Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment

3

The silk curtains to Maya’s chamber parted, and Kumbira rushed out. The only thing she could be grateful for was that no one else knew yet. Her slippers padded quickly, quietly down the corridor. Night had fallen. The seventh day of the full moon was rising after the baby prince’s birth, casting bars of ghostly light onto the polished teak floors of the palace. Kumbira paid no attention.

After dinner Suddhodana had retired to the nursery to be alone with his son. When Kumbira ran in, breathless and speechless, her face wore an expression he had seen only once before, when his father, the old king-

“No!”

The cry sprang from him involuntarily. Horror chased the gladness from his heart and clamped tight bands around his chest.

Sorrowfully, Kumbira drew her sari over her head to mask her face. Tears dripped from her tired eyes.

“What have you monsters done to her?” Suddhodana demanded. He swept past Kumbira, knocking her to the ground with a glancing blow. At the canopied bed, the king tore the drawn sheets away to reveal his wife. Maya looked as if she only slept, but the stillness that claimed her was complete. Suddhodana dropped to his knees and took her hands, whose coolness seemed temporary, the kind he could rub away whenever she felt a chill. Involuntarily he started to rub them now.

Kumbira allowed an hour to pass before she crept into the room with a retinue of court ladies. They were there to console but also to bring dignity. Grief, like everything else surrounding a king, was a matter of ritual. The moment Suddhodana consented to leave, attendants were prepared with ointments, winding sheets, and ceremonial marigolds to adorn the body. The wailing women were on call, and of course a dozen Brahmins with prayers and censers.

“Highness.” With a word, Kumbira brought all this to the king’s attention. Suddhodana looked up blankly. Kumbira waited a moment to see if she would have to repeat herself. As he gently placed Maya’s arm across her chest, Suddhodana shuddered. It wasn’t just that his wife had often slept that way, one arm folded across herself, the other across him. It was also that the king felt a slight stiffness creeping into Maya’s limbs. Touch being the sense most cherished by lovers, he knew that he could never touch her again. He nodded curtly, and the wailing in the corridors began.

Grief is to demons what music is to mortals. Unseen and unheard, Mara walked through the palace. The formality of death is strict. Yama, the lord of death, is aware of every last breath, and he gives permission for the jiva, or individual soul, to pass into the other world. The lords of karma await to assign the next lifetime, sitting in judgment over the person’s good and bad actions. Cosmic justice is meted out by the devas, the celestial beings who lavish the soul with rewards for good actions, and the asuras, or demons, who rain down punishment for wrongdoing. Demons do not have a free hand, however. The law of karma is precise and exacts only the punishment that is deserved, not an ounce more.

This made Mara’s presence unnecessary, since Maya was already in the care of the three devas who had come to her in her dream and who met her again as she took her last breath. To die in one world brings birth in another. But Maya lingered in her body as long as she could. She willed her last spark of life energy to flow through her hand to Suddhodana as he knelt by the bed clutching it.

None of this concerned Mara, however. He walked past her bedchamber and directed his steps farther, to the nursery, which was now empty of nurses, guards, and priests. The new baby was completely unprotected. Mara crossed to the cradle and peered down at the wide-eyed child. The young prince lay on his back with his throat bared to the first predator that walked by.

But even the king of demons cannot cause physical harm directly. Demons’ work is to amplify the mind’s suffering. Mara would try to do that with this child, since no baby is born without the seeds of pain in its mind. Gazing down at the cradle, Mara let his face slide through a number of nightmarish masks. You’ll never see your mother again, Mara thought. She’s gone away, and they are hurting her. Siddhartha kept his gaze fixed, yet Mara was sure that the baby had heard. In fact, Siddhartha recognized him. Mara was sure of it.

“Good,” the demon said. “You showed up.”

He leaned closer to whisper in the baby’s ear. “Tell me what you want. I’m listening.” This was always the key, to play upon your opponent’s desire. “Can you hear me in there?” The baby kicked his feet.

“So many souls need you,” Mara said wistfully, resting his arms on the cradle. “But here’s the joke.” He paused to lean in closer. “When you fail, they’ll wind up with me! I’m letting you in on the secret so you won’t say I was unfair. Become a saint. It will only make you a better instrument of destruction. Won’t that be delicious?” As if in answer to his question, the wailing over the dead queen grew louder. The baby looked away and fell quickly asleep.

