?
Not so my father’s god teaches to
live.
Rising each morning most exact in time,
He bathes the earth and sky with rosy
light
And fills all nature with new life and
joy;
The cock’s shrill clarion calls
us to awake
And breathe this life and hear the bursts
of song
That fill each grove, inhale the rich
perfume
Of opening flowers, and work while day
Sorely perplexed he called his counselors,
Grown gray in serving their beloved king,
And said: “Friends of my youth,
manhood and age,
So wise in counsel and so brave in war,
Who never failed in danger or distress,
Oppressed with fear, I come to you for
aid.
You know the prophecies, that from my
house
Shall come a king, or savior of the world.
You saw strange signs precede Siddartha’s
birth,
And saw the ancient sage whom no one knew
Fall down before the prince, and hail
my house.
You heard him tell the queen she soon
would die,
And saw her sink in death as in sweet
sleep;
You laid her gently on her funeral pile,
And heard my cry of anguish, when the
sage
Again appeared and bade me not to weep
For her as dead who lived and loved me
still.
We saw the prince grow up to man’s
estate,
So strong and full of manliness and grace,
And wise beyond his teachers and his years,
And thought in him the prophecies fulfilled,
And that with glory he would rule the
world
And bless all men with universal peace.
But now dark shadows fall athwart our
hopes.
Often in sleep the prince will start and
cry
As if in pain, ‘O world, sad world,
I come!’
But roused, he’ll sometimes sit
the livelong day,
Forgetting teachers, sports and even food,
As if with dreadful visions overwhelmed,
Or buried in great thoughts profound and
deep.
But yet to see our people, riding forth,
To their acclaims he answers with such
grace
And gentle stateliness, my heart would
swell
As I would hear the people to each other
say;
‘Who ever saw such grace and grandeur
joined?’
Yet while he answers gladness with like
joy,
His eyes seem searching for the sick and
old,
The poor, and maimed, and blind—all
forms of grief,
And oft he’d say, tears streaming
from his eyes,[13]
‘Let us return; my heart can bear
no more.’
One day we saw beneath a peepul-tree
An aged Brahman, wasted with long fasts,
Loathsome with self-inflicted ghastly
wounds,
A rigid skeleton, standing erect,
One hand stretched out, the other stretched
aloft,
His long white beard grown filthy by neglect.
Whereat the prince with shuddering horror
shook,
And cried, ‘O world! must I be such
The oldest and the wisest answered
him:
“Most noble king, your thoughts have long
been mine.
Oft have I seen him lost in musings sad,
And overwhelmed with this absorbing love.
I know no cure for such corroding thoughts
But thoughts less sad, for such absorbing love
But stronger love.”
“But how awake such thoughts?”
The king replied. “How kindle such a
love?
His loves seem but as phosphorescent flames
That skim the surface, leaving him heart-whole—
All but this deep and all-embracing love
That folds within its arms a suffering world.”
“Yes, noble king, so roams the antlered deer,
Adding each year a branch to his great horns,
Until the unseen archer lays him low.
So lives our prince; but he may see the day
Two laughing eyes shall pierce his inmost soul,
And make his whole frame quiver with new fire.
The next full moon he reaches man’s estate.
We all remember fifty years ago
When you became a man, the sports and games,
The contests of fair women and brave men,
In beauty, arts and arms, that filled three days
With joy and gladness, music, dance and song.
Let us with double splendor now repeat
That festival, with prizes that shall draw
From all your kingdom and the neighbor states
Their fairest women and their bravest men.
If any chance shall bring his destined mate,
You then shall see love dart from eye to eye,
As darts the lightning’s flash from cloud to cloud.”
And this seemed good, and so was ordered done.
The king to all his kingdom couriers sent,
And to the neighbor states, inviting all
To a great festival and royal games
The next full moon, day of Siddartha’s
birth,
And offering varied prizes, rich and rare,
To all in feats of strength and speed
and skill,
And prizes doubly rich and doubly rare
To all such maidens fair as should compete
In youth and beauty, whencesoe’er
they came,
The prince to be the judge and give the
prize.
Now all was joy and bustle in the streets,
And joy and stir in palace and in park,
The prince himself joining the joyful
throng,
Forgetting now the sorrows of the world.
Devising and directing new delights
Until the park became a fairy scene.
Behind the palace lay a maidan wide
For exercise in arms and manly sports,
Its sides bordered by gently rising hills,
Where at their ease the city’s myriads
sat
Under the shade of high-pruned spreading
trees,
Fanned by cool breezes from the snow-capped
peaks;
While north, and next the lake, a stately
dome
Stood out, on slender, graceful columns
raised,
With seats, rank above rank, in order
placed,
The throne above, and near the throne
were bowers
Of slender lattice-work, with trailing
vines,
Thick set with flowers of every varied
tint,
Breathing perfumes, where beauty’s
champions
Might sit, unseen of all yet seeing all.
At length Siddartha’s natal day
arrives
With joy to rich and poor, to old and
young—–
Not joy that wealth can buy or power command,
But real joy, that springs from real love,
Love to the good old king and noble prince.
When dawning day tinges with rosy light
The snow-capped peaks of Himalaya’s
chain,
The people are astir. In social
groups,
The old and young, companions, neighbors,
friends,
Baskets well filled, they choose each
vantage-ground,
Until each hill a sea of faces shows,
A sea of sparkling joy and rippling mirth.
At trumpet-sound all eyes are eager turned
Up toward the palace gates, now open wide,
From whence a gay procession issues forth,
A chorus of musicians coming first,
And next the prince mounted on Kantaka;
Then all the high-born, youth in rich
attire,
Mounted on prancing steeds with trappings
gay;
And then the good old king, in royal state,
On his huge elephant, white as the snow,
Surrounded by his aged counselors,
Some on their chargers, some in litters
borne,
Their long white beards floating in every
breeze;
And next, competitors for every prize:
Twelve archers, who could pierce the lofty
swans
Sailing from feeding-grounds by distant
seas
To summer nests by Thibet’s marshy
lakes,
Or hit the whirring pheasant as it flies—
For in this peaceful reign they did not
And thus they circle round the maidan
wide,
And as they pass along the people shout,
“Long live the king! long live our
noble prince!”
To all which glad acclaims the prince
responds
With heartfelt courtesy and royal grace.
When they had nearly reached the palace
gate
On their return, the king drew to the
right
With his attendants, while the prince
with his
Drew to the left, reviewing all the line
That passed again down to the judges’
seat,
Under the king’s pavilion near the
lake.
The prince eagerly watched them as they
passed,
Noting their brawny limbs and polished
arms,
The pose and skill of every charioteer,
The parts and varied breed of every horse,
Aiding his comrades with his deeper skill.
But when the queens of beauty passed him
by,
He was all smiles and gallantry and grace,
Until the last, Yasodhara, came near,
Whose laugh was clearest of the merry
crowd,
Whose golden hair imprisoned sunlight
seemed,
Whose cheek, blending the lily with the
rose,
Spoke of more northern skies and Aryan
blood,
Whose rich, not gaudy, robes exquisite
taste
Had made to suit her so they seemed a
part
Of her sweet self; whose manner, simple,
free,
Not bold or shy, whose features—no
one saw
Her features, for her soul covered her
face
As with a veil of ever-moving life.
When she came near, and her bright eyes
met his,
He seemed to start; his gallantry was
gone,
And like an awkward boy he sat and gazed;
And her laugh too was hushed, and she
passed on,
Passed out of sight but never out of mind,
The king and all his counselors saw this.
“Good king, our deer is struck,”
Asita said,
“If this love cure him not, nothing
can cure.”
[1]Lieutenant-General Briggs, in his lectures on the aboriginal races of India, says the Hindoos themselves refer the excavation of caves and temples to the period of the aboriginal kings.
[2]The art of irrigation, once practiced on such a mighty scale, now seems practically a lost art but just now being revived on our western plains.
[3]"And, that which all faire workes doth most aggrace, The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place.”
—Faerie Queene, B. 2, Canto 12.
[4]See Miss Gordon Cumming’s descriptions of the fields of wild dahlias in Northern India.
[5]By far the finest display of the mettle and blood of high-bred horses I have ever seen has been in the pasture-field, and this description is drawn from life.
[6]Once, coming upon a little prairie in the midst of a great forest, I saw a herd of startled deer bound over the grass, a scene never to be forgotten.
[7]See Miss Gordon Cumming’s description of a hill covered with this luminous grass.
[8]There can be no doubt that the fire-worship of the East is the remains of a true but largely emblematic religion.
[9]The difference between the Buddhist idea of a deva and the Christian idea of an attendant angel is scarcely perceptible.
[10]The Brahmans claim that Buddha’s great doctrine of universal brotherhood was taken from their sacred books and was not an originality of Buddha, as his followers claim.
[11]The Mediterranean or Egyptian wheat is said to have this origin.
[12]At the time of Buddha’s birth there seemed to be no mean between the Chakravartin or absolute monarch and the recluse who had renounced all ordinary duties and enjoyments, and was subjecting himself to all deprivations and sufferings. Buddha taught the middle course of diligence in daily duties and universal love.
[13]I am aware that some Buddhist authors whom Arnold has followed in his “Light of Asia” make Buddha but little better than a stale prisoner, and would have us believe that the glimpses he got of the ills that flesh is heir to were gained in spite of all precautions, as he was occasionally taken out of his rose embowered, damsel filled prison-house, and not as any prince of high intelligence and tender sensibilities who loved his people and mingled freely with them would gain a knowledge of suffering and sorrow; but we are justified in passing all such fancies, not only on account of their intrinsic improbability, but because the great Asvaghosha, who wrote about the beginning of our era, knew nothing of them.
[14]To suppose that the Aryan races when they emigrated to India or Europe left behind them their most valuable possession, the Nisaean horse, is to suppose them lacking in the qualities of thrift and shrewdness which have distinguished their descendants. That the Nisaean horse of the table-lands of Asia was the horse of the armored knights of the middle ages and substantially the Percheron horse of France, I had a curious proof: In Layard’s Nineveh is a picture of a Nisaean horse found among the ruins, which would have been taken as a good picture Of a Percheron stallion I once owned, who stood for the picture here drawn of what I regard as his undoubted ancestor.
[15]Marco Polo speaks of the breed of horses here attempted to be described as “excellent, large, strong and swift, said to be of the race of Alexander’s Bucephalus.”
[16]It is said that the Mongolians in their career of conquest could move an army of 500,000 fifty miles a day, a speed out of the question with all the facilities of modern warfare.
[17]See Bret Harte’s beautiful poem, “Sell Patchin,” and also an article on the “Horses of the Plains,” in The Century, January, 1889.
She passed along, and then the king and
prince
With their attendants wheeled in line
and moved
Down to the royal stand, each to his place.
The trumpets sound, and now the games begin.
But see the scornful curl of Culture’s
lip
At such low sports! Dyspeptic preachers
hear
Harangue the sleepers on their sinfulness!
Hear grave philosophers, so limp and frail
They scarce can walk God’s earth
to breathe his air,
Talk of the waste of time! Short-sighted
men!
God made the body just to fit the mind,
Each part exact, no scrimping and no waste—
Neglect the body and you cramp the soul.
First brawny wrestlers, shining from the
bath,
Wary and watchful, quick with arm and
eye,
After long play clinch close, arms twined,
knees locked,
Each nerve and muscle strained, and stand
as still
As if a bronze from Vulcan’s fabled
shop,
Or else by power of magic changed to stone
In that supremest moment, when a breath
Or feather’s weight would tip the
balanced scale;
And when they fall the shouts from hill
to hill
Sound like the voices of the mighty deep,
As wave on wave breaks on the rock-bound
shore.
Then boxers, eye to eye and foot to foot,
One arm at guard, the other raised to
strike.
The hurlers of the quoit next stand in
line,
Measure the distance with experienced
eye,
Adjust the rings, swing them with growing
speed,
Until at length on very tiptoe poised,
Like Mercury just lighted on the earth,
With mighty force they whirl them through
the air.
And then the spearmen, having for a mark
A lion rampant, standing as in life,
So distant that it seemed but half life-size,
Each vital part marked with a little ring.
And when the spears were hurled, six trembling
stood
Fixed in the beast, piercing each vital
part,
Leaving the victory in even scale.
For these was set far off a lesser mark,
Until at length by chance, not lack of
skill,
The victory so long in doubt was won.
And then again the people wildly shout,
The prince victor and nobly vanquished
praised.
Next runners, lithe and light, glide round
the plain,
Whose flying feet like Mercury’s
seemed winged,
Their chests expanded, and their swinging
arms
Like oars to guide and speed their rapid
course;
And as they passed along the people cheered
Each well-known master of the manly art.
Then archers, with broad chests and brawny
arms
Such as the blacksmith’s heavy hammer
wields
With quick, hard blows that make the anvil
ring
And myriad sparks from the hot iron fly;
A golden eagle on a screen their mark,
So distant that it seemed a sparrow’s
size—
“For,” said the prince, “let
not this joyful day
Give anguish to the smallest living thing.”
They strain their bows until their muscles
seem
Like knotted cords, the twelve strings
twang at once,
And the ground trembles as at the swelling
tones
Of mighty organs or the thunder’s
roll.
Two arrows pierce the eagle, while the
rest
All pierce the screen. A second
mark was set,
When lo! high up in air two lines of swans,
Having one leader, seek their northern
nests,
Their white plumes shining in the noonday
sun,
Calling each other in soft mellow notes.
Instant one of the people cries “A
mark!”
Whereat the thousands shout “A mark!
a mark!”
One of the archers chose the leader, one
And now the people for the chariot-race
Grow eager, while beneath the royal stand,
By folding doors hid from the public view,
The steeds, harnessed and ready, champ
their bits
And paw the ground, impatient for the
start.
The charioteers alert, with one strong
hand
Hold high the reins, the other holds the
lash.
Timour—a name that since has
filled the world,
A Tartar chief, whose sons long after
swept
As with destruction’s broom fair
India’s plains—
With northern jargon calmed his eager
steeds;
Azim, from Cashmere’s rugged lovely
vale,
His prancing Babylonians firmly held;
Channa, from Ganges’ broad and sacred
stream,
With bit and word checked his Nisaean
three;
While Devadatta, cousin to the prince,
Soothed his impatient Arabs with such
terms
As fondest mothers to their children use;
“Atair, my pet! Mira, my baby,
hush!
Regil, my darling child, be still! be
still!”
With necks high arched, nostrils distended
wide,
And eager gaze, they stood as those that
saw
Some distant object in their desert home.
At length the gates open as of themselves,
When at the trumpet’s sound the
steeds dash forth
As by one spirit moved, under tight rein,
And neck and neck they thunder down the
plain,
While rising dust-clouds chase the flying
wheels.
But weight, not lack of nerve or spirit,
tells;
Azim and Channa urge their steeds in vain,
By Tartar and light Arab left behind
As the light galley leaves the man-of-war;
They sweat and labor ere a mile is gained,
While their light rivals pass the royal
stand
Fresh as at first, just warming to the
race.
And now the real race at length begins,
A double race, such as the Romans loved.
Horses so matched in weight and strength
and speed,
Drivers so matched in skill that as they
pass
Azim and Channa seemed a single man.
Timour and Devadatta, side by side,
Wheel almost touching wheel, dash far
ahead.
Azim and Channa, left so far behind,
No longer urge a race already lost.
The Babylonian and Nisaean steeds,
No longer pressed so far beyond their
power,
With long and even strides sweep smoothly
on,
Striking the earth as with a single blow,
Their hot breath rising in a single cloud.
Thus end the games, and the procession
forms,
The king and elders first, contestants
next,
And last the prince; each victor laurel-crowned,
And after each his prize, while all were
given
Some choice memorial of the happy day—
Cinctures to all athletes to gird the
loins
And falling just below the knee, the belt
Of stoutest leather, joined with silver
clasps,
The skirt of softest wool or finest silk,
Adorned with needlework and decked with
gems,
Such as the modest Aryans always wore
In games intended for the public view,
Before the Greeks became degenerate,
And savage Rome compelled those noble
men
Whose only crime was love of liberty,
By discipline and numbers overwhelmed,
Bravely defending children, wife and home,
Naked to fight each other or wild beasts,
And called this brutal savagery high sport
For them and for their proud degenerate
dames,
Of whom few were what Caesar’s wife
should be.
The athletes’ prizes all were rich
and rare,
Some costly emblem of their several arts.
The archers’ prizes all were bows;
the first
Made from the horns of a great mountain-goat
That long had ranged the Himalayan heights,
Till some bold hunter climbed his giddy
cliffs
And brought his unsuspecting victim down.
