A History of Agriculture in India v1.c27.s2.8

v1.c27.s2.8

Gautama was married to Yasodhara, by whom he had a son, Rahula. Apart from his wife, the palace was full of beautiful women who served as cooks and servants. When Gautama realized that life was not merely a cycle of pleasures, but also had its miseries, like disease, old age, and death, the idea of renunciation of worldly life came to him. The *Buddhacharita* mentions a garden full of beautiful women to which King Suddodhana sent him. “Behold the god of love, says the *Buddhacharita*, ‘behold Kama, they murmured on seeing his arrival. Curious and with wide-eyed admiration they gathered round him, and saluted him with their smooth hands, like the cups of the lotus-flower. By the King’s instructions, Udayin, a friend of his childhood, encouraged them to exert all their fascinations. Some, wreathing their arms round Siddhartha like twining plants, sought to hold him by force; others, whether carelessly or feigning to be almost carried away by their transports, allowed the gauzy draperies which veiled their youthful forms to slip aside; others swung their tempting forms on the branches of the mango-trees; and, lastly, yet another sang in the prince’s ear the song of the forest, full of furtive desires and of the emanations of the spring. But his consciousness of the vanity of all things now rendered him insensible to these blandishments, and he returned to the palace, resolved to abandon the world.”¹ Accompanied by his groom Chandaka, and riding his favourite horse Kanthaka, he left the palace (Fig. 164). This sculpture from Sanchi also depicts domestic architecture during the Buddhist period. The lower part of the house was built of stones and bricks, and the balconies and upper storeys were made of wood.