2
THE HOUSE WITH TOO MANY DOORS
he Maharajah prepares for a swift journey to the hermitage of the Brahmin, Santanu, who had been Sayana’s best pupil when Ashoka lived in the forest hermitage. Santanu visited many schools then built a hermitage in the mahavana, by the side of the Bhagavati River, not far from the road that leads from Pataliputra to Nepal. Riding along the road to Vaishali, the Maharajah reflects upon how everything has changed in the country; it has become obvious that Kunala will one day ascend the ivory throne. His son has shown a strong inclination to follow in his father’s footsteps. Is this a genuine force that has surged within him, a will to act, to improve, to regulate, just as he, Ashoka, had felt from his earliest youth, steeled by the fierce struggle with all who opposed him? Will Kunala one day possess the strength, the self-reliance, required of him by an empire like Aryavarta? He could not entrust the empire to his oldest son, Mahindra. Neither to Jalauka, who laughs at the softness of Buddhism and serves Shiva with wild abandon, unreceptive to Buddha’s teachings of love. Had he himself ever been as unresistingly obedient as Kunala? Santanu must make Kunala’s will strong, broaden his insight. Has his son been weakened by the life at the court where everyone treats him with care, friendliness, and love, and where no conflict has as yet come his way?
After two days of stiff riding, he reaches Santanu’s hermitage. The Brahmin comes up to meet him with a friendly welcome.
‘What makes Piyadasi, now the Maharajah, visit my simple retreat?’
‘Sayana often pointed to you, his former brahmacharin, when his plan to complete his life as a sannyasin had ripened.’
Santanu sighs. ‘Much has happened since Sayana saw as the loftiest pursuit the fulfilment of the four stages of life of a Brahmin, O, Maharajah, and showed us the path of the Aryans who chose the spiritual path over that of the material world. But the great multitude of people did not prosper by that. One evening, after you had left his hermitage, he said: ‘He who now leaves will one day be the Maharajah of India, a god to his people and a scourge to the sacrificial priests.’ Only then did we realise who you were.’
‘Sayana did not know that I would one day raise the teachings of a small sect to the religion of the Mauryas.’
‘He did certainly realise that, but thought that Buddhism would merely purify Brahmanism of its limitations. Where priests are attributed with supernatural powers, religion degenerates. Sayana adhered to the Brahminical laws, the sturdy rock in a turbulent sea. Is it not out of the same soil, that Rohita, with the same warmth and the same light, animates man, as well as animal or plants, Brahmin as well as Shudra, Buddha as well as Chandala? And no one is aware that all that lives is the unfolding of that same All-spirit. You, O, Maharajah, have sought the sara of each religion. You wished to make every human being aware of what binds all, eternally, to the All-spirit. You did not choose Brahmanism as the vehicle for your thinking about humanity. Brahmanism has locked up itself in a house without doors or windows, with only an opening to heaven, through which rain, hail, and lightning invade and rage. But is not Buddhism a house with too many doors, more doors than Brahma’s offering hearth1, so that each one may come and go too easily?’
‘One cannot restrict the entrance if one wishes to see that all walk the eight-fold path,’ smiled Ashoka.
‘But that goes against nature and is for a human being only to be achieved through persevering will. It may be easy to become a sramana2, but a true follower of the Buddha becomes one only after an intensive inner struggle. Brahmanism is a complete circle of life, in which each one can realise a high spiritual ideal, or organise his life with simplicity. You are a Buddhist and energetic, O, Maharajah, but do you not think it to be wrong that one can become a bhikshu so lightly?’
‘No, then I would not be a Buddhist. The nourishment of the bhikshus is sustained by the upasakas3. And that is good. One furnishes the material needs, and the other, the spiritual needs. Let each thus learn his duties and accept its advantages as natural. For he who cannot, the Sangha is not the proper place.’
Just then Santanu’s wife and his daughter approach. Each brings her hands together and thus touching their foreheads, bow deeply.
‘How many children were bestowed upon you, Santanu?’
‘Seven, O, Maharajah, three died, three sons are brahmacharins with friends; my daughter, together with her mother, takes care of my five brahmacharins.’