His lofty horns the bowsmith root to root
Had firmly joined, and polished, bright,
And tipped with finest gold, and made
a bow
Worthy of Sinhahamu’s[1] mighty
arm.
The other prizes, bows of lesser strength
But better suited to their weaker arms.
A chariot, the charioteers’ first
prize,[2]
Its slender hubs made strong with brazen
bands,
The spokes of whitest ivory polished bright,
The fellies ebony, with tires of bronze,
Each axle’s end a brazen tiger’s
head,
The body woven of slender bamboo shoots
Intwined with silver wire and decked with
gold.
A mare and colt of the victorious breed
The second prize, more worth in Timour’s
eyes.
Than forty chariots, though each were
made
Of ebony or ivory or gold,
And all the laurel India ever grew.
The third, a tunic of soft Cashmere wool,
On which, by skillful needles deftly wrought,
The race itself as if in life stood forth.
The fourth, a belt to gird the laggard’s
loins
And whip to stimulate his laggard steeds.
And thus arrayed they moved once round
the course,
Then to the palace, as a fitter place
For beauty’s contest than the open
plain;
The singers chanting a triumphal hymn,
While many instruments, deep toned and
shrill,
And all the multitude, the chorus swell.
This day his mission ceased to press the
prince,
And he forgot the sorrows of the world,
So deep and earnest seemed the general
joy.
Even those with grinning skeletons at
home
In secret closets locked from public view,
And care and sorrow rankling at their
hearts,
Joined in the general laugh and swelled
the shouts,
And seemed full happy though they only
seemed.
But through the games, while all was noisy
mirth,
He felt a new, strange feeling at his
heart,
And ever and anon he stole a glance
At beauty’s rose-embowered hiding-place,
To catch a glimpse of those two laughing
eyes,
So penetrating yet so soft and mild.
And at the royal banquet spread for all
It chanced Yasodhara sat next the prince—
An accident by older heads designed—
And the few words that such constraint
allowed
Were music to his ears and touched his
heart;
And when her eyes met his her rosy blush
Told what her maiden modesty would hide.
And at the dance, when her soft hands
touched his
The music seemed to quicken, time to speed;
But when she bowed and passed to other
hands,
Winding the mystic measure of the dance,[3]
The music seemed to slacken, time to halt,
Or drag his limping moments lingering
on.
At length, after the dance, the beauties
passed
Before the prince, and each received her
prize.
So rich and rare that each thought hers
the first,
A treasure to be kept and shown with pride,
And handed down to children yet unborn.
But when Yasodhara before him stood,
The prizes all were gone; but from his
neck
He took a golden chain thick set with
gems,
And clasped it round her slender waist,
and said:
“Take this, and keep it for the
giver’s sake.”
And from the prince they passed before
the king.
The proud and stately he would greet with
grace,
The timid cheer with kind and gracious
words.
But when Yasodhara bowed low and passed,
He started, and his color went and came
As if oppressed with sudden inward pain.
Asita, oldest of his counselors,
Sprang to his side and asked: “What
ails the king?”
“Nothing, my friend, nothing,”
the king replied,
“But the sharp probing of an ancient
wound.
You know how my sweet queen was loved
of all—
But how her life was woven into mine,
Filling my inmost soul, none e’er
can know.
My bitter anguish words can never tell,
As that sweet life was gently breathed
away.
Time only strengthens this enduring love,
And she seems nearer me as I grow old.
Often in stillest night’s most silent
hour,
When the sly nibbling of a timid mouse
In the deep stillness sounds almost as
loud
As builders’ hammers in the busy
day,
My Maya as in life stands by my side.
A halo round her head, as she would say:
Such was the old and such the new-born
love;
The new quick bursting into sudden flame,
Warming the soul to active consciousness
That man alone is but a severed part
Of one full, rounded, perfect, living
whole;
The old a steady but undying flame,
A living longing for the loved and lost;
But each a real hunger of the soul
For what gave paradise its highest bliss,
And what in this poor fallen world of
ours
Gives glimpses of its high and happy life.
O love! how beautiful! how pure! how sweet!
Life of the angels that surround God’s
throne!
But when corrupt, Pandora’s box
itself,
Whence spring all human ills and woes
and crimes,
The very fire that lights the flames of
hell.
The festival is past. The crowds
have gone,
The diligent to their accustomed round
Of works and days, works to each day assigned,
The thoughtless and the thriftless multitude
To meet their tasks haphazard as they
come,
But all the same old story to repeat
Of cares and sorrows sweetened by some
joys.
Three days the sweet Yasodhara remained,
For her long journey taking needful rest.
But when the rosy dawn next tinged the
east
And lit the mountain-tops and filled the
park
With a great burst of rich and varied
song,
The good old king bade the sweet girl
farewell,
Imprinting on her brow a loving kiss,
While welling up from tender memories
Big tear-drops trickled down his furrowed
cheeks.
And as her train, escorted by the prince
And noble youth, wound slowly down the
hill,
The rising sun with glory gilds the city
That like a diadem circled its brow,
While giant shadows stretch across the
plain;
And when they reach the plain they halt
for rest
Deep in a garden’s cooling shade,
where flowers
That fill the air with grateful fragrance
hang
By ripening fruits, and where all seems
at rest
Save two young hearts and tiny tireless
birds
At length she climbs those rocky, rugged
hills.
That guarded well the loveliest spot on
earth
Until the Moguls centuries after came,
Like swarms of locusts swept before the
wind,
Or ravening wolves, to conquer fair Cashmere.[4]
And when she reached the top, before her
lay,
As on a map spread out, her native land,
By lofty mountains walled on every side,
From winds, from wars, and from the world
shut out;
The same great snow-capped mountains north
and east
In silent, glittering, awful grandeur
stand,
And west the same bold, rugged, cliff-crowned
hills.
That filled her eyes with wonder when
a child.
Below the snow a belt of deepest green;
Below this belt of green great rolling
hills,
Checkered with orchards, vineyards, pastures,
fields,
The vale beneath peaceful as sleeping
babe,
The city nestling round the shining lake,
And near the park and palace, her sweet
home.
O noble, peaceful, beautiful Cashmere!
Well named the garden of eternal spring!
But yet, with home and all its joys so
near.
She often turned and strained her eager
eyes
To catch one parting glimpse of that sweet
spot
Where more than half of her young heart
was left.
At length their horns, whose mocking echoes
Rolled from hill to hill, were answered
from below,
While from the park a gay procession comes,
Increasing as it moves, to welcome her,
Light of the palace, the people’s
idol, home.
The prince’s thoughts by day and
dreams by night
Meanwhile were filled with sweet Yasodhara,
And this bright vision ever hovering near
Hid from his eyes those grim and ghastly
forms,
Night-loving and light-shunning brood
of sin,
That ever haunt poor fallen human lives,
And from the darkened corners of the soul
Are quick to sting each pleasure with
sharp pain,
To pour some bitter in life’s sweetest
cup,
And shadow with despair its brightest
He sought her for his bride, but waited
long,
For princes cannot wed like common folk—
Friends called, a feast prepared, some
bridal gifts,
Some tears at parting and some solemn
vows,
Rice scattered, slippers thrown with noisy
mirth,
And common folk are joined till death
shall part.
Till death shall part! O faithless,
cruel thought!
Death ne’er shall part souls joined
by holy love,
Who through life’s trials, joys
and cares
Have to each other clung, faithful till
death,
Tender and true in sickness and in health,
Bearing each other’s burdens, sharing
griefs,
Lightening each care and heightening every
joy.
Such life is but a transient honeymoon,
A feeble foretaste of eternal joys.
But princes when they love, though all
approve,
Must wait on councils, embassies and forms.
But how the coach of state lumbers and
lags
With messages of love whose own light
wings
Glide through all bars, outstrip all fleetest
things—
No bird so light, no thought so fleet
as they.
But while the prince chafed at the long
delay,
The sweet Yasodhara began to feel
The bitter pangs of unrequited love.
But her young hands, busy with others’
wants,
And her young heart, busy with others’
woes,
With acts of kindness filled the lagging
hours,
Best of all medicines for aching hearts.
Yet often she would seek a quiet nook
Deep in the park, where giant trees cross
arms,
Making high gothic arches, and a shade
That noonday’s fiercest rays could
scarcely pierce,
And there alone with her sad heart communed:
“Yes! I have kept it for the
giver’s sake,
But he has quite forgot his love, his
gift, and me.
How bright these jewels seemed warmed
by his love,
But now how dull, how icy and how dead!”
But soon the soft-eyed antelopes and fawns
And fleet gazelles came near and licked
her hands;
And birds of every rich and varied plume
Gathered around and filled the air with
song;
And even timid pheasants brought their
broods,
For her sweet loving life had here restored
The peace and harmony of paradise;
And as they shared her bounty she was
soothed
By their mute confidence and perfect trust.
But though time seems to lag, yet still
it moves,
Resistless as the ocean’s swelling
tide,
Bearing its mighty freight of human lives
With all their joys and sorrows, hopes
and fears,
Onward, forever onward, to life’s
goal.
Meanwhile the city rings with busy stir.
The streets are swept and sprinkled with
perfumes,
And when the evening shades had veiled
the earth,
And heaven’s blue vault was set
with myriad stars,
The promised signal from the watchtower
sounds,
And myriad lamps shine from each house
and tree,
And merry children strew their way with
flowers,
And all come forth to greet Siddartha’s
bride,
And welcome her, their second Maya, home.
And at the palace gate the good old king
Receives her with such loving tenderness,
As fondest mother, sick with hope deferred,
Waiting and watching for an absent child,
At length receives him in her open arms.
[1]Sinhahamu was an ancestor, said to be the grandfather, of our prince, whose bow, like that of Ulysses, no one else could bend. See notes 24 and 35 to Book Second of Arnold’s “Light of Asia.”
[2]Any one who has read that remarkable work, “Ben Bur,” and every one who has not should, will recognize my obligations to General Wallace.
[3]One may be satisfied with the antiquity of the dance, practically as we have it, from lines 187-8, Book VI. of the Odyssey:
“Joyful they see applauding princes
gaze
When stately in the dance they swim the
harmonious maze.”
[4]I am aware I place Kapilavasta nearer the Vale of Cashmere than most, but as two such writers as Beal and Rhys Davids differ 30 yojanas, or 180 miles in its location, and as no remains have yet been identified at all corresponding to the grandeur of the ancient city as described by all Buddhist writers, I felt free to indulge my fancy. Perhaps these ruins may yet be found by some chance traveler in some unexplored jungle.
And now his cup with every blessing filled
Full to the brim, to overflowing full,
What more has life to give or heart to
wish?
Stately in form, with every princely grace,
A very master of all manly arts,
His gentle manners making all his friends,
His young blood bounding on in healthful
flow,
His broad domains rich in all earth can
yield,
Guarded by nature and his people’s
love,
And now that deepest of all wants supplied,
The want of one to share each inmost thought,
Whose sympathy can soothe each inmost
smart,
Whose presence, care and loving touch
can make
The palace or the humblest cottage home,
His life seemed rounded, perfect, full,
complete.
And they were happy as the days glide
on,
And when at night, locked in each other’s
arms,
They sink to rest, heart beating close
to heart,
Their thoughts all innocence and trust
and love,
It almost seemed as if remorseless Time
Had backward rolled his tide, and brought
again
The golden age, with all its peace and
joy,
And our first parents, ere the tempter
came,
Were taking sweet repose in paradise.
But as one night they slept, a troubled
dream
Disturbed the prince. He dreamed
he saw one come,
As young and fair as sweet Yasodhara,
But clad in widow’s weeds, and in
her arms
A lifeless child, crying: “Most
mighty prince!
O bring me back my husband and my child!”
But he could only say “Alas! poor
soul!”
And started out of sleep he cried “Alas!”
Which waked the sweet Yasodhara, who asked,
“What ails my love?” “Only
a troubled dream,”
The prince replied, but still she felt
him tremble,
And kissed and stroked his troubled brow,
And soothed him into quiet sleep again.
And then once more he dreamed—a
pleasing dream.
He dreamed he heard strange music, soft
and sweet;
He only caught its burden: “Peace,
be still!”
And then he thought he saw far off a light,
And there a place where all was peace
and rest,
And waking sighed to find it all a dream.
One day this happy couple, side by side,
Rode forth alone, Yasodhara unveiled—
“For why,” said she, “should
those whose thoughts are pure
Like guilty things hide from their fellow-men?”—
Rode through the crowded streets, their
only guard
The people’s love, strongest and
best of guards;
For many arms would spring to their defense,
While some grim tyrant, at whose stern
command
A million swords would from their scabbards
leap,
Cringes in terror behind bolts and bars,
Starts at each sound, and fears some hidden
mine
May into atoms blow his stately towers,
Or that some hand unseen may strike him
down,
And thinks that poison lurks in every
cup,
While thousands are in loathsome dungeons
thrust
Or pine in exile for a look or word.
He spoke, and sank exhausted on the ground.
They gently raised him, but his life was
fled.
The prince gave one a well-filled purse
and said:
“Let his pile neither lack for sandal-wood
Or any emblem of a life well spent.”
And when fit time had passed they bore
him thence
And laid him on that couch where all sleep
well,
Half hid in flowers by loving children
brought,
A smile still lingering on his still,
cold lips,
As if they just had tasted Gunga’s
kiss,
Soon to be kissed by eager whirling flames.
Just then two stately Brahmans proudly
passed—
Passed on the other side, gathering their
robes
To shun pollution from the common touch,
And passing said: “The prince
with Sudras talks
As friend to friend—but wisdom
comes with years.”
Silent and thoughtful then they homeward
turned,
The prince deep musing on the old man’s
words;
“’The veil is lifted, and
I seem to see
A world of life and light and peace and
rest.’
O if that veil would only lift for me
The mystery of life would be explained.”
As they passed on through unfrequented
streets,
Seeking to shun the busy, thoughtless
throng,
Those other words like duty’s bugle-call
Still ringing in his ears: “Let
your light shine,
That men no longer grope in dark despair”—
The old sad thoughts, long checked by
passing joys,
Rolling and surging, swept his troubled
soul—
As pent-up waters, having burst their
dams,
Sweep down the valleys and o’erwhelm
the plains.
Just then an aged, angry voice cried out:
“O help! they’ve stolen my
jewels and my gold!”
And from a wretched hovel by the way
An old man came, hated and shunned by
all,
Whose life was spent in hoarding unused
gold,
Grinding the poor, devouring widows’
homes;
Ill fed, ill clad, from eagerness to save,
His sunken eyes glittering with rage and
greed.
And when the prince enquired what troubled
him:
“Trouble enough,” he said,
“my sons have fled
Because I would not waste in dainty fare
And rich apparel all my life has saved,
And taken all my jewels, all my gold.
Would that they both lay dead before my
face!
O precious jewels! O beloved gold!”
The prince, helpless to soothe, hopeless
to cure
This rust and canker of the soul, passed
on,
His heart with all-embracing pity filled.
“O deepening mystery of life!”
he cried,
“Why do such souls in human bodies
dwell—
Fitter for ravening wolves or greedy swine!
Just at death’s door cursing his
flesh and blood
For thievish greed inherited from him.
Is this old age, or swinish greed grown
old?
O how unlike that other life just fled!
His youth’s companions, wife and
children, dead,
Yet filled with love for all, by all beloved,
With his whole heart yearning for others’
good,
With his last breath bewailing others’
woes.”
“My best beloved,” said sweet
Yasodhara,
Her bright eyes filled with sympathetic
tears,
Her whole soul yearning for his inward
peace,
“Brood not too much on life’s
dark mystery—
Behind the darkest clouds the sun still
shines.”
“But,” said the prince, “the
many blindly grope
In sorrow, fear and ignorance profound,
While their proud teachers, with their
heads erect,
Stalk boldly on, blind leaders of the
blind.
Come care, come fasting, woe and pain
for me,
And even exile from my own sweet home,
All would I welcome could I give them
light.”
“But would you leave your home,
leave me, leave all,
And even leave our unborn pledge of love,
The living blending of our inmost souls,
Their hearts too full for words, too full
for tears,
Gently he pressed her hand and they passed
home;
And in the presence of this dark unknown
A deep and all-pervading tenderness
Guides every act and tempers every tone—
As in the chamber of the sick and loved
The step is light, the voice is soft and
low.
But soon their days with varied duties
filled,
Their nights with sweet repose, glide
smoothly on,
Until this shadow seems to lift and fade—
As when the sun bursts through the passing
storm,
Gilding the glittering raindrops as they
fall,
And paints the bow of hope on passing
clouds.
Yet still the old sad thoughts sometimes
return,
The burden of a duty unperformed,
The earnest yearning for a clearer light.
