[Notes by LKG]
This story is part of the Buddha unit. Story source: The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922).
Two More Encounters
Siddhartha saw the sick man; he stared at him, and he asked the charioteer: "What is this man with a swollen paunch? His emaciated arms hang limp, he is deathly pale and pitiful cries escape from his lips. He gasps for breath; see, he staggers and jostles the bystanders; he is falling. . . . Charioteer, charioteer, what is this man?"
The charioteer answered: "My lord, this man knows the torment of sickness, for he has the king's evil. He is weakness itself; yet he, too, was once healthy and strong!"
The prince looked at the man with pity, and he asked again:"Is this affliction peculiar to this man, or are all creatures threatened with sickness?"
The charioteer answered: "We, too, may be visited with a similar affliction, O prince. Sickness weighs heavily upon the world."
When he heard this painful truth, the prince began to tremble like a moonbeam reflected in the waves of the sea, and he uttered these words of bitterness and pity: "Men see suffering and sickness, yet they never lose their self-confidence! Oh, how great must be their knowledge! They are constantly threatened with sickness, and they can still laugh and be merry! Turn your horses around, charioteer; our pleasure trip is ended; let us return to the palace. I have learned to fear sickness. My soul shuns pleasure and seems to close up like a flower deprived of light."
Wrapped in his painful thoughts, he returned to the palace.
King Suddhodana noticed his son's sombre mood. He asked why the prince no longer went out driving, and the charioteer told him what had happened. The king grieved; he already saw himself forsaken by the child he adored. He lost his usual composure and flew into a rage at the man whose duty it was to see that the streets were clear; he punished him, but so strong was his habit of being indulgent that the punishment was light. And the man was astonished at being thus upbraided, for he had seen neither the old man nor the sick man.
The king was more anxious now than ever before to keep his son from leaving the palace. He provided him with rare pleasures, but nothing, it seemed, could arouse Siddhartha. And the king thought, "I shall let him go out once more! Perhaps he will recover the joy he has lost."
He gave strict orders to have all cripples and all who were ill or aged driven out of the city. He even changed the prince's charioteer, and he felt certain that this time there would be nothing to trouble Siddhartha's soul.
But the jealous Gods made a corpse. Four men carried it, and others followed behind, weeping. And the corpse, as well as the men who carried it and the men who were weeping, was visible only to the prince and to the charioteer.
And the king's son asked: "What is he that is being carried by four men, followed by those others, wearing dark clothes and weeping?"
The charioteer should have held his peace, but it was the will of the Gods that he reply: "My lord, he has neither intelligence nor feeling nor breath; he sleeps, without consciousness, like grass or a piece of wood; pleasure and suffering are meaningless to him now, and friend and enemy alike have deserted him."
The prince was troubled. He said, "Is this a condition peculiar to this man, or does this same end await all creatures?"
And the charioteer answered: "This same end awaits all creatures. Whether of humble or of noble birth, to every being who lives in this world, death comes inevitably."
Then Prince Siddhartha knew what death was.
In spite of his fortitude, he shuddered. He had to lean against the chariot, and his words were full of distress: "So to this does destiny lead all creatures! And yet, without fear in his heart, man amuses himself in a thousand different ways! Death is about, and he takes to the world's highroads with a song on his lips! Oh, I begin to think that man's soul has become hardened! Turn your horses around, charioteer; this is no time to wander through the flower-gardens. How can a sensible man, a man who knows what death is, seek pleasure in the hour of anguish?"
But the charioteer kept on driving toward the garden where the king had ordered him to take his son.
Next: The Fair Maidens
(800 words)
