by Vilas Sarang
One night Ajatasatru armed himself with a dagger and tried to enter the king’s rooms. But the guards were suspicious.
‘Who goes there?’
‘I … I am the prince. I want to talk to my father.’
‘At this hour of the night? What’s so urgent, pray?’
Ajatasatru fumbled.
The guards gave him a slight taste of third-degree investigation, and the youth confessed.
All this while, Bimbisar, supine in his royal bed, was listening to the talk. As usual, he had had a largely sleepless night.
The matter of the assassin went to the council of ministers. From there, it came to where the buck stops. King Bimbisar didn’t, in the first place, want to think about this depressing matter. The pattarani—the eldest of his three wives—was Kosaldevi, and Ajatasatru’s mother. Bimbisar asked Kosaldevi what was to be done.
‘Lord, you cannot give capital punishment to your own son. Put him under house arrest until he mends his ways.’
‘Oh, I am weary of these things. All this grasping.’
‘Lord, you are king. You cannot abandon your duty.’
What Bimbisar did next confirms his growing unease with his role in life and how taken he was with the teachings of Buddha. ‘If Ajatasatru is so enthusiastic to rule, let him rule.’
Kosaldevi was alarmed. ‘The boy is so undependable. Do you think it would be wise to leave everything in his hands, Rajan?’
‘Oh, let him do as he likes. I want to live in peace …’
But Bimbisar did not expect what happened next. Ajatasatru promptly jailed his own father. What’s more, the son gave orders that no food be served to him. Bimbisar was transferred to a foul room, full of urine and excrement. It was only a question of how many days he would take to die.
Only Kosaldevi was allowed to visit her husband. She began to cry when she saw in what condition the former king had to live.
‘O Nath, what have they brought down upon you—’ she could not say any more.
Bimbisar tried to smile faintly.
Kosaldevi was the sister of King Pasenadi of the neighbouring kingdom of Kosal.
Controlling her emotion with difficulty, she said, ‘Shall I … shall I tell my brother about this?’
Bimbisar thought about it. He then said, ‘No. Pasenadi might be furious. It might start a war between Magadh and Kosal. It’s not worth it.’
The wife just sat beside her husband. Before taking leave, she said, ‘Next time I shall bring some food for you.’
After two days Kosaldevi came again. As soon as she found that the guards were not looking, she took out some dry dal and rice from the folds of her sari.
‘Eat, Nath, eat quickly—’ she said.
It was not many days before the guards found out. They informed the king. Ajatasatru instructed the guards to check his mother thoroughly to see that she didn’t deliver any food.
Kosaldevi was distraught. She did not know what to do. Her husband’s death was staring in the face.
She talked to a trusted servant about the problem. The servant suggested a way out: let the mistress, after a bath, spread on her legs a mixture of milk, honey and rice. It would dry quickly. Then she could go to the prison without carrying anything.
Kosaldevi put the plan into practice. The guards found nothing on her. Devi entered Bimbisar’s room, who was already much emaciated. She signalled him into a corner, then lifted her sari and motioned to her husband to lick her legs. He licked the sweet, milky paste from her legs. He felt a lot better.
She continued to do this every three or four days. One day one of the guards became suspicious. Stealthily he entered Bimbisar’s room. He saw the former queen with her sari uplifted, and the former king licking her legs greedily like a dog.
That was the end of the secret plan. Ajatasatru forbade any more visits from Kosaldevi. She was completely broken. As for Bimbisar, he only thought of Buddha and his words. Especially on their first meeting, when Siddharth had uttered the word ‘dukkha’. Bimbisar had scarcely any feelings. He lay supine, with his eyes staring at the ceiling. He had been king for several decades. That was enough. Sometimes he vaguely wished he had been able to attend Buddha’s discourses. But that was not to be. There was only dry excrement in his room and soon there was no more of that, since there was nothing in his stomach. Each day, King Bimbisar became weaker and weaker. He lay prostrate on the bare floor, amidst the dry excrement. Once or twice, he ate some of his own excrement. As the excrement was dry, it didn’t have much smell. It tasted like balls of dry, crunchy rice. He did not know that Buddha had done the same thing when he was struggling to achieve enlightenment. Most of the time, the former king stared at the small, high window in the room. The light changed according to the time of the day. After a long time, the light began to fade. Then the king knew it was night. Each day, the distinction between night and day became insignificant.