The thought that hour by hour and day
by day
The helpless multitudes grope blindly
on,
Clouded his joys and often banished sleep.
One day in this sad mood he thought to
see
His people as they are in daily life,
And not in holiday attire to meet their
prince.
In merchant’s dress, his charioteer
his clerk,
The prince and Channa passed unknown,
and saw
The crowded streets alive with busy hum,
Traders cross-legged, with their varied
wares,
The wordy war to cheapen or enhance,
One rushing on to clear the streets for
wains
With huge stone wheels, by slow strong
oxen drawn;
Palanquin-bearers droning out “Hu,
hu, ho, ho,”
While keeping step and praising him they
bear;
The housewives from the fountain water
bring
In balanced water-jars, their black-eyed
babes
Athwart their hips, their busy tongues
meanwhile
Engaged in gossip of the little things
That make the daily round of life to them;
The skillful weaver at his clumsy loom;
The miller at his millstones grinding
meal;
The armorer, linking his shirts of mail;
The money-changer at his heartless trade;
The gaping, eager crowd gathered to watch
Snake-charmers, that can make their deadly
charge
Dance harmless to the drone of beaded
gourds;
Sword-players, keeping many knives in
air;
Jugglers, and those that dance on ropes
swung high:
And all this varied work and busy idleness
As in a panorama passing by.
While they were passing through these
varied scenes,
The prince, whose ears were tuned to life’s
sad notes,
Whose eyes were quick to catch its deepest
shades,
Found sorrow, pain and want, disease and
death,
Were woven in its very warp and woof.
A tiger, springing from a sheltering bush,
Had snatched a merchant’s comrade
from his side;
A deadly cobra, hidden by the path,
Had stung to death a widow’s only
son;
A breath of jungle-wind a youth’s
blood chilled,
Or filled a strong man’s bones with
piercing pain;
A household widowed by a careless step;
The quick cross-lightning from an angry
cloud
Struck down a bridegroom bringing home
his bride—
All this and more he heard, and much he
saw:
A young man, stricken in life’s
early prime,
Shuffled along, dragging one palsied limb,
While one limp arm hung useless by his
side;
A dwarf sold little knickknacks by the
way,
His body scarcely in the human form,
To which long arms and legs seemed loosely
hung,
His noble head thrust forward on his breast,
Whose pale, sad face as plainly told as
words
That life had neither health nor hope
for him;
An old man tottering from a hovel came,
Frail, haggard, palsied, leaning on a
staff,
Whose eyes, dull, glazed and meaningless,
proclaim
The body lingers when the mind has fled;
One seized with sudden hot distemper of
the blood,
Writhing with anguish, by the wayside
sunk.
The purple plague-spot on his pallid cheek,
Cold drops of perspiration on his brow,
With wildly rolling eyes and livid lips,
Gasping for breath and feebly asking help—
But ere the prince could aid, death gave
relief.
At length they passed the city’s
outer gate
And down a stream, now spread in shining
pools,
Now leaping in cascades, now dashing on,
A line of foam along its rocky bed,
Bordered by giant trees with densest shade.
Here, day by day, the city bring their
dead;
Here, day by day, they build the funeral-piles;
Here lamentations daily fill the air;
Here hissing flames each day taste human
flesh,
And friendly watchmen guard the smoldering
pile
Till friends can cull the relics from
the dust.
And here, just finished, rose a noble
pile
By stately Brahmans for a Brahman built
Of fragrant woods, and drenched with fragrant
oils,
Loading the air with every sweet perfume
That India’s forests or her fields
can yield;
Above, a couch of sacred cusa-grass,
On which no dreams disturb the sleeper’s
rest.
And now the sound of music reaches them,
Far off at first, solemn and sad and slow,
Rising and swelling as it nearer comes,
Until a long procession comes in view.
Four Brahmans first, bearing in bowls
the fire
No more to burn on one deserted hearth,
More than enough the prince had seen and
heard.
Bowed by the grievous burdens others bore,
Feeling for others’ sorrows as his
own,
Tears of divinest pity filled his eyes
And deep and all-embracing love his heart.
Home he returned, no more to find its
rest.
But soon a light shines in that troubled
house—
A son is born to sweet Yasodhara.
Their eyes saw not, neither do ours, that
sun
Whose light is wisdom and whose heat is
love,
Sending through nature waves of living
light,
Giving its life to everything that lives,
Which through the innocence of little
ones
As through wide-open windows sends his
rays
To light the darkest, warm the coldest
heart.
Sweet infancy! life’s solace and
its rest,
Driving away the loneliness of age,
Joy filled the prince’s agitated
soul—
He felt a power, from whence he could
not tell,
Drawing away, he knew not where it led.
He knew the dreaded separation near,
Yet half its pain and bitterness was passed.
He need not leave his loved ones comfortless—
His loving people still would have their
prince,
The king in young Rahula have his son,
And sweet Yasodhara, his very life,
Would have that nearest, dearest comforter
To soothe her cares and drive away her
tears.[1]
But now strange dreams disturb the good
old king—
Dreams starting him in terror from his
sleep,
Yet seeming prophecies of coming good.
He dreamed he saw the flag his fathers
loved
In tatters torn and trailing in the dust,
But in its place another glorious flag,
Whose silken folds seemed woven thick
with gems
That as it waved glittered with dazzling
light.
He dreamed he saw proud embassies from
far
Bringing the crowns and scepters of the
earth,
Bowing in reverence before the prince,
Humbly entreating him to be their king—
From whom he fled in haste as if in fear.
Then dreamed he saw his son in tattered
robes
Begging from Sudras for his daily bread.
Again, he dreamed he saw the ancient tower
Where he in worship had so often knelt,
Rising and shining clothed with living
light,
And on its top the prince, beaming with
love,
Scattering with lavish hand the richest
gems
On eager crowds that caught them as they
fell.
But soon it vanished, and he saw a hill,
Rugged and bleak, cliff crowned and bald
and bare,
And there he saw the prince, kneeling
alone,
Wasted with cruel fastings till his bones
Clave to his skin, and in his sunken eyes
With fitful flicker gleamed the lamp of
life
Until they closed, and on the ground he
sank,
As if in death or in a deadly swoon;
And then the hill sank to a spreading
plain,
Stretching beyond the keenest vision’s
ken,
Covered with multitudes as numberless
As ocean’s sands or autumn’s
forest leaves;
And mounted on a giant elephant,
White as the snows on Himalaya’s
peaks,
The prince rode through their midst in
royal state,
And as he moved along he heard a shout,
Rising and swelling, like the mighty voice
Of many waters breaking on the shore:
“All hail! great Chakravartin, king
of kings!
Hail! king of righteousness! Hail!
prince of peace!”
Strange dreams! Where is their birthplace—where
their home?
Lighter than foam upon the crested wave,
Fleeter than shadows of the passing cloud,
They are of such fantastic substance made
That quick as thought they change their
fickle forms—
Now grander than the waking vision views,
Now stranger than the wildest fancy feigns,
And now so grim and terrible they start
The hardened conscience from its guilty
sleep.
In troops they come, trooping they fly
away,
Waved into being by the magic wand
Of some deep purpose of the inmost soul,
Some hidden joy or sorrow, guilt or fear—
Or better, as the wise of old believed,
Called into being by some heavenly guest
To soothe, to warn, instruct or terrify.
Strange dreams by night and troubled thoughts
by day
Disturb the prince and banish quiet sleep.
He dreamed that darkness, visible and
dense,
Shrouded the heavens and brooded o’er
the earth,
Whose rayless, formless, vacant nothingness
Curdled his blood and made his eyeballs
ache;
When suddenly from out this empty void
A cloud, shining with golden light, was
borne
By gentle winds, loaded with sweet perfumes,
Sweeter than spring-time on this earth
can yield.
The cloud passed just above him, and he
saw
Myriads of cherub faces looking down,
Sweet as Rahula, freed from earthly stain;
Such faces mortal brush could never paint—
Enraptured Raphael ne’er such faces
saw.
But still the outer darkness hovered near,
And ever and anon a bony hand
Darts out to snatch some cherub face away.
Then dreamed he saw a broad and pleasant
land,
With cities, gardens, groves and fruitful
fields,
Where bee-fed flowers half hide the ripening
fruits.
And spicy breezes stir the trembling leaves,
And many birds make sweetest melody,
But bordered by a valley black as night,
That ever vomits from its sunless depths
Great whirling clouds of suffocating smoke,
Blacker than hide the burning Aetna’s
head,
Blacker than over Lake Avernus hung;
No bird could fly above its fatal fumes;
Eagles, on tireless pinions upward borne,
In widening circles rising toward the
sun,
Venturing too near its exhalations, fall,
As sinks the plummet in the silent sea;
And lions, springing on their antlered
prey,
Drop still and lifeless on its deadly
brink;
Only the jackal’s dismal howl is
heard
To break its stillness and eternal sleep.
He was borne forward to the very verge
Of this dark valley, by some power unseen.
A wind that pierced his marrow parts the
clouds,
And far within, below he saw a sight
That stood his hair on end, beaded his
brow
With icy drops, and made his blood run
cold;
He saw a lofty throne, blacker than jet,
But shining with a strange and baleful
Startled he wakes and rises from his couch.
The lamps shine down with soft and mellow
light.
The fair Yasodhara still lay in sleep,
But not in quiet sleep. Her bosom
heaved
As if a sigh were seeking to escape;
Her brows were knit as if in pain or fear,
And tears were stealing from her close-shut
lids.
But sweet Rahula slept, and sleeping smiled
As if he too those cherub faces saw.
In haste alone he noiselessly stole forth
To wander in the park, and cool his brow
And calm his burdened, agitated soul.
The night had reached that hour preceding
dawn
When nature seems in solemn silence hushed,
Awed by the glories of the coming day.
The moon hung low above the western plains;
Unnumbered stars with double brightness
shine,
And half-transparent mists the landscape
veil,
Through which the mountains in dim grandeur
rise.
Silent, alone he crossed the maidan wide
Where first he saw the sweet Yasodhara,
Where joyful multitudes so often met,
Now still as that dark valley of his dream.
He passed the lake, mirror of heaven’s
high vault,
Whose ruffled waters ripple on the shore,
Stirred by cool breezes from the snow-capped
peaks;
And heedless of his way passed on and
up,
Through giant cedars and the lofty pines,
Over a leafy carpet, velvet soft,
While solemn voices from their branches
sound,
Strangely in unison with his sad soul;
And on and up until he reached a spot
Meanwhile the sweet Yasodhara still slept,
And dreamed she saw Siddartha’s
empty couch.
She dreamed she saw him flying far away,
And when she called to him he answered
not,
But only stopped his ears and faster flew
Until he seemed a speck, and then was
gone.
And then she heard a mighty voice cry
out:
“The time has come—his
glory shall appear!”
Waked by that voice, she found his empty
couch,
Siddartha gone, and with him every joy;
But not all joy, for there Rahula lay,
With great wide-open eyes and cherub smile,
Watching the lights that flickered on
the wall.
Caught in her arms she pressed him to
her heart
To still its tumult and to ease its pain.
But now that step she knew so well is
heard.
Siddartha comes, filled with unselfish
love
Until his face beamed with celestial light
That like a holy halo crowned his head.
Gently he spoke: “My dearest
and my best,
The time has come—the time
when we must part.
Let not your heart be troubled—it
is best.”
This said, a tender kiss spoke to her
heart,
In love’s own language, of unchanging
love.
When sweet Rahula stretched his little
arms,
And cooing asked his share of tenderness,
Siddartha from her bosom took their boy,
And though sore troubled, both together
smiled,
And with him playing, that sweet jargon
spoke,
Which, though no lexicon contains its
words,
Seems like the speech of angels, poorly
learned,
For every sound and syllable and word
Was filled brimful of pure and perfect
love.
At length grown calm, they tenderly communed
Of all their past, of all their hopes
and fears;
And when the time of separation came,
His holy resolution gave her strength
To give the last embrace and say farewell.
And forth he rode,[2] mounted on Kantaka,
A prince, a loving father, husband, son,
To exile driven by all-embracing love.
What wonder, as the ancient writings say,
That nature to her inmost depths was stirred,
And as he passed the birds burst forth
in song,
Fearless of hawk or kite that hovered
near?
What wonder that the beasts of field and
wood,
And all the jungle’s savage denizens,
Gathered in groups and gamboled fearlessly,
Leopards with kids and wolves with skipping
lambs?
For he who rode alone, bowed down and
sad,
Taught millions, crores[3] of millions,
yet unborn
To treat with kindness every living thing.
What wonder that the deepest hells were
stirred?
What wonder that the heavens were filled
with joy?
For he, bowed down with sorrow, going
forth,
Shall come with joy and teach all men
the way
From earth’s sad turmoil to Nirvana’s
rest.
[1]In the “Light of Asia” the prince is made to leave his young wife before the birth of their son, saying: “Whom, if I wait to bless, my heart will fail,”—a piece of cowardice hardly consistent with my conception of that brave and self-denying character.
[2]In the “Light of Asia,” the prince, after leaving his young wife, is made to pass through a somewhat extensive harem en deshabille, which is described with voluptuous minuteness. Although there are some things in later Buddhistic literature that seem to justify it, I can but regard the introduction of an institution so entirely alien to every age, form and degree of Aryan civilization and so inconsistent with the tender conjugal love which was the strongest tie to his beloved home, as a serious blot on that beautiful poem and as inconsistent with its whole theory, for no prophet ever came from a harem.
[3]A crore is ten millions.
Far from his kingdom, far from home and
friends,
The prince has gone, his flowing locks
close shorn,
His rings and soft apparel laid aside,
All signs of rank and royalty cast off.
Clothed in a yellow robe, simple and coarse,
Through unknown streets from door to door
he passed,
Holding an alms-bowl forth for willing
gifts.
But when, won by his stateliness and grace,
They brought their choicest stores, he
gently said:
“Not so, my friends, keep such for
those who need—
The sick and old; give me but common food.”
And when sufficient for the day was given,
He took a way leading without the walls,
And through rich gardens, through the
fruitful fields,
Under dark mangoes and the jujube trees,
Eastward toward Sailagiri, hill of gems;
And through an ancient grove, skirting
its base,
Where, soothed by every soft and tranquil
sound,
Full many saints were wearing out their
days
In meditation, earnest, deep, intent,
Seeking to solve the mystery of life,
Seeking, by leaving all its joys and cares,
Seeking, by doubling all its woes and
pains,
To gain an entrance to eternal rest;
And winding up its rugged sides, to where
A shoulder of the mountain, sloping west,
O’erhangs a cave with wild figs
canopied.
This mountain cave was now his dwelling-place,
A stone his pillow, and the earth his
bed,
His earthen alms-bowl holding all his
stores
Except the crystal waters, murmuring near.
A lonely path, rugged, and rough, and
steep;
A lonely cave, its stillness only stirred
By eagle’s scream, or raven’s
solemn croak,
Or by the distant city’s softened
sounds,
Save when a sudden tempest breaks above,
And rolling thunders shake the trembling
hills—
A path since worn by countless pilgrims’
feet,
Coming from far to view this hallowed
spot,
And bow in worship on his hard, cold bed,
And press his pillow with their loving
lips.
For here, for six long years, the world-renowned,
The tender lover of all living things,
Fasted and watched and wrestled for the
light,
Less for himself than for a weeping world.
And here arrived, he ate his simple meal,
And then in silent meditation sat
The livelong day, heedless of noon’s
fierce heat
That sent to covert birds and panting
beasts,
And from the parched and glowing plain
sent up,
As from a furnace, gusts of scorching
air,
Through which the city’s walls,
the rocks and trees.
All seemed to tremble, quiver, glow and
shake,
As if a palsy shook the trembling world;
Heedless of loosened rocks that crashed
so near,
And dashed and thundered to the depths
below,
And of the shepherds, who with wondering
And thus he mused, seeking to find a light
To guide men on their dark and weary way,
And through the valley and the shades
of death,
Until the glories of the setting sun
Called him to vespers and his evening
meal.
Then roused from revery, ablutions made,
Eight times he bowed, just as the setting
sun,
A fiery red, sunk slowly out of sight
Beyond the western plains, gilded and
tinged,
Misty and vast, beneath a brilliant sky,
Shaded from brightest gold to softest
rose.
Then, after supper, back and forth he
paced
Upon the narrow rock before his cave,
Seeking to ease his numbed and stiffened
limbs;
While evening’s sombre shadows slowly
crept
From plain to hill and highest mountain-top,
And solemn silence settled on the world,
Save for the night-jar’s cry and
owl’s complaint;
While many lights from out the city gleam,
And thickening stars spangle the azure
vault,
Until the moon, with soft and silvery
light,
Half veils and half reveals the sleeping
world.