FUNEREAL SMOKE, oily and thick, twisted through the air and tainted the sky as Maya’s body burned atop the huge pile of sandalwood logs that had been chopped from the forest. The ghatraj, king of the funeral site, was a huge, sweaty man. His face reddened as he shouted orders for more wood, a higher flame, more melted ghee to pour over the body. The ghee had been churned from the milk of sacred cows. Priests walked slowly around the pyre chanting while the wailing women tossed thousands of marigolds into the fire. Behind them hired mourners whipped themselves in their grief and endlessly circled the body.

The spectacle made Suddhodana sick. He had defied the Brahmins by not taking Maya down to the ghats by the river. On his orders the funeral pyre had been built in the royal gardens. Maya had remembered playing there as a child, when noble girls from the region were brought to court on the chance that any might please young Suddhodana. It was fitting that her last resting place would be somewhere she loved. Secretly Suddhodana knew that this was a gesture born of guilt as much as of love. He was the one who still had a future.

Canki, the highest Brahmin, finished the rites by lifting an ax in the air. The most sacred moment had arrived, when he would pray for the release of Maya’s soul while Suddhodana smashed the remains of her skull to release the spirit inside. The king approached the pyre, his expression stony. He glanced down at a necklace in his fist crafted of rubies and gold. He’d given it to Maya on their wedding night, and now he gently placed it next to the skull.

When Suddhodana turned away without raising the ax, Canki didn’t hesitate to put his hand on the king’s arm-for the moment, he was ruler here.

“You must.”

Suddhodana held no deep contempt for the priesthood, and he knew that he had broken a sacred custom when his role was to uphold it. But at that moment the priest’s touch revolted him. He turned his back and walked steadily toward the palace.

A woman was blocking his path. “You must look on him, Your Majesty. Please.”

In the moment it took for him to hear these words, Suddhodana realized that Kakoli the nurse was blocking his way. She carried Siddhartha in her arms and hesitantly pushed him forward. Tears glittered in her eyes. “He’s precious. He’s a gift.” Since his wife’s death, the king had had nothing to do with his son. He couldn’t help feeling that if the boy had never been born, his wife would yet live.

“I should look at him? Let him look at this.”

Suddhodana glared at the nurse as he snatched the infant from her. The baby started to cry as his father lifted him above the heads of the mourners, giving him a good look at the smoldering corpse.

“Sire!” Kakoli tried to grab the child back, but Suddhodana fended her off. Everyone turned around to stare. Suddhodana defied them with a look.

“His mother died!” he shouted. “I have nothing left.” He wheeled on Kakoli. “Is that part of the gift?” The old nurse covered her mouth with one shaking hand. Her weakness only enraged Suddhodana further. He took a step toward her and was glad to see her shrink back from his threat. “Stop sniveling. Let Siddhartha behold what this filthy world is really like.”

He handed the baby back and strode toward the palace. He entered the great hall, his eyes looking for a new target that would promise more fight than women and priests. Suddhodana needed a battle right now, something he could throw himself at with abandon.

He stopped short at what he saw. An old charwoman was kneeling on the floor, scraping ashes out of the fireplace with her gnarled hands. Gray, unkempt hair hung down in her rheumy eyes. When she looked at him, she smiled, revealing a toothless maw. Suddhodana trembled. His own personal demon was here. He stood frozen in place, wondering bleakly what harm she meant him.

The old crone shook her head as if in sympathy. Slowly she took a fistful of ash from the cold embers and held it over her head, letting the ash trickle down into her hair. She was mocking the mourners outside and him at the same time.

Your poor, beautiful wife. We have her now. And we love her as much as you did.

The char rubbed ash in her face, making dark streaks and smudges until only her wrinkled mouth and piercing eyes were left untouched. She had him trapped. If he broke down, releasing all his pent-up grief and horror, it would open a breach that the demons could exploit. Every time he thought of Maya his mind would be invaded by hideous images. But if he resisted her, clamping down his grief with steel bands, there would never be a release, and the demons would hover around him.

The crone knew all this and waited for his reaction. Suddhodana’s eyes lost their anxiety and became hard as flint. In his mind’s eye he conjured up Maya’s face, then he took an ax and smashed her memory, once and for all. The air around him stank of funeral smoke drifting in from the garden. He had made the warrior’s choice.