The only thing that Bimbisar thought about, when he was not in a stupor and could think, was the figure of Buddha. It gave him courage to live.
In a way, now that even Kosaldevi did not come to his room, and no one else came, Bimbisar experienced a feeling of freedom. Now it was only him and the figure of Buddha before his eyes. He wasn’t surprised that, one day, the figure spoke.
‘Hail, O enlightened one!’
‘Hail, Brother Bimbisar! Keep up your courage and face death calmly.’
‘I will, my lord, with your blessings.’
‘You have ruled your kingdom for many years ably and justly. People will remember you as a benevolent king, and not an evil one.’
‘My lord, tell me a few things about the life that is ending for me and how I should have conducted the business of the state.’
‘O king, I shall recite to you from some of my discourses.’
‘That will be a great favour, O enlightened one!’
The figure of Buddha spoke: ‘First, O king, I shall describe to you when people become impious, do not care for dhamma. Among such humans, brother, there will be no such thoughts of reverence as are a bar to intermarriage with mother, or mother’s sister, or mother’s sister-in-law, or teacher’s wife, or father’s sister-in-law. The world will fall into promiscuity, like goats and sheep, fowls and swine, dogs and jackals. Among such humans, brother, keen mutual enmity will become the rule, keen ill-will, keen animosity, passionate thoughts, even of killing, in a mother towards her child, in a child towards its mother, in a father towards his child and a child towards its father, in brother to brother, in brother to sister, in sister to brother. Just as a sportsman feels towards the game that he sees, so will they feel. Among such humans, brother, there will arise a swordperiod of seven days, during which they will look on each other as wild beasts; sharp swords will appear ready to their hands, and they, thinking this is a wild beast, this is a wild beast, will with their swords deprive each other of life.’
‘O lord, this is a picture of hell.’
‘Yes, O king, but I shall also describe how things will be when the celestial wheel shall appear. Then, brother, the celestial wheel will roll onwards towards the east, and after it will follow the wheel-turning king, and with him his army, horses and chariots and elephants and men. And in whatever place, brother, the wheel stopped, there the king, the victorious warlord, took up his abode, and with him his fourfold army. Then all the rival kings in the region of the east came to the sovereign king and said: “Come, O mighty king! Welcome, O mighty king! All is thine, O mighty king! Teach us, O mighty king!”
‘The king, the sovereign warlord, spake thus: “Ye shall slay no living thing. Ye shall not take that which has not been given. Ye shall not act wrongly touching bodily desires. Ye shall speak no lie. Ye shall not drink.”’
Bimbisar said: ‘That, O lord, teaches a good lesson: that, for the good king. The methods of conquest with all the horrors and crimes are absent. The conqueror only follows the bright and beneficent wheel, and the conquered, with joy and trust, ask only for instructi
on.’
‘Right, O king, and finally I shall foretell the future. In the place of the city of Varanasi of present day, there will come up another city named Ketumati, a royal city, mighty and prosperous, full of people, crowded and wellfed. Among such humans in this India there will be 84,000 towns, with Ketumati the royal city at their head.
‘And in that period, there will arise in the world an exalted one named Maitreya. Arahant, fully awakened, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher for gods and men, an exalted one, a Buddha, even as I am now. He, by himself, will thoroughly know and see, as it were, face to face, this universe, with its worlds of the spirits, its Brahmas and its Maras, and its world of recluses and Brahmins, of princes and peoples, even as I now, by myself, thoroughly know and see them. The dhamma, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation, will be proclaimed, both in the spirit and in the letter, the higher life will he make known, in all its fullness and in all its purity, even as I do now.’
Bimbisar said, ‘Thank you, O lord, for showing me the glowing vision of the city of Ketumati, and of the coming of the next Buddha, named Maitreya. But still I have some discontent.’
‘What is that, O king?’