And then he slept—for weary
souls must sleep,
As well as bodies worn with daily toil;
And as he lay stretched on his hard, cold
bed,
His youthful blood again bounds freely
on,
Repairing wastes the weary day had made.
And then he dreamed. Sometimes he
dreamed of home,
Of young Rahula, reaching out his arms,
Of sweet Yasodhara with loving words
Cheering him on, as love alone can cheer.
And thus he slept, and thus sometimes
he dreamed,
But rose before the dawn had tinged the
east,
Before the jungle-cock had made his call,
When thoughts are clearest, and the world
is still,
Refreshed and strengthened for his daily
search
Into the seeds of sorrow, germs of pain,
After a light to scatter doubts and fears.
But when the coming day silvered the east,
And warmed that silver into softest gold,
And faintest rose-tints tinged the passing
clouds,
He, as the Vedas taught, each morning
bathed
In the clear stream that murmured near
his cave,
Then bowed in reverence to the rising
sun,
As from behind the glittering mountain-peaks
It burst in glory on the waking world.
Then bowl and staff in hand, he took his
way
Along his mountain-path and through the
grove,
And through the gardens, through the fruitful
fields,
Down to the city, for his daily alms;
While children his expected coming watch,
And running cry: “The gracious
Rishi comes.”
All gladly gave, and soon his bowl was
filled,
For he repaid their gifts with gracious
thanks,
And his unbounded love, clearer than words,
Spoke to their hearts as he passed gently
on.
Even stolid plowmen after him would look,
Wondering that one so stately and so grand
Should even for them have kind and gracious
words,
Sometimes while passing through the sacred
grove,
He paused beneath an aged banyan-tree,
Whose spreading branches drooping down
took root
To grow again in other giant trunks,
An ever-widening, ever-deepening shade,
Where five, like him in manhood’s
early prime,
Each bound to life by all its tender ties,
High born and rich, had left their happy
homes,
Their only food chance-gathered day by
day,
Their only roof this spreading banyan-tree;
And there long time they earnestly communed,
Seeking to aid each other in the search
For higher life and for a clearer light.
Six years had passed, six long and weary
years,
Since first he left the world to seek
for light.
Knowledge he found, knowledge that soared
aloft
To giddy heights, and sounded hidden depths,
Secrets of knowledge that the Brahmans
taught
The favored few, but far beyond the reach
Of those who toil and weep and cry for
help;
A light that gilds the highest mountain-tops,
But leaves the fields and valleys dark
and cold;
But not that living light for which he
yearned,
To light life’s humble walks and
common ways,
And send its warmth to every heart and
home,
As spring-time sends a warm and genial
glow
To every hill and valley, grove and field,
Clothing in softest verdure common grass,
As well as sandal-trees and lofty palms.
One night, when hope seemed yielding to
despair,
Sleepless he lay upon the earth—his
bed—
When suddenly a white and dazzling light
Shone through the cave, and all was dark
again.
Startled he rose, then prostrate in the
dust,
His inmost soul breathed forth an earnest
prayer[1]
That he who made the light would make
it shine
Clearer and clearer to that perfect day,
When innocence, and peace, and righteousness
Might fill the earth, and ignorance and
fear,
And cruelty and crime, might fly away,
Joyful he rose, and when the rising sun
Had filled the earth’s dark places
full of light,
With all his worldly wealth, his staff
and bowl,
Obedient to that voice he left his cave;
When from a shepherd’s cottage near
his way,
Whence he had often heard the busy hum
Of industry, and childhood’s merry
laugh,
There came the angry, stern command of
one
Clothed in a little brief authority,
Mingled with earnest pleadings, and the
wail
Of women’s voices, and above them
all
The plaintive treble of a little child.
Thither he turned, and when he reached
the spot,
The cause of all this sorrow was revealed:
One from the king had seized their little
all,
Their goats and sheep, and e’en
the child’s pet lamb.
But when they saw him they had often watched
With reverent awe, as if come down from
heaven,
Prostrate they fell, and kissed his garment’s
hem,
While he so insolent, now stood abashed,
And, self accused, he thus excused himself:
“The Brahmans make this day a sacrifice,
And they demand unblemished goats and
lambs.
I but obey the king’s express command
To bring them to the temple ere high noon.”
But Buddha stooped and raised the little
child,
Who nestled in his arms in perfect trust,
And gently said: “Rise up,
my friends, weep not!
The king must be obeyed—but
kings have hearts.
I go along to be your advocate.
The king may spare what zealous priest
would kill,
Thinking the gods above delight in blood.”
But when the officers would drive the
flock
With staves and slings and loud and angry
cries,
They only scattered them among the rocks,
And Buddha bade the shepherd call his
own,
As love can lead where force in vain would
drive.
He called; they knew his voice and followed
him,
Dumb innocents, down to the slaughter
led,
While Buddha kissed the child, and followed
them,
With those so late made insolent by power,
Now dumb as if led out to punishment.
Meanwhile the temple-gates wide open stood,
And when the king, in royal purple robed,
And decked with gems, attended by his
court,
To clash of cymbals, sound of shell and
drum,
Through streets swept clean and sprinkled
with perfumes,
Adorned with flags, and filled with shouting
crowds,
Drew near the sacred shrine, a greater
came,
Through unswept ways, where dwelt the
toiling poor,
Huddled in wretched huts, breathing foul
air,
Living in fetid filth and poverty—
No childhood’s joys, youth prematurely
old,
Manhood a painful struggle but to live,
And age a weary shifting of the scene;
While all the people drew aside to gaze
Upon his gentle but majestic face,
Beaming with tender, all-embracing love.
And when the king and royal train dismount,
’Mid prostrate people and the stately
priests,
On fragrant flowers that carpeted his
way,
And mount the lofty steps to reach the
shrine,
Siddartha came, upon the other side,
’Mid stalls for victims, sheds for
sacred wood,
And rude attendants on the pompous rites,
Who seized a goat, the patriarch of the
flock,
And bound him firm with sacred munja grass,
And bore aloft, while Buddha followed
where
A priest before the blazing altar stood
With glittering knife, and others fed
the fires,
While clouds of incense from the altar
rose,
Sweeter than Araby the blest can yield,
And white-robed Brahmans chant their sacred
hymns.
And there before that ancient shrine they
met,
The king, the priests, the hermit from
the hill,
When one, an aged Brahman, raised his
hands,
And praying, lifted up his voice and cried:
“O hear! great Indra, from thy lofty
throne
On Meru’s holy mountain, high in
heaven.
Let every good the king has ever done
With this sweet incense mingled rise to
thee;
And every secret, every open sin
Be laid upon this goat, to sink from sight,
Drunk by the earth with his hot spouting
blood,
Or on this altar with his flesh be burned.”
And all the Brahman choir responsive cried:
“Long live the king! now let the
victim die!”
But Buddha said: “Let him not
strike, O king!
For how can God, being good, delight in
blood?
And how can blood wash out the stains
of sin,
And change the fixed eternal law of life
That good from good, evil from evil flows?”
This said, he stooped and loosed the panting
goat,
None staying him, so great his presence
was.
And then with loving tenderness he taught
How sin works out its own sure punishment;
How like corroding rust and eating moth
It wastes the very substance of the soul;
Like poisoned blood it surely, drop by
drop,
Pollutes the very fountain of the life;
Like deadly drug it changes into stone
The living fibres of a loving heart;
But though the beasts have lairs, the
birds have nests,
Buddha had not whereon to lay his head,
Not even a mountain-cave to call his home;
And forth he fared, heedless about his
way—
For every way was now alike to him.
Heedless of food, his alms-bowl hung unused.
While all the people stood aside with
awe,
And to their children pointed out the
man
Who plead the shepherd’s cause before
the king.
At length he passed the city’s western
gate,
And crossed the little plain circling
its walls.
Circled itself by five bold hills that
rise,
A rugged, rampart and an outer wall.
Two outer gates this mountain rampart
had,
The one a narrow valley opening west
Toward Gaya, through the red Barabar hills.
Through which the rapid Phalgu swiftly
glides,
Down from the Vindhya mountains far away,
Then gently winds around this fruitful
plain,
Its surface green with floating lotus
leaves.
And bright with lotus blossoms, blue and
white,
O’erhung with drooping trees and
trailing vines,
Till through the eastern gate it hastens
on,
To lose itself in Gunga’s sacred
stream.
Toward Gaya now Siddartha bent his steps,
Distant the journey of a single day
As men marked distance in those ancient
times,
No longer heeded in this headlong age,
When we count moments by the miles we
pass;
And one may see the sun sink out of sight.
Behind great banks of gray and wintry
And as he went, weary and faint and sad,
The valley opening showed a pleasant grove,
Where many trees mingled their grateful
shade,
And many blossoms blended sweet perfumes;
And there, under a drooping vakul-tree,
A bower of roses and sweet jasmine vines,
Within a couch, without a banquet spread,
While near a fountain with its falling
spray
Ruffled the surface of a shining pool,
Whose liquid cadence mingled with the
songs
Of many birds concealed among the trees.
And there three seeming sister graces
were,[2]
Fair as young Venus rising from the sea,
The one in seeming childlike innocence
Bathed in the pool, while her low liquid
laugh
Rung sweet and clear; and one her vina
tuned,
And as she played, the other lightly danced,
Clapping her hands, tinkling her silver
bells,
Whose gauzy silken garments seemed to
show
Rather than hide her slender, graceful
limbs.
And she who played the vina sweetly sang;
“Come to
our bower and take your rest—
Life is a weary
road at best.
Eat, for your
board is richly spread;
Drink, for your
wine is sparkling red;
Rest, for the
weary day is past;
Sleep, for the
shadows gather fast.
Tune not your
vina-strings too high,
Strained they
will break and the music die.
Come to our bower
and take your rest—
Life is a weary
road at best.”
But Buddha, full of pity, passing said:
“Alas, poor soul! flitting a little
while
Like painted butterflies before the lamp
That soon will burn your wings; like silly
doves,
Calling the cruel kite to seize and kill;
Displaying lights to be the robber’s
guide;
Enticing men to wrong, who soon despise.
Ah! poor, perverted, cold and cruel world!
Delights of love become the lures of lust,
The joys of heaven changed into fires
of hell.”
[1]I am aware there are many who think that Buddha did not believe in prayer, which Arnold puts into his own mouth in these words, which sound like the clanking of chains in a prison-vault:
“Pray not! the darkness will not
brighten! Ask
Nought from Silence, for it cannot speak!”
Buddha did teach that mere prayers without any effort to overcome our evils is of no more use than for a merchant to pray the farther bank of a swollen stream to come to him without seeking any means to cross, which merely differs in words from the declaration of St. James that faith without works is dead; but if he ever taught that the earnest yearning of a soul for help, which is the essence of prayer, is no aid in the struggle for a higher life, then my whole reading has been at fault, and the whole Buddhist worship has been a departure from the teachings of its founder.
[2]Mara dispatched three pleasure-girls from the north quarter to come and tempt him. Their names were Tanha, Rati and Ranga. Fa Hian (Beal), p. 120.
Now mighty Mara, spirit of the air,
The prince of darkness, ruling worlds
below,
Had watched for Buddha all these weary
years,
Seeking to lead his steady steps astray
By many wiles his wicked wit devised,
Lest he at length should find the living
light
And rescue millions from his dark domains.
Now, showing him the kingdoms of the world.
He offered him the Chakravartin’s
crown;
Now, opening seas of knowledge, shoreless,
vast,
Knowledge of ages past and yet to come,
Knowledge of nature and the hidden laws
That guide her changes, guide the roiling
spheres,
Sakwal on sakwal,[1] boundless, infinite,
Yet ever moving on in harmony,
He thought to puff his spirit up with
pride
Till he should quite forget a suffering
world,
In sin and sorrow groping blindly on.
But when he saw that lust of power moved
not,
And thirst for knowledge turned him not
aside
From earnest search after the living light,
From tender love for every living thing,
He sent the tempters Doubt and dark Despair.
And as he watched for final victory
He saw that light flash through the silent
cave,
And heard the Buddha breathe that earnest
prayer,
And fled amazed, nor dared to look behind.
For though to Buddha all his way seemed
dark,
His wily enemy could see a Power,
A mighty Power, that ever hovered near,
A present help in every time of need,
When sinking souls seek earnestly for
aid.
He fled, indeed, as flies the prowling
wolf,
Alarmed at watch-dog’s bark or shepherd’s
voice,
While seeking entrance to the slumbering
fold,
But soon returns with soft and stealthy
step,
With keenest scent snuffing the passing
breeze,
With ears erect catching each slightest
sound,
With glaring eyes watching each moving
thing,
With hungry jaws, skulking about the fold
Till coming dawn drives him to seek his
lair.
So Mara fled, and so he soon returned,
And thus he watched the Buddha’s
every step;
Saw him with gentleness quell haughty
power;
Saw him with tenderness raise up the weak;
Heard him before the Brahmans and the
king
Denounce those bloody rites ordained by
him;
Heard him declare the deadly work of Sin,
His own prime minister and eldest-born;
Heard him proclaim the mighty power of
Love
To cleanse the life and make the flinty
heart
As soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
And when he saw whither he bent his steps,
He sent three wrinkled hags, deformed
and foul,
The willing agents of his wicked will—
Life-wasting Idleness, the thief of time;
Defeated, not discouraged, still he thought
To try one last device, for well he knew
That Buddha’s steps approached the
sacred tree
Where light would dawn and all his power
would end.
Upon a seat beside the shaded path,
A seeming aged Brahman, Mara sat,
And when the prince approached, his tempter
rose,
Saluting him with gentle stateliness,
Saluted in return with equal grace.
“Whither away, my son?” the
tempter said,
“If you to Gaya now direct your
steps,
Perhaps your youth may cheer my lonely
age.”
“I go to seek for light,”
the prince replied,
“But where it matters not, so light
be found.”
But Mara answered him: “Your
search is vain.
Why seek to know more than the Vedas teach?
Why seek to learn more than the teachers
know?
But such is youth; the rosy tints of dawn
Tinge all his thoughts. ‘Excelsior!’
he cries,
And fain would scale the unsubstantial
clouds
To find a light that knows no night, no
change;
We Brahmans chant our hymns in solemn
wise,
The vulgar listen with profoundest awe;
But still our muffled heart-throbs beat
the march
Onward, forever onward, to the grave,
When one ahead cries, ‘Lo!
I see a light!’
And others clutch his garments, following
on.
Till all in starless darkness disappear,
There may be day beyond this starless
night,
There may be life beyond this dark profound—
But who has ever seen that changeless
day?
What steps have e’er retraced that
silent road?
Fables there are, hallowed by hoary age,
Fables and ancient creeds, that men have
made
To give them power with ignorance and
fear;
Fables of gods with human passions filled:
Fables of men who walked and talked with
gods;
Fables of kalpas passed, when Brahma slept
And all created things were wrapped in
flames,
And then the floods descended, chaos reigned,
The world a waste of waters, and the heavens
A sunless void, until again he wakes,
And sun and moon and stars resume their
rounds,
Oceans receding show the mountain-tops,
And then the hills and spreading plains—
Strange fables all, that crafty men have
feigned.
Why waste your time pursuing such vain
dreams—
As some benighted travelers chase false
The prince with gentle earnestness replied:
“Full well I know how blindly we
grope on
In doubt and fear and ignorance profound,
The wisdom of the past a book now sealed.
But why despise what ages have revered?
As some rude plowman casts on rubbish-heaps
The rusty casket that his share reveals,
Not knowing that within it are concealed
Most precious gems, to make him rich indeed,
The hand that hid them from the robber,
cold,
The key that locked this rusty casket,
lost.
The past was wise, else whence that wondrous
tongue[3]
That we call sacred, which the learned
speak,
Now passing out of use as too refined
For this rude age, too smooth for our
rough tongues,
Too rich and delicate for our coarse thoughts.
Why should such men make fables so absurd
Unless within their rough outside is stored
Some precious truth from profanation hid?
Revere your own, revile no other faith,
Lest with the casket you reject the gems,
Or with rough hulls reject the living
seed.
Doubtless in nature changes have been
wrought
That speak of ages in the distant past,
Whose contemplation fills the mind with
awe.
The smooth-worn pebbles on the highest
hills
Speak of an ocean sweeping o’er
their tops;
The giant palms, now changed to solid
rocks,
Speak of the wonders of a buried world.
Why seek to solve the riddle nature puts,
Of whence and why, with theories and dreams?