Ashoka looks admiringly at the beautiful girl with her narrow waist and shapely hips. The full and lovely formed shoulders, one of which is covered by a lightly flowered muslin cloth, curved gracefully up into a strong neckline. Her face is sun-brushed brown—the fresh jungle air contributing to the smooth and youthful tint—below which a deep and healthy crimson blossoms. Her eyes have the mystic darkness of the Aryans, almost black against the frail blue of their pools. Her symmetrical features express more nobility than friendliness, more intellectual independence than feminine submissiveness. Dark braids of her hair coiled on top of her head, giving her face an oval shape, and softening the firm lines of her cheekbones.
‘Kanchanamala4.’
Ashoka speaks some friendly words to the two women. When they have gone, he says: ‘Lucky is he who one day may call Kanchanamala the mother of his sons.’
‘May I, Your Majesty …’
Ashoka interrupts Santanu with a raised hand: ‘I have come to ask you to take for some time my son, the Yuvaraja, into your house and your wisdom.’
‘You know, O, Maharajah that I admire the Buddhism in your Majesty, but I am a Brahmin.’
‘Precisely, because you are. Kunala still has the immaturity of youth. I want him to know Santanu even as I knew Sayana. Kunala is receptive, is soft-hearted because of his Buddhism which wants a gentle humanity. But he should also come to know the nobility of the in itself confined Brahmanism.’
‘As a brahmacharin?’
‘No, as a friend of my friend, my Santanu.’
3
POISON
hree Brahmins are travelling on the road from Kashi to Pataliputra along the left bank of the Ganga. Now and then the water of the flowing river is seen shimmering through the dust-covered trees. When the view clears they see from a distance the faint outline of towers and buildings against the azure hot sky. One of the three, Utanka, a lively and energetic fellow, looks towards the east.
‘Look, the tall white building over there whose proud dome rises up above the city walls and the Imperial palace, is the Ashokarama.’
‘That is symbolically apt,’ remarks Shantanika, a slender and notable figure, his demeanour proud and naturally agile. His sharp, keen features are akin to those of a fanatical sacrificial priest. ‘The imperial authority was snatched by a powerful human hand, Utanka, the divine authority however is unfolded in the human’s inner being, and is a revelation of that which rules all life.’
‘Does that apply to the divine power of Buddhism as well, Shantanika?’ asks Sama. Shantanika does not notice the mockery that twinkles in Sama’s eyes. Entirely lost in his own thoughts, Utanka is even less aware. He is an educated Brahmin but has not been a sacrificial priest, unlike the other two. Sama’s tone betrays his sarcasm. His short, squat body and slightly wavy hair may have resembled that of a Shudra if his Brahmin thread did not remove doubts about what he was.
‘Buddhism has the currents in its favour as does that boat on the Ganga over there.’
‘Why is that, Shantanika?’
‘Why? The Buddha has placed against the priests’ varna the Sangha, where there is no division of varna and where pure and impure does not apply anymore. He spoke only about what is good. He places against the Brahmin thinkers in their seclusion, the solidarity of all to the Sangha, against the petty outlook of Madhyadesa, the humaneness. In Aryavarta the hearts of the people were boiling over with resentment against the supercilious offering priests. World in need, salvation is on its way! Buddha’s call for reason, humaneness and compassion … Buddha’s streng
th is that he gave up a life of wealth and luxury for a life of renunciation and hardships, to bring the truth to all. But it is a pity for Buddhism that he did not proclaim: ‘I am Brahma myself and will bring to you the Truth!’ Then Buddhism would have taken hold over the whole world.’
‘Heresy!’ cries an indignant Utanka.
‘Now they view him as a sublime human being who attained Nirvana, the annihilation, the melting into the Atman, to put it into words the Brahmin way. If we wish to join the Sangha, then we have to esteem the Buddha’s true worth, the Exalted Buddha, the Divine, raised up unto the highest Godhead. Or else, India will one day turn its back on him because every conceited arhat will dare to equate himself with him, because he thinks he too attained Nirvana.’
‘Heresy! In that way you want him to bring truth to humanity with a lie!’ snaps Utanka.
‘If humanity does not acquire the truth of the Buddha then it will regress to the lie of the sacrificial priests.’