‘Lord, in spite of having been king so long, I am going to die alone; my son has manifestly turned against me. But my beloved wives are also forbidden to see me. I shall die totally alone, O lord.’
‘O king, this is the fate of any man or woman who ever lived. Each person dies alone. As I said in my discourse, live as islands unto yourselves, brethren, as refuges unto yourselves, take none other as your refuge, live with the dhamma as your island, with the dhamma as your refuge, take none other as your refuge. But how does a brother live as an island unto himself, as a refuge unto himself, taking none other as his refuge? How does he live with dhamma as his island, with the dhamma as his refuge, taking none other as his refuge? Herein a brother, as to the body, as to feelings, as to thought, as to ideas, continues so to look upon these that he remains ardent, self-possessed and mindful, that he may overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world. Thus is it that a brother lives as an island and as a refuge unto himself. With dhamma as an island and as a refuge, having no other refuge.’
With the vision of life and death as a solitary, peaceful island, King Bimbisar died contentedly.
Kosaldevi hardly ate anything in her palace rooms. She too died after a few months, having, in effect, starved herself to death.
Only half of this diabolical story has reached its end. Ajatasatru got what he wanted, but the ambitious monk Devadatt hadn’t. He publicly demanded that Buddha too, should ‘abdicate’. But Buddha was made of sterner stuff. Devadatt made attempts to kill Buddha. There was, near the capital, a place with a cinematic name: Vulture’s Peak. Buddha liked to climb there often. Devadatt is supposed to have hatched a plot, which, however, has no historical credence but in its drama still beats our Bollywood plots hollow.
A soldier was ordered to kill Buddha; when he was returning, two soldiers were to waylay the murderer; four more to kill the two; eight more for the four; sixteen more to kill the eight.
This pyramidal plot collapsed like a heap of cards. The original killer lost his nerve and was advised by the shrewd old man to go back—via a different path.
These sordid happenings delighted Maar.
He arrived to taunt Buddha. ‘O enlightened one, what happened to the cessation of craving? Your royal friend Bimbisar has died a horrible death because of the greed of his own son. Now, your cousin Devadatt is trying desperately to kill you, only because he craves power. The natural desires are playing the dance of death right under your nose. Won’t you say that I am vindicated?’
Buddha said: ‘Maar, I never started with any illusions. Natural desires, as you call them, will always have to be fought. Sometimes we succeed; oftentimes we have to accept defeat. Man’s humanness is what we have to defend. Man’s animal qualities are always present: a huge stone in the path. The other day someone hurled a boulder on my way to the peak. Sometimes one is fortunate, sometimes not. But I shall always regard Vulture’s Peak as the sign of man’s aspiration.’
‘I see only vultures everywhere.’
‘Maybe. But I have never seen vultures at the peak. Usually when I go there, I see a family of eagles nursing their brood. And I come down with a fresh spirit.’
‘I’ll let you have the last word this once.’ Maar frowned, and disappeared.
13
The rains came. The rains of the year 485 BC.
Monsoon meant a kind of house arrest for Buddha. He called a temporary halt to his ceaseless journeying to spread the dhamma. Perhaps he was searching. What was he still looking for after so many years of having achieved enlightenment? Buddha had a restless mind. He was always convinced that beyond the horizon lay something just waiting to be discovered—a thought, an idea that would add deeper insights to his vision, finer nuances to his thought. So the forced house arrest was time for meditation, contemplation, so that when the rains ended, he could restart his journeying with renewed vigour, revitalized thought.
And Buddha was a reclusive, brooding sort of man. Even as a young man he had showed signs of such behaviour. The long months of the monsoon were perfect for brooding, especially at his age, which was leaning towards eighty.