The crawling worm proclaims its Maker’s
power;
The singing bird proclaims its Maker’s
skill;
The mind of man proclaims a greater Mind,
Whose will makes world, whose thoughts
are living acts.
Our every heart-throb speaks of present
power,
Preserving, recreating, day by day.
Better confess how little we can know,
Better with feet unshod and humble awe
Approach this living Power to ask for
aid.”
And as he spoke the devas filled the air,
Unseen, unheard of men, and sweetly sung:
“Hail, prince of peace! hail, harbinger
of day!
The darkness vanishes, the light appears.”
But Mara heard, and silent slunk away,
The o’erwrought prince fell prostrate
on the ground
And lay entranced, while devas hovered
near,
Watching each heart-throb, breathing that
sweet calm
Its guardian angel gives the sleeping
child.
The night has passed, the day-star fades
from sight,
And morning’s softest tint of rose
and gold
Tinges the east and tips the mountain-tops.
The silent village stirs with waking life,
The bleat of goats and low of distant
herds,
The song of birds and crow of jungle-cocks
Breathe softest music through the dewy
air.
And now two girls,[4] just grown to womanhood,
The lovely daughters of the village lord,
Trapusha one, and one Balika called,
Up with the dawn, trip lightly o’er
the grass,
Bringing rich curds and rice picked grain
by grain,
A willing offering to their guardian god—
Who dwelt, as all the simple folk believed,
Beneath an aged bodhi-tree that stood
Beside the path and near where Buddha
lay—
To ask such husbands as their fancies
paint,
Gentle and strong, and noble, true and
brave;
And having left their gifts and made their
vows,
With timid steps the maidens stole away.
But while the outer world is filled with
life.
That inner world from whence this life
proceeds,
Concealed from sight by matter’s
blinding folds,
Whose coarser currents fill with wondrous
power
The nervous fluid of the universe
Which darts through nature’s frame,
from star to star,
From cloud to cloud, filling the world
with awe;
Now harnessed to our use, a patient drudge,
Heedless of time or space, bears human
thought
From land to land and through the ocean’s
depths;
And bears the softest tones of human speech
Faster than light, farther than ocean
sounds;
And whirls the clattering car through
crowded streets,
And floods with light the haunts of prowling
thieves—
That inner world, whose very life is love,
Pure love, and perfect, infinite, intense,
That world is now astir. A rift
appears
In those dark clouds that rise from sinful
souls
And hide from us its clear celestial light,
And clouds of messengers from that bright
world,
Whom they called devas and we angels call,
Rush to that rift to rescue and to save.
The wind from their bright wings fanned
Buddha’s soul,
The love from their sweet spirits warmed
his heart.
He starts from sleep, but rising, scarcely
knows
If he had seen a vision while awake,
Or, sunk in sleep, had dreamed a heavenly
dream.
From that pure presence all his tempters
fled.
The calm of conflict ended filled his
soul,
And led by unseen hands he forward passed
To where the sacred fig-tree long had
grown,
Beneath whose shade the village altar
stood,
Where simple folk would place their willing
gifts,
And ask the aid their simple wants required,
Believing all the life above, around,
The life within themselves, must surely
come
From living powers that ever hovered near.
Here lay the food Sagata’s daughters
Eastward he saw a never-setting Sun,
Whose light is truth, the light of all
the worlds,
Whose heat is tender, all-embracing love,
The inmost Life of everything that lives,
The mighty Prototype and primal Cause
Of all the suns that light this universe,
From ours, full-orbed, that tints the
glowing east
And paints the west a thousand varied
shades,
To that far distant little twinkling star
That seems no larger than the glow-worm’s
lamp,
Itself a sun to light such worlds as ours;
And round about Him clouds of living light,
Bright clouds of cherubim and seraphim,
Who sing His praise and execute His will—
Not idly singing, as the foolish feign,
But voicing forth their joy they work
and sing;
Doing His will, their works sound forth
His praise.
On every side were fields of living green,
With gardens, groves and gently rising
hills,
Where crystal streams of living waters
flow,
And dim with distance Meru’s lofty
heights.
No desert sands, no mountains crowned
with ice,
For here the scorching simoom never blows,
Nor wintry winds, that pierce and freeze
and kill,
But gentle breezes breathing sweet perfumes;
No weeds, no thorns, no bitter poisonous
fruits,
No noxious reptiles and no prowling beasts;
For in this world of innocence and love
No evil thoughts give birth to evil things,
But many birds of every varied plume
Delight the ear with sweetest melody;
And many flowers of every varied tint
Fill all the air with odors rich and sweet;
And many fruits, suited to every taste,
Hang ripe and ready that who will may
eat—
A world of life, with all its lights and
shades,
The bright original of our sad world
Without its sin and storms, its thorns
and tears.
No Lethe’s sluggish waters lave
its shores,
Nor solemn shades, of poet’s fancy
bred,
Sit idly here to boast of battles past,
Nor wailing ghosts wring here their shadowy
hands
For lack of honor to their cast-off dust;
But living men, in human bodies clothed—
As lost in wonder and delight he gazed,
He saw approaching from a pleasant grove
Two noble youths, yet full of gentleness,
Attending one from sole to crown a queen,
With every charm of fresh and blooming
youth
And every grace of early womanhood,
Her face the mirror of her gentle soul,
Her flowing robes finer than softest silk,
That as she moved seemed woven of the
light;
Not borne by clumsy wings, or labored
steps,
She glided on as if her will had wings
That bore her willing body where she wished.
As she approached, close by her side he
saw,
As through a veil or thin transparent
mist,
The form and features of the aged king,
Older and frailer by six troubled years
Than when they parted, yet his very face,
Whom she was watching with the tenderest
care.
And nearer seen each seeming youth was
two,
As when at first in Eden’s happy
shade
Our primal parents ere the tempter came
Were twain, and yet but one, so on they
come,
Hand joined in hand, heart beating close
to heart,
One will their guide and sharing every
thought,
Beaming with tender, all-embracing love,
Whom God had joined and death had failed
to part.
What need of words to introduce his guests?
Love knows her own, the mother greets
her son.
Her parents and the king’s, who
long had watched
Their common offspring with a constant
care,
Inspiring hope and breathing inward peace
When secret foes assailed on every side,
Now saw him burst the clouds that veiled
their view
And stand triumphant full before their
eyes.
O happy meeting! joy profound, complete!
Soul greeting soul, heart speaking straight
to heart,
While countless happy faces hovered near
And song’s of joy sound through
Nirvana’s heights.
At length, the transports of first meeting
past,
More of this new-found world he wished
to see,
More of its peace and joy he wished to
know.
Led by his loving guides, enwrapt he saw
Such scenes of beauty passing human speech,
Such scenes of peace and joy past human
thought,
That he who sings must tune a heavenly
lyre
And seraphs touch his lips with living
fire.
My unanointed lips will not presume
To try such lofty themes, glad if I gain
A distant prospect of the promised land,
And catch some glimpses through the gates
ajar.
Long time he wandered through these blissful
scenes,
Time measured by succession of delights,
Till wearied by excess of very joy
Both soul and body sunk in tranquil sleep.
He slept while hosts of devas sweetly
sung:
“Hail, great physician! savior,
lover, friend!
Joy of the worlds, guide to Nirvana, hail!”
From whose bright presence Mara’s
myriads fled.
But Mara’s self, subtlest of all,
fled not,
But putting on a seeming yogi’s
form,
Wasted, as if by fasts, to skin and bone,
On one foot standing, rooted to the ground,
The other raised against his fleshless
thigh,
Hands stretched aloft till joints had
lost their use,
And clinched so close, as if in firm resolve,
The nails had grown quite through the
festering palms,[5]
His tattered robes, as if worn out by
age,
Hanging like moss from trees decayed and
dead,
While birds were nesting in his tangled
hair.
And thus disguised the subtle Mara stood,
And when the master roused him from his
sleep
His tempter cried in seeming ecstasy:
“O! happy wakening! joy succeeding
grief!
Peace after trouble! rest that knows no
end!
Life after death! Nirvana found
at last!
Here let us wait till wasted by decay
The body’s worn-out fetters drop
away.”
“Much suffering-brother,”
Buddha answered him,
“The weary traveler, wandering through
the night
In doubt and darkness, gladly sees the
dawn.
The storm-tossed sailor on the troubled
sea,
Wearied and drenched, with joy re-enters
port.
But other nights succeed that happy dawn,
And other seas may toss that sailor’s
bark.
But he who sees Nirvana’s sacred
Sun,
And in Nirvana’s haven furls his
sails,
No more shall wander through the starless
night,
No more shall battle with the winds and
waves.
O joy of joys! our eyes have seen that
Sun!
Our sails have almost reached that sheltering
port,
But shall we, joyful at our own escape,
Leave our poor brothers battling with
the storm,
Sails rent, barks leaking, helm and compass
lost,
No light to guide, no hope to cheer them
on?”
“Each for himself must seek, as
we have sought,”
The tempter said, “and each must
climb alone
The rugged path our weary feet have trod.
No royal road leads to Nirvana’s
rest;
No royal captain guides his army there.
Why leave the heights with so much labor
gained?
Why plunge in darkness we have just escaped?
Men will not heed the message we may bring.
The great will scorn, the rabble will
deride,[6]
And cry ‘He hath a devil and is
mad.’”
“True,” answered Buddha, “each
must seek to find;
Each for himself must leave the downward
road;
Each for himself must choose the narrow
path
That leads to purity and peace and life.
But helping hands will aid those struggling
up;
A warning voice may check those hasting
down.
Men are like lilies in yon shining pool:
Some sunk in evil grovel in the dust,
Loving like swine to wallow in the mire—
Like those that grow within its silent
depths,
Scarce raised above its black and oozy
bed;
While some love good, and seek the purest
light,
Breathing sweet fragrance from their gentle
lives—
Like those that rise above its glassy
face,
Sparkling with dewdrops, royally arrayed,
Drinking the brightness of the morning
sun,
Distilling odors through the balmy air;
But countless multitudes grope blindly
on,
Shut out from light and crushed by cruel
castes,
Willing to learn, whom none will deign
to teach,
Willing to rise, whom none will deign
to guide,
Who from the cradle to the silent grave,
Helpless and hopeless, only toil and weep—
Like those that on the stagnant waters
float,
Smothered with leaves, covered with ropy
slime,
That from the rosy dawn to dewy eve
Scarce catch one glimmer of the glorious
sun.
The good scarce need, the bad will scorn,
my aid;
But these poor souls will gladly welcome
help.
Welcome to me the scorn of rich and great,
Welcome the Brahman’s proud and
cold disdain,
Welcome revilings from the rabble rout,
If I can lead some groping souls to light—
If I can give some weary spirits rest.
Farewell, my brother, you have earned
release—
Rest here in peace. I go to aid
the poor.”
And as he spoke a flash of lurid light
Shot through the air, and Buddha stood
alone—
Alone! to teach the warring nations peace!
Alone! to lead a groping world to light!
Alone! to give the heavy-laden rest!
[1]A sakwal was a sun with its system of worlds, which the ancient Hindoos believed extended one beyond another through infinite space. It indicates great advance in astronomical knowledge when such a complex idea, now universally received as true, as that the fixed stars are suns with systems of worlds like ours, could be expressed in a single word.
[2]It may seem like an anachronism to put the very words of the modern agnostic into the mouth of Buddha’s tempter, but these men are merely threshing over old straw. The sneer of Epicurus curled the lip of Voltaire, and now merely breaks out into a broad laugh on the good-natured face of Ingersoll.
[3]The Sanscrit, the most perfect of all languages, and the mother of Greek and of all the languages of the Aryan races, now spread over the world, had gone out of use in Buddha’s time, and the Pali, one of its earliest offspring, was used by the great teacher and his people.
[4]Arnold follows the tradition, that there was but one, whom he makes a young wife, without any authority so far as I can learn. I prefer to follow the Chinese pilgrim, Fa Hian, who was on the ground with every means of knowing, who makes them two young girls, and named as above.
[5]Bishop Heber says he saw a recluse whose hands had been clinched so close and so long that the nails had actually grown through the hands as here described.
[6]The last temptation of Buddha was to keep his light to himself under the fear that men would reject his message.
Seven days had passed since first he saw
the light,
Seven days of deep, ecstatic peace and
joy,
Of open vision of that blissful world,
Of sweet communion with those dwelling
there.
But having tasted, seen and felt the joys
Of that bright world where love is all
in all,
Filling each heart, inspiring every thought,
Guiding each will and prompting every
act,
He yearned to see the other, darker side
Of that bright picture, where the wars
and hates,
The lust, the greed, the cruelty and crime
That fill the world with pain and want
and woe
Have found their dwelling-place and final
goal.
Quicker than eagles soaring toward the
sun
Till but a speck against the azure vault
Swoop down upon their unsuspecting prey,
Quicker than watch-fires on the mountain-top
Send warnings to the dwellers in the plain,
Led by his guides he reached Nirvana’s
verge,
Whence he beheld a broad and pleasant
plain,
Spread with a carpet of the richest green
And decked with flowers of every varied
tint,
Whose blended odors fill the balmy air,
Where trees, pleasant to sight and good
for food,
In rich abundance and spontaneous grow.
A living stream, as purest crystal clear,
With gentle murmurs wound along the plain,
Its surface bright with fairer lotus-flowers
Than mortal eye on earth had ever seen,
While on its banks were cool, umbrageous
groves
Whose drooping branches spicy breezes
stir,
A singing bird in every waving bough,
Whose joyful notes the soul of music shed.
A mighty multitude, beyond the power
Of men to number, moved about the plain;
Some, seeming strangers, wander through
the groves
And pluck the flowers or eat the luscious
fruits;
Some, seeming visitors from better worlds,
Here wait and watch as for expected guests;
While angel devas, clothed in innocence,
Whose faces beam with wisdom, glow with
There eager flames devour an infant’s
flesh;
Here loving arms that risen infant clasp;
There loud laments bewail a loved one
lost;
Here joyful welcomes greet that loved
one found.
And there he saw a pompous funeral-train,
Bearing a body clothed in robes of state,
To blare of trumpet, sound of shell and
drum,
While many mourners bow in silent grief,
And widows, orphans raise a loud lament
As for a father, a protector lost;
And as the flames lick up the fragrant
oils,
And whirl and hiss around that wasting
form,
An eager watcher from a better world
Welcomes her husband to her open arms,
The cumbrous load of pomp and power cast
off,
While waiting devas and the happy throng
His power protected and his bounty blessed
With joy conduct his unaccustomed steps
Onward and upward, to those blissful seats
Where all his stores of duties well performed,
Of power well used and wealth in kindness
given,
Were garnered up beyond the reach of thieves,
Where moths ne’er eat and rust can
ne’er corrupt.
Another train draws near a funeral-pile,
Of aloes, sandal-wood and cassia built,
And drenched with every incense-breathing
oil,
And draped with silks and rich with rarest
flowers,
Where grim officials clothed in robes
of state
Placed one in royal purple, decked with
gems,
Whose word had been a trembling nation’s
law,
Whose angry nod was death to high or low.
No mourners gather round this costly pile;
The people shrink in terror from the sight.
But sullen soldiers there keep watch and
ward
While eager flames consume those nerveless
hands
So often raised to threaten or command,
Suck out those eyes that filled the court
with fear,
And only left of all this royal pomp
A little dust the winds may blow away.
But here that selfsame monarch comes in
view,
For royal purple clothed in filthy rags,
And lusterless that crown of priceless
gems;
Those eyes, whose bend so lately awed
the world,
Blinking and bleared and blinded by the
light;
Those hands, that late a royal scepter
bore,
Shaking with fear and dripping all with
blood.
And as he looked that some should give
him place
And lead him to a seat for monarchs fit,
He only saw a group of innocents
His hands had slain, now clothed in spotless
white,
From whom he fled as if by furies chased,
Fled from those groves and gardens of
delight,
Fled on and down a broad and beaten road
By many trod, and toward a desert waste
With distance dim, and gloomy, grim and
vast,
Where piercing thorns and leafless briars
grow,
And dead sea-apples, ashes to the taste,
Where loathsome reptiles crawl and hiss
and sting,
And birds of night and bat-winged dragons
fly,
Where beetling cliffs seem threatening
instant fall,
And opening chasms seem yawning to devour,
And sulphurous seas were swept with lurid
flames
That seethe and boil from hidden fires
below.
Again he saw, beyond that silent vale,
One frail and old, without a rich man’s
gate
Laid down to die beneath a peepul-tree,
And parched with thirst and pierced with
sudden pain,
A root his pillow and the earth his bed;
Alone he met the King of terrors there;
Whose wasting body, cumbering now the
ground,
Chandalas cast upon the passing stream
To float and fester in the fiery sun,
Till whirled by eddies, caught by roots,
it lay
A prey for vultures and for fishes food.