A HUNDRED OIL LAMPS flickered in the reception hall, each one held high as courtiers craned for a better look. At first the spectacle had been fairly calm, but when the animal sacrifices began, the cries of baby goats and the gleaming of knives changed the atmosphere. Restless now, the courtiers began to mill around, raising a clamor over the chanting Brahmins.

In the middle of the melee stood Suddhodana, growing impatient. It was the official naming ceremony for his new son, and also the time when the baby’s birth chart would be read aloud by the court astrologers, the jyotishis. Siddhartha’s destiny would be pronounced and his whole life affected from this moment on. But pronounce was the one thing they weren’t doing. Instead, the four old men bent over the cradle, stroking their beards, mouthing ambiguous commonplaces. “Venus is beneficly placed. The tenth house shows promise, but the full moon is aligned with Saturn; his mind will take time to develop.”

“How many of you are still alive?” Suddhodana grumbled. “Four? I thought there used to be five.”

The implied threat was empty. Astrologers were strange but revered creatures, and the king knew it was dangerous to cross them. They belonged to the Brahmin caste, and although the king could hire them, he was only of the Kshatriya caste, which meant that in the eyes of God they were his superiors. After Maya’s funeral Suddhodana had spent days alone, refusing to unbolt his bedroom door. But there was a kingdom to look after, a line of succession to hold up to the world and his lurking enemies. It would be a sign of weakness for Suddhodana’s entire lineage if the astrologers had anything dark to say.

“Is he safe, or is he going to die? Tell me now,” Suddhodana demanded.

The eldest jyotishi shook his head. “It was the mother’s karma to die, but the son is safe.” These words were potent; everyone in the room heard and believed them. They would deter a potential assassin, in case someone had been hired to clandestinely murder the prince. Now the stars predicted the failure of any such attempt.

“Go on,” the king demanded. The nearby clamor subsided in anticipation.

“The chart belongs to one who will become a great king,” the eldest jyotishi intoned, making sure that these words too were heard by as many people as possible.

“Why didn’t you say so to begin with? Get on with it. Let’s have it all.” Suddhodana was barking impatiently, but inside he felt tremendous relief.

The astrologers glanced nervously at one another. “There are…complications.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Suddhodana glared, daring them to take back a word of their prediction. The eldest jyotishi cleared his throat. Canki, the high Brahmin, moved in closer, sensing that he might have to intervene.

“Do you trust us, Your Highness?” the eldest jyotishi asked.

“Of course. I’ve only executed one astrologer, maybe two. What do you mean to say?”

“The chart foresees that your son will not rule Sakya.” Dramatic pause as the king cursed under his breath. “He will hold dominion over the four corners of the earth.”

At this, general consternation broke out. Courtiers gasped, a few applauded, most were stunned. The jyotishi’s words had their intended effect. But Suddhodana stiffened.

“How much am I paying you? Too much. You expect me to believe such a thing?” He forced a bemused tone. He wanted to test the old man’s resolve.

Before the jyotishi could find a reply, however, there was a stirring in the crowd. The oil lamps, which had moved back and forth in the air like wandering stars, became still. Courtiers parted and bowed, making way for someone who had just entered the room-an eminence.

Asita, Asita.

Suddhodana didn’t have to hear the whispered name as it was passed along. He knew Asita on sight; they had met long ago. When Suddhodana was seven, he had been woken up by guards in the middle of the night. A pony was waiting for him beside his father, who rode a black charger. The old king said nothing, only nodding for the retinue to move forward. Suddhodana felt nervous, as his father often made him feel. They rode in a pack of guardsmen toward the mountains, and just when the boy thought he would fall asleep in the saddle, the old king stopped. He had the boy placed in his arms, and they went alone up a scree slope toward a cave above their heads. The mouth of the cave was hidden behind brush and fallen boulders, but his father seemed to know where to go.

He stood in the dawn light and called, “Asita!” After a moment a naked hermit came out, neither obedient nor defiant. “You have blessed my family for generations. Now bless my son,” the king said. The boy stared at the naked man, who appeared by his beard, which was not yet completely gray, to be no more than fifty. How could he have blessed anyone for generations? Then the old king set him on his feet; Suddhodana ran forward and knelt before the hermit.