‘You are too virtuous, Utanka, and you think that all people will be virtuous enough to accept and follow the Buddha in his simplicity. But which rich merchant will give up his riches for your wisdom, which rajuka or Raja will leave his palace to contemplate in the jungle, which wealthy Vaishya will drive his livestock away and wrap around the yellow cloth, in order to beg! Because of your truth!’
‘Tss, tss, tss! Shantanika! That is for those who want to attain Nirvana,’ Sama says with a laugh.
‘Truth is that which the Buddha has taught us!’ replies Utanka.
‘Are all of Buddha’s sutras then true? His gathas, his legends, his Jatakas3,’ Shantanika goes on.
‘Is the truth in the words or in the meaning within?’
‘For the masses in the words, for the wise men in the meaning …’
‘Precisely, Shantanika,’ mocks Sama.
‘How different the perception of the beautiful body of a charming woman by a penitent, a lover, and a tiger:
The penitent thinks: she is merely a body,
The lover thinks: she is worthy to love,
The tiger thinks: she is a good meal.’
Utanka looks at him with contempt. ‘You are to accept the Buddha as he taught us not as you would wish him to be! That is true heresy!’
‘Do you believe that the monks who are sent out by the Ashokarama, the Yetavana or the Kemavana, convey his words as he has taught them? Do you not think that we Indians, with our vivid imagination, will deify the Buddha, and correctly so, raise him more and more above man and imagine him more and more distant from us in his even more glorious magnificence?’
‘That depends entirely on the way in which you present his teachings! Those legends, with flowering imagination, hold often more truth than the bare facts because in the mystical light of what is to us an unknown world, they assume forms that touch a suffering, sensitive humanity. The facts convince our mind, the legends our imagination and whisper to us the truth about our own atman.’
‘You talk of soul and atman, Utanka. This too is heresy for a member of the Sangha,’ mocks Sama.
‘Be quiet, Sama, you provoke me! Look, Utanka, Emperor Ashoka brings security, peace and prosperity to the country. Who will still wish to renounce everything, to be relieved of an ‘evil earthly existence’? Is Buddhism not the consequence of spiritual repression by the Brahmin priests and the worldly scourge of the rulers? Ashoka has swept both away. But his edicts, in their call to morality and humaneness, do not speak of the God Buddha, but only of his Teachings. And Buddha says: All that has become, all that must perish. He himself perished, dissolved into Nirvana, the nothingness!’
‘You have become a heretic even before becoming a member of the Sangha!’
‘No, I want to save Buddhism from a certain downfall. Elevate the Buddha to what he is: a god, the God! And Buddhism is saved! Man does not want to be good but to worship and venerate the God, who is good.
‘And make Shantanika and the other once-upon-a-time sacrificial sprites, his priests! They will bring man to Buddha, the God, through mildness and a soft heart, and if that does not work, by threats of hell and damnation, with fear of miserable reincarnations, by banishment from society, and especially, with endless suffering!’ Utanka says bitterly.
Shantanika continues calmly yet sharply: ‘Man wants a Godhead, a shining symbol, Utanka, a rock in the cruel world, in his tumultuous thoughts: a personification of what rules his life, yet lies beyond his understanding.’
‘The bhikshu is a mendicant and not a middleman between God and man. He is a minister of the Tathagata’s teachings, possessing nothing that could restrain him. He bears testimony wherever the Sangha sends him. Learn from the simplicity of the great Emperor who proclaims what he expects from his subjects: a life the way the Buddha saw it; with reverence for parents, teachers and family, even for the life of animals; with people who show compassion and enjoy in other man’s happiness, who show kindness towards everyone, even to slaves. And tolerance! And truth! The Buddha is loved. Thanks to your priests, mankind fears God!’
‘The Buddha as God is a richly flowering fantasy, Utanka, which touches our heart and our imagination. Emperor Ashoka cannot do without his officers and warriors, his pomp and circumstance. And the Buddha needs priests.’
‘That is exactly what the Buddha did not wish to be, a temporal ruler; merely the Awakened, Accomplished Buddha! An example of the realised Man!’