That selfsame day a dart of deadly pain
Shot through that rich man’s hard,
unfeeling heart,
That laid him low, beyond the power to
save,
E’en while his servants cast without
his gates
That poor old man, who came to beg him
spare
His roof-tree, where his fathers all had
died,
His hearth, the shrine of all his inmost
joys,
His little home, to every heart so dear;
And in due season tongues of hissing flames
That rich man’s robes like snowflakes
whirled in air,
And curled his crackling skin, consumed
his flesh,
And sucked the marrow from his whitened
bones.
But here these two their places seem to
change.
That rich man’s houses, lands, and
flocks and herds,
His servants, rich apparel, stores of
gold,
And all he loved and lived for left behind,
The friends that nature gave him turned
to foes,
Dependents whom his greed had wronged
and crushed
Shrinking away as from a deadly foe;
No generous wish, no gentle, tender, thought
To hide his nakedness, his shriveled soul
Stood stark and bare, the gaze of passers-by;
Nothing within to draw him on and up,
He slinks away, and wanders on and down,
And there two Brahmans press their funeral-pile,
And sink to dust amid the whirling flames.
Each from his lisping infancy had heard
That Brahmans were a high and holy caste,
Too high and holy for the common touch,
And each had learned the Vedas’
sacred lore.
But here they parted. One was cold
and proud,
Drawing away from all the humbler castes
As made to toil, and only fit to serve.
The other found within those sacred books
That all were brothers, made of common
clay,
And filled with life from one eternal
source,
While Brahmans only elder brothers were,
With greater light to be his brother’s
guide,
With greater strength to give his brother
aid;
That he alone a real Brahman was
Who had a Brahman’s spirit, not
his blood.
With patient toil from youth to hoary
age
He taught the ignorant and helped the
weak.
And now they come where all external pomp
And rank and caste and creed are nothing
worth.
But when that proud and haughty Brahman
saw
Poor Sudras and Chandalas clothed in white,
He swept away with proud and haughty scorn,
Swept on and down where heartless selfishness
Alone can find congenial company.
The other, full of joy, his brothers met,
And in sweet harmony they journeyed on
Where higher joys await the pure in heart.
And there he saw all ranks and grades
and castes,
Chandala, Sudra, warrior, Brahman, prince,
The wise and ignorant, the strong and
weak,
In all the stages of our mortal round
From lisping; infancy to palsied age,
By all the ways to human frailty known,
Enter that vale of shadows, deep and still,
Leaving behind their pomp and power and
wealth,
Leaving their rags and wretchedness and
want,
And cast-off bodies, dust to dust returned,
By flames consumed or moldering to decay,
While here the real character appeared,
All shows, hypocrisies and shams cast
off,
So that a life of gentleness and love
Shines through the face and molds the
outer form
To living beauty, blooming not to fade,
While every act of cruelty and crime
Seems like a gangrened ever-widening wound,
Wasting the very substance of the soul,
Marring its beauty, eating out its strength.
And here arrived, the good, in little
groups
Together drawn by inward sympathy,
And led by devas, take the upward way
To those sweet fields his opened eyes
had seen,
Those ever-widening mansions of delight;
While those poor souls—O sad
and fearful sight!—
The very well-springs of the life corrupt,
Shrink from the light and shun the pure
and good,
Fly from the devas, who with perfect love
Would gladly soothe their anguish, ease
their pain,
Fly on and down that broad and beaten
road,
Till in the distance in the darkness lost.
Lost! lost! and must it be forever lost?
The gentle Buddha’s all-embracing
love
Shrunk from the thought, but rather sought
relief
In that most ancient faith by sages taught,
That these poor souls at length may find
escape,
The grasping in the gross and greedy swine,
The cunning in the sly and prowling fox,
The cruel in some ravening beast of prey;
While those less hardened, less depraved,
may gain
Rebirth in men, degraded, groveling, base.[1]
But here in sadness let us drop the veil,
Hoping that He whose ways are not like
ours,
Whose love embraces all His handiwork,
Who in beginnings sees the final end,
May find some way to save these sinful
souls
Consistent with His fixed eternal law
That good from good, evil from evil flows.
Here Buddha saw the mystery of life
At last unfolded to its hidden depths.
He saw that selfishness was sorrow’s
root,
And ignorance its dense and deadly shade;
He saw that selfishness bred lust and
hate,
Deformed the features, and defiled the
soul
And closed its windows to those waves
of love
That flow perennial from Nirvana’s
Sun.
He saw that groveling lusts and base desires
Like noxious weeds unchecked luxurious
grow,
Making a tangled jungle of the soul,
Where no good seed can find a place to
root,
Where noble purposes and pure desires
And gentle thoughts wither and fade and
die
Like flowers beneath the deadly upas-tree.
He saw that selfishness bred grasping
greed,
And made the miser, made the prowling
thief,
And bred hypocrisy, pretense, deceit,
And made the bigot, made the faithless
priest,
Bred anger, cruelty, and thirst for blood,
And made the tyrant, stained the murderer’s
knife,
And filled the world with war and want
and woe,
And filled the dismal regions of the lost
With fiery flames of passions never quenched,
With sounds of discord, sounds of clanking
chains,
With cries of anguish, howls of bitter
hate,
Yet saw that man was free—not
bound and chained[2]
Helpless and hopeless to a whirling wheel,
Rolled on resistless by some cruel power,
Regardless of their cries and prayers
and tears—
Free to resist those gross and groveling
He saw that love softens and sweetens
life,
And stills the passions, soothes the troubled
breast,
Fills homes with joy and gives the nations
peace,
A sovereign balm for all the spirit’s
wounds,
The living fountain of Nirvana’s
bliss;
For here before his eyes were countless
souls,
Born to the sorrows of a sinful world,
With burdens bowed, by cares and griefs
oppressed,
Who felt for others’ sorrows as
their own,
Who lent a helping hand to those in need,
Returning good for evil, love for hate,
Whose garments now were white as spotless
wool,
Whose faces beamed with gentleness and
love,
As onward, upward, devas guide their steps,
Nirvana’s happy mansions full in
view.
He saw the noble eightfold path that mounts
From life’s low levels to Nirvana’s
heights.
Not by steep grades the strong alone can
climb,
But by such steps as feeblest limbs may
take.
He saw that day by day and step by step,
By lusts resisted and by evil shunned,
By acts of love and daily duties done,
Soothing some heartache, helping those
in need,
Smoothing life’s journey for a brother’s
feet,
Guarding the lips from harsh and bitter
words,
Guarding the heart from gross and selfish
thoughts,
Guarding the hands from every evil act,
Brahman or Sudra, high or low, may rise
Till heaven’s bright mansions open
to the view,
And heaven’s warm sunshine brightens
all the way;
While neither hecatombs of victims slain,
Nor clouds of incense wafted to the skies,
Nor chanted hymns, nor prayers to all
the gods,
Can raise a soul that clings to groveling
lusts.
He saw the cause of sorrow, and its cure.
He saw that waves of love surround the
soul
As waves of sunlight fill the outer world,
While selfishness, the subtle alchemist
Concealed within, changes that love to
hate,
Forges the links of karma’s fatal
chain,
Of passions, envies, lusts to bind the
soul,
And weaves his webs of falsehood and deceit
To close its windows to the living light,
Changing its mansion to its prison-house,
Where it must lay self-chained and self-condemned;
While dharma, truth, the law,
the living word,
Brushes away those deftly woven webs,
Opens its windows to the living light,
Reveals the architect of all its ills,
Scatters the timbers of its prison-house,[3]
And snaps in twain those bitter, galling
The way of life—the noble eightfold
path,
The way of truth, the Dharma-pada—found,
With joy he bade his loving guides farewell,
With joy he turned from all those blissful
scenes.
And when the rosy dawn next tinged the
east,
And morning’s burst of song had
waked the day,
With staff and bowl he left the sacred
tree—
Where pilgrims, passing pathless mountain-heights,
And desert sands, and ocean’s stormy
waves,
From every nation, speaking every tongue,
Should come in after-times to breathe
their vows—
Beginning on that day his pilgrimage
Of five and forty years from place to
place,
Breaking the cruel chains of caste and
creed,
Teaching the law of love, the way of life.
[1]The later Buddhists make much of the doctrine of metempsychosis, but in the undoubted sayings and Sutras or sermons of Buddha I find no mention of it except in this way as the last hope of those who persist through life in evil, while the good after death reach the other shore, or Nirvana, where there is no more birth or death.
[2]This great and fundamental truth, lying as the basis of human action and responsibility, was recognized by Homer, who makes Jupiter say:
“Perverse mankind, whose wills created
free,
Charge all their woes to absolute decree.”
Odyssey, Book I, lines 41 and 42
[3]After examining the attempted explanations of that remarkable passage, the original of which is given at the end of the sixth book of Arnold’s “Light of Asia,” I am satisfied this is its true interpretation. It is not the death of the body, for he lived forty-five years afterwards, much less the annihilation of the soul, as some have imagined, but the conquest of the passions and gross and selfish desires which make human life a prison, the very object and end of the highest Christian teaching’s and aspirations.
[4] “Know then that heaven and earth’s
compacted frame,
And flowing waters, and the
starry flame,
And both the radiant lights,
one common soul
Inspires and feeds and animates
the whole.”
Dryden’s
Virgil, Book VI, line 360.
[5]Buddha predicted that Matreya (Love incarnate) would be his successor (see Beal’s Fa Hian, page 137, note 2, and page 162; also Hardy’s Manual, page 386, and Oldenburgh’s Buddhism, page 386), who was to come at the end of five hundred years at the end of his Dharma (see Buddhism and Christianity, Lillie, page 2).
It is a remarkable fact that this successor is the most common object of worship among Buddhists, so that the most advanced Buddhists and the most earnest Christians have the same object of worship under different names.
Alone on his great mission going forth,
Down Phalgu’s valley he retraced
his steps,
Down past the seat where subtle Mara sat,
And past the fountain where the siren
sang,
And past the city, through the fruitful
fields
And gardens he had traversed day by day
For six long years, led by a strong desire
To show his Brahman teachers his new light.
But ah! the change a little time had wrought!
A new-made stupa held their gathered dust,
While they had gone where all see eye
to eye,
The darkness vanished and the river crossed.
Then turning sadly from this hallowed
spot—
Hallowed by strivings for a higher life
More than by dust this little mound contained—
He sought beneath the spreading banyan-tree
His five companions, whom he lately left
Sad at his own departure from the way
The sacred Vedas and the fathers taught.
They too had gone, to Varanassi[1] gone,
High seat and centre of all sacred lore.
The day was well-nigh spent; his cave
was near,
Where he had spent so many weary years,
And as he thither turned and upward climbed,
The shepherd’s little child who
watched the flock
His love had rescued from the bloody knife,
Upon a rock that rose above his path
Saw him pass by, and ran with eagerness
To bear the news. Joy filled that
humble home.
They owed him all. The best they
had they brought,
And offered it with loving gratitude.
The master ate, and as he ate he taught
These simple souls the great, the living
truth
That love is more than costly sacrifice;
That daily duties done are highest praise;
That when life’s duties end its
sorrows end,
And higher joys await the pure in heart.
Their eager souls drank in his living
words
As those who thirst drink in the living
spring.
Then reverently they kissed his garment’s
hem,
And home returned, while he lay down to
sleep.
And sweetly as a babe the master slept—
No doubts, no darkness, and no troubled
dreams.
When rosy dawn next lit the eastern sky,
And morning’s grateful coolness
filled the air,
The master rose and his ablutions made.
With bowl and staff in hand he took his
way
Toward Varanassi, hoping there to find
The five toward whom his earnest spirit
yearned.
Ten days have passed, and now the rising
sun.
That hangs above the distant mountain-peaks
Is mirrored back by countless rippling
waves
That dance upon the Ganges’ yellow
stream,
Swollen by rains and melted mountain-snows,
And glorifies the thousand sacred fanes[2]
With gilded pinnacles and spires and domes
That rise in beauty on its farther bank,
While busy multitudes glide up and down
With lightly dipping oars and swelling
sails.
And pilgrims countless as those shining
waves,
From far and near, from mountain, hill
and plain,
With dust and travel-stained, foot-sore,
heart-sick,
Here came to bathe within the sacred stream,
Here came to die upon its sacred banks,
Seeking to wash the stains of guilt away,
Seeking to lay their galling burdens down.
Scoff not at these poor heavy-laden souls!
Blindly they seek, but that all-seeing
Eye
That sees the tiny sparrow when it falls,
Is watching them, His angels hover near.
Who knows what visions meet their dying
gaze?
Who knows what joys await those troubled
hearts?
The ancient writings say that having naught
To pay the ferryman, the churl refused
To ferry him across the swollen stream,
When he was raised and wafted through
the air.
What matter whether that all-powerful
Love
Which moves the worlds, and bears with
all our sins,
Sent him a chariot and steeds of fire,
Or moved the heart of some poor fisherman
To bear him over for a brother’s
sake?
All power is His, and men can never thwart
His all-embracing purposes of love.
Now past the stream and near the sacred
grove
The deer-park called, the five saw him
approach.
But grieved at his departure from the
way
The ancient sages taught, said with themselves
They would not rise or do him reverence.
But as he nearer came, the tender love,
The holy calm that shone upon his face,
Made them at once forget their firm resolve.
They rose together, doing reverence,
And bringing water washed his way-soiled
feet,
Gave him a mat, and said as with one voice:
“Master Gautama, welcome to our
grove.
Here rest your weary limbs and share our
shade.
Have you escaped from karma’s fatal
chains
And gained clear vision—found
the living light?”
“Call me not master. Profitless
to you
Six years have passed,” the Buddha
answered them,
“In doubt and darkness groping blindly
on.
But now at last the day has surely dawned.
These eyes have seen Nirvana’s sacred
Sun,
And found the noble eightfold path that
mounts
From life’s low levels, mounts from
death’s dark shades
To changeless day, to never-ending rest.”
Then with the prophet’s newly kindled
zeal,
Zeal for the truth his opened eyes had
seen,
Zeal for the friends whose struggles he
Enwrapt the teacher taught the living
truth;
Enwrapt the hearers heard his living words;
The night unheeded winged its rapid flight,
The morning found their souls from darkness
free.
Six yellow robes Benares daily saw,
Six wooden alms-bowls held for daily food,
Six meeting sneers with smiles and hate
with love,
Six watchers by the pilgrim’s dying
bed,
Six noble souls united in the work
Of giving light and hope and help to all.
A rich and noble youth, an only son,
Had seen Gautama passing through the streets,
A holy calm upon his noble face,
Had heard him tell the pilgrims by the
stream,
Gasping for breath and breathing out their
lives,
Of higher life and joys that never end;
And wearied, sated by the daily round
Of pleasure, luxury and empty show
That waste his days but fail to satisfy,
Yet fearing his companions’ gibes
and sneers,
He sought the master in the sacred grove
When the full moon was mirrored in the
stream,
The sleeping city silvered by its light;
And there he lingered, drinking in his
words,
Till night was passed and day was well-nigh
spent.
The father, anxious for his absent son,
Had sought him through the night from
street to street
In every haunt that youthful folly seeks,
And now despairing sought the sacred grove—
Perhaps by chance, perhaps led by the
light
That guides the pigeon to her distant
home—
And found him there. He too the
At length they thought of those poor hearts
at home,
Mother and sister, watching through the
night—
Waiting and watching through the livelong
day,
Startled at every step, at every sound,
Startled at every bier that came in view
In that great city of the stranger dead,
That city where the living come to die—
And home returned when evening’s
rose and gold
Had faded from the sky, and myriad lamps
Danced on the sacred stream, and moon
and stars
Hung quivering in its dark and silent
depths.
But day by day returned, eager to hear
More of that truth that sweetens daily
life,
Yet reaches upward to eternal day.
A marriage-feast,[3] three festivals in
one,
Stirs to its depths Benares’ social
life.
A gorgeous sunset ushers in the night,
Sunset and city mirrored in the stream.
Broad marble steps upon the river-bank
Lead to a garden where a blaze of bloom,
A hedge of rose-trees, forms the outer
wall;
An aged banyan-tree,[4] whose hundred
trunks
Sustain a vaulted roof of living green
Which scarce a ray of noonday’s
sun can pierce,
The garden’s vestibule and outer
court;
While trees of every varied leaf and bloom
Shade many winding walks, where fountains
fall
With liquid cadence into shining pools.
