world and the world that is to come. But, my father, when a man has found a treasure it is his duty to offer the most precious of the jewels to his father first. Do not delay; let me share with you the treasure I have found." Suddhodana, abashed, took his son s bowl and led him to his house. There the women of the palace came to welcome him, but not Yasodhara, whom he had not seen since he had watched her sleeping in their chamber with their new-born babe by her side on that eventful night now seven long years ago. " I will wait and see," she had said; " perhaps I am still of some value in his eyes; he may ask, or come. I can welcome him better here." Gautama noticed her absence, and remembering, doubtless, that a recluse could not touch or be touched by a woman, he said, "The princess is not yet free from desire as I am; not having seen me so long she is exceeding sorrowful. Unless her sorrow be allowed to take its course, her heart will break. She may embrace me; do not stop her." He then went to her, and when she saw him enter, not the husband she had mourned so long, but a recluse in yellow robes with shaven head and shaven face, though she knew it would be so, she could not contain herself, and fell on the ground, and held him by the feet, and wept; then remembering the impassable gulf between them, she rose and stood on one side. The raja thought it necessary to apologize for her, telling Gautama how entirely she had continued to love him, refusing to enjoy comforts which he denied himself, taking but one meal a day, and sleeping on a hard uncanopied bed. The different accounts often tell us the thoughts of the Buddha on any particular occa sion; here they are silent, only adding that he then told a Jataka story, showing how great had been her virtue in a former birth.[1] And then they parted : she became an earnest hearer of the new doctrines; and when long afterwards the Buddha was induced, much against his inclination, to established an order of female recluses, his widowed wife Yasodhara, became one of the first of the
Buddhist nuns.The next day a great festival was to take place to celebrate the marriage of Gautama s half-brother, Nanda. Gautama wont to the pavilion and said to Nanda, "the greatest festival after all is the destruction of all evil desires, the life of a recluse, the knowledge of truth, and the attainment of Nirvana." He then gave him his alms- bowl, and Nanda followed him to the Nigrodha grove where he was staying. On their arrival there Gautama asked him if he would not enter the Society; but Nanda, though tenderly attached to his half-brother, with whom he had been brought up as a play-fellow (Gautama having no brothers of his own), did not yet desire to give up the world After much persuasion, however, he consented, and became a disciple. A few days afterwards Yasodhara dressed Rahula, her child and Gautama s, in his best, and told him to go and ask his father for his inheritance. " I know of no father," said the child, "but the raja. Who is my father? Yasodhara took him in her arms, and hold ing him up to the window pointed out to him the Buddha, who was then taking his mid-day meal at tho palace. " That monk," she said, " whose appearance is so glorious, is your father; he has four mines of wealth; go to him, and entreat him to put you in possession of your inheri tance." Rahula went up to Gautama and said to him, without fear and with much affection, " My father, how happy I am to be near you." Gautama silently gave him his blessing; but presently, when he rose to go, Rahula followed him asking for his inheritance. None of the people stopped him, and Gautama still said nothing. When they reached the Nigrodha grove, he called Sariputra, and said, "Beloved disciple, Rahula is asking for a worldly inheri tance which would avail him nothing; I will give him a spiritual inheritance which will not fade away; let him be admitted among us." When Suddhodana heard this he was exceedingly grieved; he had lost his two sons as far as all worldly hopes were concerned, and now his grandson was taken from him. Full of sorrow he determined to save other parents a similar affliction, and going to Gautama asked him to establish a regulation that no one should in future be admitted to the Society unless he had the consent of his parents. Gautama granted this request, and after some more interviews with his father returned to tho Bambu grove at Rajagriha.
Eighteen months had now elapsed since the turning-point of Gautama s career his great struggle under the Bo tree. Thus far all the accounts agree, and follow chronological order. From this time they simply narrate disconnected stories about the Buddha, or the persons with whom he was brought into contact. the same story being usually found in more than one account, but not often in the same order. It is not as yet possible, except very partially, to arrange chronologically the snatches of biography to be gleaned from these stories. They are mostly told to show the occasion on which some memorable act of Gautama s took place, or some memorable saying was uttered, and are as exact as to place as they are indistinct as to time. It would be impossible within the limits of this article to give any large number of them, but space may be found for one or two.
A merchant from Sunaparanta having joined the Society was desirous of preaching to his relations, and is said to have asked Gautama s permission to do so. " The people of Sunaparanta," said the teacher," are exceedingly violent. If they revile you what will you do 1 " " I will make no reply," said the mendicant. "And if they strike you 1" " I will not strike in return," was the reply. " And if they try to kill you 1 " " Death is no evil in itself; many even desire it, to escape from the vanities of life, but I shall take no steps either to hasten or to delay the time of my departure." These answers were held satisfactory, and the monk started on his mission.
At another time a rich farmer held a harvest home, and Gautama, wishing to preach to him, is said to have taken his alms-bowl and stood by the side of the field and begged. The farmer, a wealthy Brahman, said to him, " Why do you come and beg 1 I plough and sow and earn my food; you should do the same." " I, too, Brahman," said the beggar, " plough and sow; and having ploughed and sown I eat." " You profess only to be a farmer; no one sees your ploughing, what do you mean 1 " said the Brahman. " For my cultivation, " said the beggar, " faith is the seed, self-combat is the fertilizing rain, the weeds I destroy are the cleaving to existence, wisdom is my plough, and its guiding-shaft is modesty; perseverance draws my plough, and I guide it with the rein of my mind; the field I work in is the law, and the harvest that I reap is the never-dying nectar of Nirvana. Those who reap this harvest destroy all the weeds of sorrow. "
her right mind a young mother whom sorrow had for a time deprived of reason. Her name was Kisagotaml. She had been married early, as is the custom in the East, and had a child when she was still a girl. When the beautiful boy could run alone he died. The young girl in her love for it carried the dead child clasped to her bosom, and went from bouse to house of her pitying friends asking them to
givp v> sr medicine for it. But a Buddhist convert thinking- ↑ Jiitaka, 91, 9. These Jataka stories are most interesting, contain ing as they do the oldest known versions of many of the nursery songs, and fairy tales, and comic stories, and fables, which are the common property of Europe in the present day. See Fausboll b papers enumer ated in the report of the Philological Society for 1875, p. 64.