Asita leaned over. “Do you really want a blessing?” The boy felt confused. “Tell me truthfully.”

Suddhodana had received many blessings in his short lifetime; the Brahmins were summoned if the heir apparent had so much as a runny nose. “Yes, I want your blessing,” he said automatically.

Asita gazed at him. “No, you want to kill. And conquer.” The boy tried to protest, but Asita cut him short. “I am only telling you what I see. You don’t need a blessing to destroy.” As he said these words, the hermit held his hand over the boy’s head, as if administering what had been asked for. He nodded toward the old king, who stood some distance away out of earshot.

“Take death’s blessing,” Asita said. “It’s the one you deserve, and it will serve you well in the future. Go.”

Bewildered but not offended, the boy got to his feet and ran back to his father, who seemed satisfied. But as time unfolded, the boy came to see that his father was a weak king, vassal to rulers around him who dominated with stronger will and greater armies. He came to be ashamed of this fact, and although he never quite knew what Asita meant by death’s blessing, Suddhodana did not object when his own nature turned out to be fierce and ambitious.

“You honor us.” Suddhodana dropped to his knees as Asita approached. The hermit looked older now, but not three decades older, the time since they had last met. Asita ignored the king and walked directly to the cradle. He glanced down, then he turned to face the jyotishis.

“The chart.” Asita waited until the scroll of sheepskin was passed to him. He gazed at it for a moment.

“A great king. A great king.” Asita repeated the words in a flat, emotionless voice. “He will never be.”

Tense silence.

Asita replied, “What do I care about thrones?” He might have been indifferent to the king, but Asita could not take his eyes away from the baby.

“Without a doubt there is a great ruler in his chart,” the eldest jyotishi insisted.

“Do you not see that?” Suddhodana asked anxiously.

But the hermit acted strangely. Without replying, he knelt before the baby with his head bowed. Siddhartha, who had been quiet up to now, took an interest in this new person; he kicked his feet, and one of them brushed the top of Asita’s head. Suddenly tears began to roll down Asita’s cheeks. Suddhodana bent down to lift him to his feet. The revered ascetic allowed this gesture, which under normal circumstances would have been a serious affront to a holy man.

“What did you ask?” he said, seeming like a withered old man at that moment.

“My son-why will he not rule? If he’s fated to die, tell me.”

Asita looked at the king as if noticing him for the first time. “Yes, he will die-to you.” The court stirred restlessly, but Suddhodana, who should have asked all this in private, was beyond caring who overheard. “Explain yourself,” he said.

Asita paused, seeing confusion and dismay in the king’s face. “The boy has two destinies. Your jyotishis were right about only one.”

Although he was speaking to the father, Asita’s gaze never moved from the infant. “Your will is to make him a king. He may grow up to choose the other way. His second destiny.”

Suddhodana looked totally bewildered. “What is this second destiny?”

“To rule his own soul.” A relieved smile crossed the king’s face. “You think that’s so easy?” said Asita.

“I think only a fool would exchange the world for such a destiny, and I will make damn sure my son isn’t a fool.”

“Once he dies to you, you will be sure of nothing.” The king’s smile vanished. “You’re making a mistake. Ruling the world is child’s play. To truly rule your soul is like ruling creation. It is above even the gods.”

The old hermit wasn’t finished. “You too are in his chart. It says you will either suffer over your son as no father ever has or you will bow down before him.”

Suddhodana’s disbelief was a roar. “You’re wrong, old monk. I can turn him into what I want.” Suddhodana’s face was mottled with rage. “Now get out! All of you!”

Even for gossip-hungry courtiers, the drama had been too much. Half the oil lamps had already sputtered out. In the dim light their retreating figures looked like insubstantial shadows bowing their way out of the king’s presence. The jyotishis led the way with profuse apologies and anxious blessings. Canki wanted to be last in the room, but he found it politic to go when the king glared daggers at him. After a moment only Asita was left.

With the audience gone, Suddhodana could speak freely. “Is all that you said true? Is there nothing I can do?”

“No matter what I say, you will do it anyway.” Without reproof, Asita began to leave, only to be held back once more.

“Tell me just one thing. Why did you weep tears when you saw my son?” asked Suddhodana.

“Because I will not live long enough to hear the immortal truth that Buddha will speak,” Asita said.