Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c11.7

Language: English

v1.c11.7.1

Jayasena | Devadahasakka of Devadaha --- | --- Sihahanu (=Kaccānā) Yasodharā | Añjana (=Yasodharā) Kaccānā Suddhodano and his 4 brothers (=Māyā and Pajāpati) and two sisters Amitā & Pamitā | Māyā Pajāpati Daṇḍapāṇi Suppabuddha (=Amitā) Siddhārtha | Bhaddakaccānā Devadatta Rāhula (=Bhaddakaccānā) | with the traditional custom acquired the arts that behoved the sons of the nobility of the clans, and secured for him the due recognition as a prince of physical valour and prowess. He was given in marriage to the daughter of another chieftain of the same clan. He lived with her a few years of ease and luxury and had a son named Rāhula. During the adolescence period of Siddhārtha, the Śākyas, it seems, were passing through peaceful times, living on their own agricultural produce, the troubles having been encountered by them a few years later after the retirement of Siddhārtha.¹ It is not unoften the case in India or elsewhere that all the luxuries of the world cannot bring peace of mind to a few, the giants among men, who feel an inward impulse to cast away to winds the things that give pleasure to the average mind and hanker after the unknown and the unknowable. Prince Siddhārtha was one of these few. He preferred to eschew his dear wife and newly born babe, his kingly pomp and power to embrace the lonely life of a recluse, living on fruits or the gifts of charitably disposed persons.

v1.c11.7.2

Inspite of all the remonstrances and reasonings of his father's messengers, he refused to return to home life.² The tradition says that he took to this course when he was only twentynine, and for six years he roamed about, sitting at the feet of one teacher or another, and imbibing from them all that he could gather. It is said, that he left the palace at the dead of night, crossed the territories of the Śākyas, the Koliyas and the Mallas and reached the Anuvaineya town of the Maineyas at dawn.¹ He visited the hermitages of a Śākyan Brāhmaṇī, of a female ascetic Padmā also a Brāhmaṇī, of Brahmarṣi Raivata, and of Rājaka, son of Daṭṛma a daṇḍika.² Then he reached the city of Vaiśālī, in the suburb of which was situated the hermitage of Arāḍa Kālāma (= Pāli Ārāḍa Kālāma). He joined the band of disciples whose number was three hundred at the time and within a short time, by the application of his strong will (*chanda*), energy (*vīrya*), self-recollectedness (*smṛti*), meditation (*samādhi*) and intellection (*prajñā*), he attained the *ākiñcanyāyatana* stage, which, in the Buddhist books, is placed in the Arūpaloka and counted as the last but one (i.e. seventh) *samāpatti* leading to *Nirvāṇa*.³ In this stage also he was unable to visualize the Truth—the Reality, the end of misery. He then left Vaiśālī, came to Rājagṛha and stopped all alone at the Pāṇḍava hill.

v1.c11.7.3

On the following morning donning on his yellow robe and taking his bowl, he entered Rājagṛha by the Tapoda gate for begging alms. Here at his residence on the Pāṇḍava hill, he was met by his old friend king Bimbisāra, who in age was senior to Gautama by five years.⁴ Politely rejecting the offer of Bimbisāra of sharing his kingdom with him, the ascetic Gautama paid a visit to the Rudraka Rāmaputra’s hermitage in the outskirts of Rājagṛha.¹ On enquiry he learnt that Rudraka could rise to the eighth samāpatti, *Naivasamjñānāsamjñāyatana*, the one higher than that reached by Arāḍa Kālāma, but it was still an attainment confined to the constituted world² (*arūpa*) and not transcendental (*lokottara*) leading to peace and rest, the end of misery, the ultimate Nirvāṇa. Impressed by his extraordinary ability in attaining the *Naivasamjñānāsamjñāyatana* stage within a comparatively short time and little exertion, five Brāhmaṇa followers of Rudraka preferred to follow Gautama. With them he went to Gayā and stopped at the Gayāśīrṣa hill.³ While dwelling here it struck him that as with two pieces of wet wood one cannot produce fire however briskly he may rub them, so also with mind saturated with *kāma* (desires) one cannot realize the highest truth however severe he may be in self-mortifications.⁴ On self-examination he found that his mind was free from *kāma*.

v1.c11.7.4

He then proceeded to Uruvilva-Senāpatigrāma, and was much pleased at the sight of the river Nairañjana with water reaching the edge of the banks covered by shrubs and trees and used as a pasture for the cattle. He observed that he was born at a time when the five kinds of wrong views (*pañcakaṣāya*)⁵ were prevalent. The people of his time were obsessed with the notion of the existence of soul, believed in the attainment of purity by means of physical tortures, restriction of food, utterance of mantras, or salutation of the gods and other sacred objects, and sought for heaven in the next life by ritualistic practices, and so forth. With a view to convince the world that the severest ascetic practices were of no avail, he for six years went through all the unthinkable physical tortures known as *duṣkaracaryās*¹ of the Bodhisattva. He then decided to take food and make his body strong in order to be able to practise the dhyānas, of which he had already a foretaste while he was only a boy,² and which he believed would lead him to Nirvāṇa. For changing his method, he was deserted by his five Brāhmaṇa followers who went away to Benares to continue their rigorous ascetic practices. He accepted the food offered by Sujātā and took his seat under the Bodhi tree to try his own method.

v1.c11.7.5

He entered into the dhyānas one by one, rising to the fourth³ when he acquired the six super-natural powers,⁴ the knowledge of the destruction of his impurities (*āsravakṣayaññāna*), of the causal chain leading to birth and misery in this world,⁵ and of the four *āryasatyas*.⁶ By a momentary *dṛṣṭi*., *āyuk*.) or the sixty-two wrong views like *nityam astiti nāstiti tathāsti nāsti* prevailed.**