If, on a rainy, grey day, he fell into reverie, he would recall Devadatt’s stubborn revolt and challenge to leadership. Devadatt’s revolt was, it must be admitted, on principled grounds. He challenged what he saw as Buddha’s weak points. He demanded that (1) the monks should live only in the forest, (2) they should eat only food they collected as alms; that is, accept no invitations, (3) they should dress in robes made of rags they had collected themselves, (4) they should no longer sleep under a roof, even during the monsoon, but under trees, and (5) they should be strict vegetarians. These conditions appear severe—a natural consequence of a young man’s zealous severity. Buddha, with his years of experience, knew that such ambitious puritanism would not help the order. As for the first condition, Buddha would see that, if put into practice, it would isolate and separate the clan from the day-to-day life of the common people. The umbilical cord of the Buddhists would be cut off; the give and take of the Buddhist sangha and society at large was important in Buddha’s eyes. Conditions 2 and 3, you might say made some sense; accepting invitations would easily degenerate into currying favour (as it did when, after Buddha, the dhamma became lax and degenerated. Condition 4 was fanciful—in torrential rains and severe cold, many monks would have become ill, or would have died. Condition 5 perhaps touched upon Buddha’s weak point. A Kshatriya by birth, Buddha had a taste for meat. (It is said that he relished wild boar; in the end, he died of eating bad meat.) In any case strict vegetarianism was in the air. The Jains were a weighty example. Hindu Brahmins, for whatever reasons, were gradually embracing vegetarianism. It is said that, during the first and second centuries BC, Vishnu became a popular god; the Vaishnavites emphasized vegetarianism. Shortly after Buddha, Emperor Ashok favoured vegetarian food, he lay great stress upon ahimsa, non-violence. So if Buddha had agreed to this condition, he would have been with the times.
Buddha’s own regulations were indeed rather lax. He permitted his bhikkus to accept invitations. At the same time, he allowed monks to eat meat, ‘provided the animals were not especially killed for the bhikkus’. Not surprisingly, this laxness leads to one of the fundamental paradoxes of Buddhism: non-vegetarianism is directly at odds with ahimsa. But leaving that aside for the moment, when someone like Buddha himself was the invitee, then it is certain that a special dish was called for. Now, how would one know that ‘the animals were not especially killed’ for a distinguished guest? The host would presumably go to a butcher’s shop and procure the meat. So, technically, neither the host nor the guest is ‘guilty’ of killing the animal.
The meal that
would prove fatal for the master was prepared by a blacksmith called Chunda. As has been said above, Chunda, who probably knew the master’s tastes, prepared ‘sukara maddava’. Scholars have created a controversy as to what the dish was. But it is now almost certain that the ‘special dish’ was wild pork.
Some detail may be added to the controversy over Buddha and ‘pork’. What Western commentators mean by ‘pork’ is not exactly what meat-eaters in north India take it to be. In the West, domesticated pigs are eaten as pork. In Buddha’s time, it is doubtful that pigs were domesticated. Even today, Hindus of the Kshatriya and allied castes do not eat domesticated pork. (And of course beef is a big no-no.) But, until 950 AD, they used to eat, and relish, wild boar’s meat. (Now, of course, wild boars are a scarce commodity.) What Buddha ate—if he did so—was definitely wild pork. Wild boar meat is game and so sanctioned; domesticated pigs are said to be ‘unclean’ and Hindus generally do not consume it.
Not all of Devadatt’s objections were cussed. With somebody of Buddha’s stature and integrity at the helm, the rules need not be strict. But after Buddha, when dhamma itself became lax, there was a real danger that bhikkudom would be corrupted. Instead of ‘rags they had collected themselves’, a bhikku might be seduced by a silken robe, or by a rich meal. This possibility was what Devadatt wanted to forestall. Devadatt was, predictably, rebuffed by the master. But Devadatt was firm in his demands, and this drove a wedge into the sangha. Buddha warned Devadatt that creating schism was a serious offence.
As a matter of fact, schism is a hazard all organized religions face. If Buddha was the pope of Buddhism, the puritanical Devadatt represented Protestantism. Islam is divided between the Sunni and Shia factions. Because of King Ajatasatru’s patronage, the schism in Buddhism was kept alive. But Devadatt died early; he was ‘swallowed up by the earth’, whatever that means. That his ideas about Buddhism struck a chord in many disciples is clear. Devadatt’s sangh lasted surprisingly long. The Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien, who visited India a thousand years later, mentions that he met monks who were followers of Devadatt.