Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.147

c8.147

WITH this decisive turning-point begins in our authorities a long-connected narrative.[*] This gives us a picture of how the early Church represented to itself Buddha's first public appearance, the winning of the first converts, and the triumph over the first opponents. They were still far from thinking of an attempt to delineate a continuous sketch of Buddha's life, but these first days of his public life, as well as his last days, were invested with an especial interest, and therefore this part of his life has already in very ancient times—for the narrative bears unmistakably the stamp of high antiquity—assumed the form of a fixed tradition. Who has not experienced in his own case that in long, monotonous periods of time, in which reminiscences float promiscuously and blur one another, the early beginnings, the days of freshness and self-adjustment, usually preserve themselves clear in the memory?