SIDDHARTH GAUTAMA — HOW A BODHISATTA BECAME THE BUDDHA

Part I—From Birth to Parivraja

§21 The Family in Mourning

    1. The members of the family of Suddhodana were anxiously awaiting the return of Channa, in the hope that he might persuade Gautama to return home.Buddhism

    2. On entering the royal stable, Kanthaka uttered a loud sound, uttering his woe to the palace people.

    3. Then the people who were in the neighbourhood of the king's inner apartments, thought in their hearts, "Since the horse Kanthaka neighs, it must be that the prince has come."

    4. And the women who were fainting with sorrow, now in wild joy, with their eyes rolling to see the prince, rushed out of the palace full of hope. But they were disappointed. There was Kanthaka without the prince.

    5. Gautami, abandoning all self-control, cried aloud--she fainted, and with a weeping face exclaimed:

    6. "With his long arms and lion gait, his bull-like eye, and his beauty, bright like gold, his broad chest, and his voice deep as a drum or a cloud,--should such a hero as this dwell in a hermitage?

sermon bhikkhus' 

    7. "This earth is indeed unworthy as regards that peerless doer of noble actions, for such a virtuous hero has gone away from us.

    8. "Those two feet of his, tender with their beautiful web spread between the toes, with their ankles, concealed and soft like a blue lotus,--how can they, bearing a wheel mark in the middle, walk on the hard ground of the skirts of the forest?

    9. "That body, which deserves to sit or lie on the roof of a palace, honoured with costly garments, aloes, and sandalwood, how will that manly body live in the woods, exposed to the attacks of the cold, the heat, and the rain?

    10. "He who was proud of his family, goodness, strength, energy, sacred learning, beauty, and youth, who was ever ready to give, not ask, how will he go about begging alms from others?

    11. "He who, lying on a spotless golden bed, was awakened during the night by the concert of musical instruments, how alas! will he, my ascetic, sleep today on the bare ground with only one rag of cloth interposed?"

    12. Having heard this piteous lamentation, the women, embracing one another with their arms, rained tears from their eyes, as the shaken creepers drop honey from their flowers.

    13. Then Yeshodhara, forgetting that she had permitted him to go, fell upon the ground in utter bewilderment.

    14. "How has he abandoned me. his lawful wife? He has left me widowed. He could have allowed his lawful wife to share his new life with him.

    15. "I have no longing for the heaven' my one desire was that my beloved may never leave me either in this world or the next.

    16. "Even if I am unworthy to look on my husband's face with its long eyes and bright smile, still is this poor Rahula never to roll about in his father's lap?

    17. "Alas! the mind of that wise hero is terribly stern, gentle as his beauty seems, it is pitilessly cruel. Who can desert of his own accord such an infant son with his inarticulate talk, one who would charm even an enemy?

leaving home

    18. "My heart too is certainly most stern, yea, made of rock or fashioned even of iron, which does not break when its lord is gone to the forest, deserted by his royal glory like an orphan,--he so well worthy of happiness. But what can I do? My grief is too heavy for me to bear."

    19. So fainting in her woe, Yeshodhara wept and wept aloud--self-possessed though she was by nature, yet in her distress she had lost her fortitude.

    20. Seeing Yeshodhara thus bewildered with her wild utterances of grief, and fallen on the ground, all the women cried out, with their faces streaming with tears like large lotuses beaten by the rain.

    21. Having heard of the arrival of both Channa and Kanthaka, and having learned of the fixed resolve of his son, Suddhodana fell, struck down by sorrow.

    22. Distracted by his grief for his son, being held up for a moment by his attendants, Suddhodana gazed on the horse with his eyes filled with tears, and then falling on the ground wailed aloud.

    23. Then Suddhodana got up and entered his temple, offered prayers, performed auspicious rites, and vowed certain sacrifices for the safe return of his son.

    24. So Suddhodana, Gautami, and Yeshodhara passed their days asking, "How long, O God, how long, before, shall we see him again?"