The three Brahmins then approach the ferry. Others respectfully give way to them. The roughly built ferry carries them to the far bank in front of the western Ganga-gate, where they are immediately taken into the care of the foreigners-department. Here, as in the Ashokarama, where they are brought, the influence of their varna is very apparent. Quickly, a venerable bhikshu and a number of young ones welcomed the three Brahmins. Water is brought for the feet, a dry piece of cloth, a bench, and footstools are put down for each of them. After they are served food, they ask the older bhikshu if they can be accepted as monks in the monastery.
‘Where have you come from?’
‘From Kashi, lord.’
‘What draws you to the Ashokarama?’
‘Respect for the Buddha, lord.’
‘Do you meet the requirements of a bhikshu?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘I will take you to the abbot.’
They are received by the old Sabahu, who is a Brahmin himself and a great friend of Mahindra, the son of Ashoka, head of the Sangha. His friendly face and charming manners quickly put the three travellers at ease. In turn he asks each of them the questions that are put to all newcomers, enquiring of their place of origin, their physical and their mental condition. Then Sabahu assigns to each an older bhikshu, also a Brahmin, who will assist them in their initiation.
‘This is an impractical kindness that will only serve to promote dissension within the Sangha,’ Utanka remarks.
The solemn initiation takes place a few days later. Utanka, Sama, and Shantanika have their hair shorn and their beards shaved. They enter the great vihara, each with their own preceptor. Each one wears the required three pieces of cloth and carries the begging-bowl. Utanka is the first to be led in.
‘Let the Sangha, reverent gentlemen, hear this: Utanka wishes to receive the Upasamdan initiation from the reverent Vimala. If the Sangha is willing, I will instruct Utanka.’
The Sangha remains silent to denote agreement. They proceed to the chapter. When Utanka has answered all the Sangha’s questions satisfactorily, the presiding bhikshu asks him to recite the three refuges, and Utanka proclaims earnestly, three times: ‘I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha.’
The presiding bhikshu then says in a voice loud enough for all in the Sangha to hear: ‘Let each of the reverend brothers who is for the Upasamdan initiation of Utanka, with the venerable Parna as instructor, remain silent, and each who is against, speak’… He continues calmly: ‘Utanka has received the initiation with the venerable Parna as Upa
dhyaya.. The Sangha is in agreement that is why they remain silent. Thus I understand. Measure the shadow and tell the newly initiated bhikshu, what time of year it is, and which date, and tell him the four resources.’
The Sangha continues the ritual with Shantanika and Sama, and Utanka is told the four resources of the bhikshu: He must live on alms, wear clothes of ‘found rags’, seek his home under a tree, and use diluted cow’s urine7 as medicine. But at the same time, he is informed of the special allowances: besides alms, invitations from upasakas; for clothes, fabrics of linen, cotton, silk, wool and hemp; besides living under a tree, viharas, upper levels and lofts of homes, caves; for medication: ghee, butter, oil, honey and molasses.
Sama whispers to Shantanika: ‘I will keep to the allowances!’ Shantanika silently absorbs the whole ritual. Utanka listens with great earnestness to the lessons of his upadhyaya, who explains the four forbidden acts: sexual intercourse, theft, extinguishing of life, even that of the smallest worm or ant; and to ascribe—motivated by malice and greed—supernatural powers to oneself which is not possessed.
Because of his sincere desire to follow the Buddha, Utanka begins to cultivate a friendly kinship with the better acolytes in the Ashokarama, Sama lowers himself to those who desire a more pleasant and easy life. Shantanika everywhere puts out feelers and listens alert, measuring everything against his great purpose: to give the teachings of Buddha a firm foundation. He knows with his wide knowledge that the Buddhism of Ashoka finds its way into the hearts of Aryavarta. And he understands that his endeavour will mean a conflict with the Emperor, the mighty disciple of the Buddha. Brahmanism permits itself some heaving in its lap but Buddhism is open to many opinions. Brahmins are easily welcomed. Is it not made too easy for the Shudras? Shantanika does shrink from greeting a Shudra while honouring him with a footstool, washing-water and towel. There are plenty of earnest fools like Utanka, but also others, who have retained their pride: to remain in control of the minds of the people, of the land, of the gods. A Brahmin is no Shudra or Chandala, not even in the Sangha. He is contemptuous of the sutra: ‘for a bhikshu exists no varna anymore, all that is of this earth is for him transitory’…
Ashoka the Great Page 74