Above, beyond, the stately palace stands,
Inviting in, calling to peace and rest,
As if a soul dwelt in its marble form.
The darkness thickens, when a flood of
light
Fills every recess, lighting every nook;
The garden hedge a wall of mellow light,
A line of lamps along the river’s
bank,
With lamps in every tree and lining every
walk,
While lamps thick set surround each shining
pool,
Weaving with rainbow tints the falling
spray.
And now the palace through the darkness
shines.
A thing of beauty traced with lines of
light.[5]
The guests arrive in light and graceful
boats,
In gay gondolas such as Venice used,
With richest carpets, richest canopies,
And over walks with rose-leaves carpeted
Pass to the palace, whose wide open gates
Display within Benares’ rank and
wealth,
Proud Brahman lords and stately Brahman
dames
And Brahman youth and beauty, all were
there,
Of Aryan blood but bronzed by India’s
sun,
Not dressed like us, as very fashion-plates,
But clothed in flowing robes of softest
wool
And finest silk, a harmony of shades,
Sparkling with gems, ablaze with precious
stones.[6]
Three noble couples greet their gathering
guests:
An aged Brahman and his aged wife,
But where is now that erring, wandering
son,
The pride of all these loyal, loving hearts,
Heir to this wealth and hope of this proud
house?
Seven clothed in coarsest yellow robes
draw near
With heads close shorn and bare, unsandaled
feet,
Alms-bowl on shoulder slung and staff
in hand,
But moving with that gentle stateliness
That birth and blood, not wealth and effort,
give,
All in the strength of manhood’s
early prime,
All heirs to wealth rejected, cast aside,
But all united in the holy cause
Of giving light and hope and help to all,
While earnest greetings from the evening’s
hosts
Show they are welcome and expected guests.
Startled, the stately Brahmans turn aside.
“The heir has lost his reason,”
whispered they,
“And joined that wandering prince
who late appeared
Among the yogis in the sacred grove,
Who thinks he sees the truth by inner
sight,
Who fain would teach the wise, and claims
to know
More than the fathers and the Vedas teach.”
But as he nearer came, his stately form,
His noble presence and his earnest face,
Beaming with gentleness and holy love,
Hushed into silence every rising sneer.
One of their number, wise in sacred lore,
Profoundly learned, in all the Vedas versed,
With courtly grace saluting Buddha, said:
“Our Brahman masters teach that
many ways
Lead up to Brahma Loca, Brahma’s
rest,
As many roads from many distant lands
All meet before Benares’ sacred
shrines.
They say that he who learns the Vedas’
hymns,
Performs the rites and prays the many
prayers
That all the sages of the past have taught,
In Brahma’s self shall be absorbed
at last—
As all the streams from mountain, hill
and plain,
That swell proud Gunga’s broad and
sacred stream,
At last shall mingle with the ocean’s
But Buddha, full of gentleness, replied:
“Ye call on Dyaus Pittar, Brahma,
God,[8]
One God and Father, called by many names,
One God and Father, seen in many forms,
Seen in the tempest, mingling sea and
sky,
The blinding sand-storm, changing day
to night,
In gentle showers refreshing thirsty fields,
Seen in the sun whose rising wakes the
world,
Whose setting calls a weary world to rest,
Seen in the deep o’erarching azure
vault,
By day a sea of light, shining by night
With countless suns of countless worlds
unseen,
Making us seem so little, God so great.
Ye say that Brahma dwells in purest light;
Ye say that Brahma’s self is perfect
love;
Ye pray to Brahma under many names
To give you Brahma Loca’s perfect
rest.[9]
Your prayers are vain unless your hearts
are clean.
For how can darkness dwell with perfect
light?
And how can hatred dwell with perfect
love?
The slandering tongue, that stirs up strife
and hate,
The grasping hand, that takes but never
gives,
The lying lips, the cold and cruel heart,
Whence bitterness and wars and murders
spring,
Can ne’er by prayers to Brahma Loca
climb.[10]
The pure in heart alone with Brahma dwell.
Ye say that Brahmans are a holy caste,
From Brahma sprung and Brahma’s
only heirs;
But yet in Bactria, whence our fathers
came,
And where their brothers and our kindred
dwell,
No Brahman ever wore the sacred cord.
Has mighty Brahma there no son, no heir?
The Brahman mother suffers all the pangs
Kshatriyas, Sudras or the Vassas feel.
The Brahman’s body, when the soul
has fled,
A putrid mass, defiles the earth and air,
Vile as the Sudras or the lowest beasts.
The Brahman murderer, libertine or thief
Ye say will be reborn in lowest beast,
While some poor Sudra, full of gentleness
And pity, charity and trust and love,
May rise to Brahma Loca’s perfect
rest,
Why boast of caste, that seems so little
worth
To raise the soul or ward off human ill?
Why pray for what we do not strive to
gain?
Like merchants on the swollen Ganges’
bank
Praying the farther shore to come to them,
Taking no steps, seeking no means, to
cross.
Far better strive to cast out greed and
hate.
Live not for self, but live for others’
good.
Indulge no bitter speech, no bitter thoughts.
Help those in need; give freely what we
have.
Kill not, steal not, and ever speak the
truth.
He spoke, and many to each other said:
“Why hear this babbler rail at sacred
things—
Our caste, our faith, our prayers and
sacred hymns?”
And strode away in proud and sovereign
scorn;
While some with gladness heard his solemn
words,
All soon forgotten in the giddy whirl
Of daily business, daily joys and cares.
But some drank in his words with eager
ears,
And asked him many questions, lingering
long,
And often sought him in the sacred grove
To hear his burning words of living truth.
And day by day some noble Brahman youth
Forsook his wealth, forsook his home and
friends,
And took the yellow robe and begging-bowl
To ask for alms where all had given him
place,
Meeting with gentleness the rabble’s
gibes,
Meeting with smiles the Brahman’s
haughty scorn.
Thus, day by day, this school of prophets
grew,
Beneath the banyan’s columned, vaulted
shade,
All earnest learners at the master’s
feet,
Until the city’s busy, bustling
throng
Had come to recognize the yellow robe,
The poor to know its wearer as a friend,
The sick and suffering as a comforter,
While to the dying pilgrim’s glazing
eyes
He seemed a messenger from higher worlds
Come down to raise his sinking spirit
up
And guide his trembling steps to realms
of rest.
A year has passed, and of this growing
band
Sixty are rooted, grounded in the faith,
Willing to do whate’er the master
bids,
Ready to go where’er the master
sends,
Eager to join returning pilgrim-bands
And bear the truth to India’s farthest
bounds.
With joy the master saw their burning
zeal,
So free from selfishness, so full of love,
And thought of all those blindly groping
souls
To whom these messengers would bear the
light.
“Go,” said the master, “each
a different way.
Go teach the common brotherhood of man.
Preach Dharma, preach the law of perfect
love,
One law for high and low, for rich and
poor.
Teach all to shun the cudgel and the sword,
And treat with kindness every living thing.
Teach them to shun all theft and craft
and greed,
All bitter thoughts, and false and slanderous
speech
That severs friends and stirs up strife
and hate.
Revere your own, revile no brother’s
faith.
The light you see is from Nirvana’s
Sun,
Whose rising splendors promise perfect
day.
The feeble rays that light your brother’s
path
Are from the selfsame Sun, by falsehoods
hid,
The lingering shadows of the passing night.
Chide none with ignorance, but teach the
truth
Gently, as mothers guide their infants’
steps,
Lest your rude manners drive them from
the way
That leads to purity and peace and rest—
As some rude swain in some sequestered
vale,
Who thinks the visual line that girts
him round
The world’s extreme, would meet
with sturdy blows
One rudely charging him with ignorance,
Yet gently led to some commanding height,
Whence he could see the Himalayan peaks,
The rolling hills and India’s spreading
plains,
With joyful wonder views the glorious
scene.
Pause not to break the idols of the past.
Be guides and leaders, not iconoclasts.
Their broken idols shock their worshipers,
But led to light they soon forgotten lie.”
One of their number, young and strong
and brave,
A merchant ere he took the yellow robe,
Had crossed the frozen Himalayan heights
And found a race, alien in tongue and
blood,
Gentle as children in their daily lives,
Untaught as children in all sacred things,
Living in wagons, wandering o’er
the steppes,
To-day all shepherds, tending countless
flocks,
To-morrow warriors, cruel as the grave,
Building huge monuments of human heads—
Fearless, resistless, with the cyclone’s
speed
Leaving destruction in their bloody track,
Who drove the Aryan from his native plains
To seek a home in Europe’s trackless
wastes.
He yearned to seek these children of the
wilds,
And teach them peace and gentleness and
love.[11]
“But, Purna,” said the master,
“they are fierce.
How will you meet their cruelty and wrath?”
Purna replied, “With gentleness
and love.”
“But,” said the master, “they
may beat and wound.”
“And I will give them thanks to
spare my life.”
“But with slow tortures they may
even kill.”
“I with my latest breath will bless
their names,
So soon to free me from this prison-house
And send me joyful to the other shore.”
“Then,” said the master, “Purna,
it is well.
Armed with such patience, seek these savage
tribes.
Thyself delivered, free from karma’s
chains
These souls enslaved; thyself consoled,
console
These restless children of the desert
wastes;
Thyself this peaceful haven having reached,
Guide these poor wanderers to the other
shore.”
With many counsels, many words of cheer,
He on their mission sent his brethren
forth,
Armed with a prophet’s zeal, a brother’s
love,
A martyr’s courage, and the Christian’s
hope
That when life’s duties end, its
trials end,
And higher life awaits those faithful
found.
The days pass on; and now the rising sun
Looks down on bands of pilgrims homeward
bound,
Some moving north, some south, some east,
some west,
Toward every part of India’s vast
expanse,
One clothed in orange robes with every
band
To guide their kindred on the upward road.
But Purna joined the merchants he had
led,
Not moved by thirst for gain, but love
for man,
To seek the Tartar on his native steppes.
Meanwhile the master with diminished band
Crossing the Ganges, backward wends his
way
Toward Rajagriha, and the vulture-peak
Where he had spent so many weary years,
Whither he bade the brothers gather in[12]
When summer’s rains should bring
the time for rest.
[1]Varanassi is an old name of Benares.
[2]It can be no exaggeration to put the number of sacred edifices that burst upon Buddha’s view as he first saw the holy city, at 1,000, as Phillips Brooks puts the present number of such edifices in Benares at 5,000.
[3]In this marriage-feast three well-known incidents in the life of Buddha and his teaching’s on the three occasions are united.
[4]For the best description of the banyan-tree, see Lady Dufferin’s account of the old tree at their out-of-town place in “Our Viceroyal Life in India,” and “Two Years in Ceylon,” by C.F. Gordon Cumming.
[5]Those who saw the illuminations at Chicago during the World’s fair, with lines of incandescent electric lights, can get a good idea of the great illuminations in India with innumerable oil lamps, and those who did not should read Lady Dufferin’s charming description of them in “Our Viceroyal Life in India.”
[6]Lady Dufferin says that the viceroy never wearied, in his admiration of the graceful flowing robes of the East as contrasted with our stiff, fashion-plate male attire.
[7]"The good Lord could not be everywhere and therefore made mothers.”—Jewish saying from the Talmud.
[8]Max Mueller calls attention to the remarkable fact that Dyaus Pittar, the highest name of deity among the ancient Hindoos, is the exact equivalent of Zeus Pater among the Greeks, Jupiter among the Romans, and of “Our Father who art in the heavens” in the divinely taught and holiest prayer of our own religion.
[9]How any one can think that Buddha did not believe in a Supreme Being in the face and light of the wonderful Sutra, or sermon of which, the text is but a condensation or abstract, is to me unaccountable. It is equally strange that any one should suppose he regarded Nirvana, which is but another name for Brahma Loca, as meaning annihilation.
To be sure he used the method afterwards adopted by Socrates, and now known as the Socratic method, of appealing to the unquestioned belief of the Brahmans themselves as the foundation of his argument in support of that fundamental truth of all religions, that the pure in heart alone can see God. But to suppose that he was using arguments to convince them that he did not believe himself, is a libel on one whose absolute truthfulness and sincerity admit of no question.
[10]"He prayeth best who loveth best
Both man and bird and
beast.”
—Rime
of the Ancient Mariner.
[11]Whether the Tartars were “the savage tribes” to whom Purna, one of the sixty, was sent, may admit of question, but it is certain that long before the Christian era the whole country north of the Himalayas was thoroughly Buddhist, and the unwearied missionaries of that great faith had penetrated so far west that they met Alexander’s army and boldly told him that war was wrong; and they had penetrated east to the confines of China.
[12]The large gatherings of the Buddhist brotherhoods everywhere spoken of in the writings can only be accounted for on the supposition, which is more than a supposition, that they came to him in the rainy season, when they could do but little in their missions; and the substantial unity of the Buddhist faith can only be accounted for on the supposition that his instructions were constantly renewed at these gatherings and their errors corrected.
Northward the noble Purna took his way
Till India’s fields and plains were
lost to view,
Then through the rugged foot-hills upward
climbed,
And up a gorge by rocky ramparts walled,
Through which a mighty torrent thundered
down,
Their treacherous way along the torrent’s
brink,
Or up the giddy cliffs where one false
step
Would plunge them headlong in the raging
stream,
Passing from cliff to cliff, their bridge
of ropes
Swung high above the dashing, roaring
waves.
At length they cross the frozen mountain-pass,
O’er wastes of snow by furious tempests
swept,
And cross a desert where no bird or beast
Is ever seen, and where their way is marked
By bleaching bones strewn thick along
their track.[1]
Some perished by the way, and some turned
back,
While some of his companions persevered,
Cheered on by Purna’s never-flagging
zeal,
And by the master’s words from Purna’s
lips,
Until they reached the outmost wandering
tribes
Of that great race that he had come to
save.
With joy received, these wandering tribes
their guides—
For love makes friends where selfishness
breeds strife—
They soon are led to where their kindred
dwell.
They saw the vanity of chasing wealth
Through hunger, danger, desolation, death.
They felt a power sustaining Purna’s
But ere brave Purna reached his journey’s
end,
Near many hamlets, many Indian towns,
The moon, high risen to mark the noon
of night,
Through many sacred fig-tree’s rustling
leaves[2]
Sent trembling rays with trembling shadows
mixed
Upon a noble youth in orange robes,
His alms-bowl by his side, stretched out
in sleep,
Dreaming, perchance, of some Benares maid,
Perchance of home and joys so lately left.
Meanwhile the master with his little band
Toward Rajagriha backward wends his way,
Some village tree their nightly resting—place,
Until they reached the grove that skirts
the base
Of that bold mountain called the vulture-peak,
Through which the lotus-covered Phalgu
glides,
O’erarched with trees festooned
with trailing vines,
While little streams leap down from rock
to rock,
Cooling the verdant slopes and fragrant
glades,
And vines and shrubs and trees of varied
bloom
Loaded the air with odors rich and sweet,
And where that sacred fig-tree spread
its shade
Above the mound that held the gathered
dust
Of those sage Brahmans who had sought
to aid
The young prince struggling for a clearer
light,
And where that banyan-tree for ages grew,
So long the home of those five noble youths,
Now sundered far, some tree when night
may fall
Their resting-place, their robe and bowl
their all,
Their only food chance gathered day by
day,
Preaching the common brotherhood of man,
Teaching the law of universal love,
Bearing the light to those in darkness
sunk,
Lending a helping hand to those in need,
Teaching the strong that gentleness is
great.
And through this grove where many noble
souls
Were seeking higher life and clearer light,
He took his well-known way, and reached
his cave
Just as the day was fading into night,
And myriad stars spangled the azure vault,
And myriad lamps that through the darkness
shone
Revealed the city that the night had veiled,
Where soon their weary limbs were laid
to rest;
But through the silent hour preceding
day,
Before the jungle-cock announced the dawn,
All roused from sleep in meditation sat.
But when the sun had set the east aglow,
And roused the birds to sing their matin-song’s,
And roused the lowing herds to call their
mates,
And roused a sleeping world to daily toil,
Their matins chanted, their ablutions
made,
With bowl and staff in hand they took
their way
Down to the city for their daily alms.
But earlier steps had brushed their dewy
path.
From out the shepherd’s cottage
loving eyes
Had recognized the master’s stately
form,
And love-winged steps had borne the joyful
news
That he, the poor man’s advocate
and friend,
The sweet-voiced messenger of peace and
love,
The prince become a beggar for their sake,
So long expected, now at last returns.
From door to door the joyful tidings spread,
And old and young from every cottage came.
The merchant left his wares without a
guard;
The housewife left her pitcher at the
well;
The loom was idle and the anvil still;
The money-changer told his coins alone,
While all the multitude went forth to
meet
Their servant-master and their beggar-prince.
Some brought the garden’s choicest
treasures forth,
Some gathered lotuses from Phalgu’s
stream,
Some climbed the trees to pluck their
varied bloom,
While children gathered every wayside
flower
To strew his way—their lover,
savior, guide.
King Bimbasara from his watch-tower saw
The wild commotion and the moving throng,
And sent swift messengers to learn the
cause.
With winged feet through vacant streets
they flew,
And through the gates and out an avenue
Where aged trees that grew on either side,
Their giant branches interlocked above,
Made nature’s gothic arch and densest
shade,
While gentle breezes, soft as if they
came
From devas’ hovering wings, rustle
the leaves
And strew the way with showers of falling
bloom,
As if they, voiceless, felt the common
joy.
And there they found the city’s
multitudes,
Not as in tumult, armed with clubs and
staves,
And every weapon ready to their hands,
But stretching far on either side the
way,
Their flower-filled hands in humble reverence
joined,
The only sound a murmur, “There
he comes!”
While every eye was turned in loving gaze
Upon a little band in yellow robes
Who now drew near from out the sacred
grove.
The master passed with calm, majestic
grace,
Stately and tall, one arm and shoulder
bare,
With head close shorn and bare unsandaled
feet,
His noble brow, the wonder of his age,
Not clothed in terror like Olympic Jove’s—
For love, not anger, beamed from out those
eyes,
Changing from clearest blue to softest
black,
That seem to show unfathomed depths within,
With tears of holy pity glittering now
For those poor souls come forth to honor
him,
All sheep without a shepherd groping on.
The messengers with reverence let him
pass,
Then hastened back to tell the waiting
king
That he who dwelt so long upon the hill,
The prince who stopped the bloody sacrifice,
With other holy rishis had returned,
Whom all received with reverence and joy.
The king with keenest pleasure heard their
He found Kasyapa as the setting sun
Was sinking low behind the western hills,
And somber shadows darkened Phalgu’s
vale,
And asked a place to pass the gathering
night.
“Here is a grotto, cooled by trickling
streams
And overhanging shades, fit place for
sleep,”
Kasyapa said, “that I would gladly
give;
But some fierce Naga nightly haunts the
spot
Whose poisoned breath no man can breathe
and live.”
“Fear not for me,” the Buddha
answered him,
“For I this night will make my dwelling
there.”
“Do as you will,” Kasyapa
doubtful said,
“But much I fear some dire catastrophe.”
Now mighty Mara, spirit of the air,
The prince of darkness, roaming through
the earth
Had found this grotto in the sacred grove,
And as a Naga there kept nightly watch
For those who sought deliverance from
his power,
Who, when the master calmly took his seat,
Belched forth a flood of poison, foul
and black,
And with hot, burning vapors filled the
cave.
But Buddha sat unmoved, serene and calm
As Brahma sits amid the kalpa fires
That burn the worlds but cannot harm his
heaven.
While Mara, knowing Buddha, fled amazed
And left the Naga coiled in Buddha’s
bowl.[3]
Kasyapa, terrified, beheld the flames,
And when the first faint rays of dawn
appeared
With all his fearful followers sought
the cave,
And found the master not consumed to dust,
But full of peace, aglow with perfect
love.
Kasyapa, full of wonder, joyful said:
“I, though a master, have no power
like this
To conquer groveling lusts and evil beasts.”
Then Buddha taught the source of real
power,
The power of love to fortify the soul,
Until Kasyapa gathered all his stores,
His sacred vessels, sacrificial robes,
And cast them in the Phalgu passing near.
His brothers saw them floating down the
stream,
And winged with fear made haste to learn
the cause.
They too the master saw, and heard his
words,
And all convinced received the perfect
law,
And with their followers joined the Buddha’s
band.
The days pass on, and in the bamboo-grove
A great vihara as by magic rose,
Built by the king for Buddha’s growing
band,
A spacious hall where all might hear his
words,
And little cells where each might take
his rest,
A school and rest-house through the summer
rains.
But soon the monsoons from the distant
seas
Bring gathering clouds to veil the brazen
sky,
While nimble lightnings dart their blinding
flames,
And rolling thunders shake the trembling
hills,
And heaven’s downpourings drench
the thirsty earth—
The master’s seed-time when the
people rest.
For now the sixty from their distant fields
Have gathered in to trim their lamps afresh
And learn new wisdom from the master’s
lips—
That Saraputra after called the Great
Had seen these new-come youths in yellow
robes
Passing from street to street to ask for
alms,
Receiving coarsest food with gentle thanks—
Had seen them meet the poor and sick and
old
With kindly words and ever-helpful hands—
Had seen them passing to the bamboo-grove
Joyful as bridegrooms soon to meet their
brides.
He, Vashpa and Asvajit met one day,
Whom he had known beneath the banyan-tree,
Two of the five who first received the
law,
Now clothed in yellow, bearing begging-bowls,
And asked their doctrine, who their master
was,
That they seemed joyful, while within
the grove
All seemed so solemn, self-absorbed and
sad.
They bade him come and hear the master’s
words,
And when their bowls were filled, he followed
them,
And heard the living truth from Buddha’s
lips,
And said: “The sun of wisdom
has arisen.
What further need of our poor flickering
lamps?”
And with Mugallan joined the master’s
band.
And now five strangers from the Tartar
steppes,
Strangers in form and features, language,
dress,
Guided by one as strange in dress as they,
Weary and foot-sore, passed within the
gates
Of Rajagriha, while the rising sun
Was still concealed behind the vulture-peak,
A laughing-stock to all the idle crowd,
Whom noisy children followed through the
streets
As thoughtless children follow what is
strange,
Until they met the master asking alms,
Who with raised hand and gentle, mild
rebuke
Hushed into silence all their noisy mirth.
“These are our brothers,”
Buddha mildly said.
“Weary and worn they come from distant
lands,
And ask for kindness—not for
mirth and jeers.”
They knew at once that calm, majestic
face,
That voice as sweet as Brahma’s,
and those eyes
Beaming with tender, all-embracing love,
Of which, while seated round their argol
fires
In their black tents, brave Purna loved
to tell,
And bowed in worship at the master’s
feet.
He bade them rise, and learned from whence
they came,
And led them joyful to the bamboo-grove,
Where some brought water from the nearest
stream
To bathe their festered feet and weary
limbs,
While some brought food and others yellow
robes—
Fitter for India’s heat than skins
and furs—
All welcoming their new-found friends
who came
From distant lands, o’er desert
wastes and snows,
To see the master, hear the perfect law,
And bring the message noble Purna sent.
The months pass on; the monsoons cease
to blow,
The thunders cease to roll, the rains
to pour;
The earth, refreshed, is clothed with
living green,
And flowers burst forth where all was
parched and bare,
And busy toil succeeds long days of rest.
The time for mission work has come.
The brethren, now to many hundreds grown,
Where’er the master thought it best
were sent.
The strongest and the bravest volunteered
To answer Purna’s earnest call for
help,
And clothed in fitting robes for piercing
cold
They scale the mountains, pass the desert
wastes,
Their guide familiar with their terrors
grown;
While some return to their expectant flocks,
And some are sent to kindred lately left,
And some to strangers dwelling near or
far—
All bearing messages of peace and love—
Until but few in yellow robes remain,
And single footfalls echo through that
hall
Where large assemblies heard the master’s
words.
A few are left, not yet confirmed in faith;
And those five brothers from the distant
north
Remain to learn the sacred tongue and
lore,
While Saraputra and Kasyapa stay
To aid the master in his special work.
From far Kosala, rich Sudata came,
Friend of the destitute and orphans called.
In houses rich, and rich in lands and
gold,
But richer far in kind and gracious acts,
Who stopped in Rajagriha with a friend.
But when he learned a Buddha dwelt so
near,
And heard the gracious doctrine he proclaimed,
That very night he sought the bamboo-grove,
While roofs and towers were silvered by
the moon,
And silent streets in deepest shadows
lay,
And bamboo-plumes seemed waving silver
sprays,
And on the ground the trembling shadows
played.
Humble in mind but great in gracious deeds,
Of earnest purpose but of simple heart,
The master saw in him a vessel fit
For righteousness, and bade him stay and
learn
His rules of grace that bring Nirvana’s
rest.
And first of all the gracious master said:
“This restless nature and this selfish
world
Is all a phantasy and empty show;
Its life is lust, its end is pain and
death.
Waste not your time in speculations deep
Of whence and why. One thing we
surely know:
Each living thing must have a living cause,
And mind from mind and not from matter
springs;
While love, which like an endless golden
chain.
Binds all in one, is love in every link,
Up from the sparrow’s nest, the
mother’s heart,
Through all the heavens to Brahma’s
boundless love.
And lusts resisted, daily duties done,
Unite our lives to that unbroken chain
Which draws us up to heaven’s eternal
rest.”
And through the night they earnestly communed,
Until Sudata saw the living truth
In rising splendor, like the morning sun,
And doubts and errors all are swept away
As gathering clouds are swept by autumn’s
winds.
Bowing in reverence, Sudata said:
“I know the Buddha never seeks repose,
But gladly toils to give to others rest.
O that my people, now in darkness sunk,
Might see the light and hear the master’s
words!
I dwell in King Pasenit’s distant
realm—
A king renowned, a country fair and rich—
And yearn to build a great vihara there.”
The master, knowing well Sudata’s
heart
And his unselfish charity, replied:
“Some give in hope of greater gifts
returned;
Some give to gain a name for charity;
Some give to gain the rest and joy of
heaven,
Some to escape the woes and pains of hell.
Such giving is but selfishness and greed,
But he who gives without a selfish thought
Has entered on the noble eightfold path,
Is purified from anger, envy, hate.
The bonds of pain and sorrow are unloosed;
The way to rest and final rescue found.
Let your hands do what your kind heart
desires.”
Hearing this answer, he departs with joy,
And Buddha with him Saraputra sent.
Arriving home, he sought a pleasant spot,
And found the garden of Pasenit’s
son,
And sought the prince, seeking to buy
the ground.
But he refused to sell, yet said in jest:
“Cover the grove with gold, the
ground is yours.”
Forthwith Sudata spread his yellow coin.
But Gata said, caught by his thoughtless
jest:
“Spread not your gold—I
will not sell the ground.”
“Not sell the ground?” Sudata
sharply said,
“Why then said you, ’Fill
it with yellow gold’?”
And both contending sought a magistrate.
But Gata, knowing well his earnestness,
Asked why he sought the ground; and when
he learned,
He said: “Keep half your gold;
the land is yours,
But mine the trees, and jointly we will
build
A great vihara for the Buddha’s
use.”
The work begun was pressed both night
and day;
Lofty it rose, in just proportions built,
Fit for the palace of a mighty king.
The people saw this great vihara rise,
A stately palace for a foreign prince,
And said in wonder: “What strange
thing is this?
Our king to welcome thus a foreign king
To new-made palaces, and not with war
And bloody spears and hands to new-made
graves,
As was his father’s wont in times
gone by?”
Yet all went forth to meet this coming
prince,
And see a foreign monarch’s royal
pomp,
But heard no trumpeting of elephants,
Nor martial music, nor the neigh of steeds,
But saw instead a little band draw near
In yellow robes, with dust and travel-stained;
But love, that like a holy halo crowned
That dusty leader’s calm, majestic
brow,
Hushed into silence every rising sneer.
And when Sudata met this weary band,
And to the prince’s garden led their
way,
They followed on, their hands in reverence
joined,
Unlike Sudata’s self, Sudata’s
king
Believed religion but a comely cloak
To hide besetting sins from public view,
And sought the master in his new retreat
To talk religion and to act a part,
And greetings ended, said in solemn wise:
“Uneasy lies the head that wears
a crown;
But my poor kingdom now is doubly blest
In one whose teachings purify the soul
And give the highest and the humblest
rest,
As all are cleansed who bathe in Rapti’s
stream.”
But Buddha saw through all this outer
show
His real purposes and inner life:
The love of pleasure blighting high resolve,
The love of money, root of every ill,
That sends its poison fibers through the
soul
And saps its life and wastes its vital
strength.
“The Tathagata only shows the way
To purity and rest,” the master
said.
“There is a way to darkness out
of light,
There is a way to light from deepest gloom.
They only gain the goal who keep the way.
Harsh words and evil deeds to sorrow lead
As sure as shadows on their substance
wait.
For as we sow, so also shall we reap.
Boast not overmuch of kingly dignity.
A king most needs a kind and loving heart
To love his subjects as an only son,
To aid—not injure, comfort—not
oppress,
Their help, protector, father, friend
and guide.
Such kings shall live beloved and die
renowned,
Whose works shall welcome them to heavenly
rest.”
The king, convicted, heard his solemn
words
That like an arrow pierced his inmost
life.
To him religion ceased to be a show
Of chants and incense, empty forms and
creeds,
But stood a living presence in his way
To check his blind and headlong downward
course,
And lead him to the noble eightfold path,
That day by day and step by step shall
lead
To purity and peace and heavenly rest.
Kapilavastu’s king, Suddhodana,
His step grown feeble, snowy white his
hair,
By cares oppressed and sick with hope
deferred,
For eight long years had waited for his
son.
But sweet Yasodhara, in widow’s
weeds,
Her love by sorrow only purified
As fire refines the gold by dross debased,
Though tender memories bring unbidden
tears,
Wasted no time in morbid, selfish grief,
But sought in care for others her own
cure.
Both son and daughter to the aged king,
She aids with counsels, soothes with tender
care.
Father and mother to her little son,
She lavishes on him a double love.
And oft on mercy’s missions going
forth,
Shunning the pomp and show of royal state,
Leading Rahula, prattling by her side,
The people saw her pass with swelling
hearts,
As if an angel clothed in human form.
And now strange rumors reach the public
ear,
By home-bound pilgrims from Benares brought
And merchantmen from Rajagriha come,
That there a holy rishi had appeared
Whom all believed a very living Buddh,
While kings and peoples followed after
him.
These rumors reached the sweet Yasodhara,
And stirred these musings in her watchful
heart:
“Stately and tall they say this
rishi is,
Gentle to old and young, to rich and poor,
And filled with love for every living
thing.
But who so gentle, stately, tall and grand
As my Siddartha? Who so full of
love?
And he has found the light Siddartha sought!
It must be he—my own, my best
beloved!
And surely he will hither come, and bring
To his poor people, now in darkness sunk,
That living light he left his home to
seek.”
As the same sun that makes the cedars
grow
And sends their vital force through giant
oaks,
Clothes fields with green and decks the
wayside flower,
And crowns the autumn with its golden
fruits,
So that same love which swept through
Buddha’s soul
And drove him from his home to seek and
save,
Warmed into brighter glow each lesser
love
Of home and people, father, wife and child,[4]
And often through those long and troubled
years
He felt a burning longing to return.
And now, when summer rains had ceased
to fall,
And his disciples were again, sent forth,
Both love and duty with united voice
Bade him revisit his beloved home,
And Saraputra and Kasyapa joined
The master wending on his homeward way,
While light-winged rumor bore Yasodhara
This joyful news: “The holy
rishi comes.”
Without the southern gate a garden lay,
Lumbini called, by playing fountains cooled,
With shaded walks winding by banks of
flowers,
Whose mingled odors load each passing
breeze.
Thither Yasodhara was wont to go,
For there her lord and dearest love was
born,
And there they passed full many happy
Through all these troubled, weary, waiting
years,
The king still hoped to see his son return
In royal state, with kings for waiting-men,
To rule a willing world as king of kings.
But now that son enters his palace-gates
In coarsest beggar-garb, his alms-bowl
filled
With Sudras’ leavings for his daily
food.
The king with mingled grief and anger
said:
“Is this the end of all our cherished
hopes,
The answer to such lofty prophecies,
To see the heir of many mighty king’s
Enter his kingdom like a beggar-tramp?
This the return for all the patient love
Of sweet Yasodhara, and this the way
[1]I have substantially followed the description of this fearful route given by Fa Hian, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, who passed by it from China to India.
[2]Like the aspen, the leaf of the sacred fig-tree is always trembling.—“Two Years in Ceylon,” Cumming.
[3]This is Asvaghosha’s version, but the Sanchi inscriptions make the Naga or cobra rise up behind Buddha and extend its hood over his head as a shelter.
[4]Some Buddhists teach that Buddha had conquered all human affections, and even enter into apologies for a show of affection for his wife, one of the most elaborate of which Arnold, in the “Light of Asia,” puts into his own mouth; but this is no more like the teachings of Buddha than the doctrine of infant damnation is like the teachings of Him who said: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.”
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