CHAPTER XVI
Thus have I heard.
At this time the Queen Prajapati, she who had nourished the Blessed One with noble milk when his mother Maya was received into Paradise, sent to our Lord, with a message from herself and from the Princess Yashodara and other ladies of the royal family, and it was this.
“Full of hindrances is the household life, very free the life of the homeless for such as would walk in the way. Let the Blessed One, the Happy One, permit that women also retire to the peace of the homeless life under the discipline taught by the Exalted Lord.”
But he was silent, and a second time they made their petition, for they thought:
“Much need have women of the Peace, and is the way closed to them only?”
And the Queen Prajapati came herself and besought him with tears, and he replied:
“Enough, Lady. Do not make this request,” and weeping and saluting him with reverence she left him.
So wandering from place to place and teaching by the way, the Blessed One came to Vaisali and stayed awhile in the Pagoda Hall, and when she knew where she could find him the Queen Prajapati with shorn hair and yellow robes, followed by a number of the Sakya women journeyed along the dusty ways to Vaisali and stood in the porch of the Pagoda Hall weeping and very sorrowful.
Now it so chanced that the disciple Ananda, cousin of the Exalted One and much loved by him (and he was chosen to wait always about his person), saw those weeping women stand in the porch, dusty and foreworn with the long journey and their tender feet swollen and cut with unwonted travel, and he pitied them and inquired into the cause of their grief.
And having heard all he approached the Blessed One with reverence where he sat full of peace looking out into the green shade of the nyagrodha trees, and after salutation Ananda the beloved sat down beside him waiting until the Lord turned his eyes serenely upon him. And then said Ananda:
“Reverend Sir, here in the entrance stands Prajapati the Queen with swollen feet, sorrowful and weeping, and her word is that the Blessed One will not permit women to retire to the homeless life. Exalted One, I beseech you for these. Let their petition be heard.”
But the Blessed One replied:
“Enough, Ananda. Do not ask this.”
And again and yet again the beloved Ananda besought and still the Lord refused. And then the thought occurred to Ananda that he might ask in another manner with more success, for he pitied the women for this great denial of their hope. And he said:
“Lord, if women retire to the homeless life is it possible for them to attain to the goal of returning only once more to rebirth? Is it possible that escaping from sorrow they should attain to saintship?”
And the Blessed One in whom is all truth, answered:
“This is possible.”
And the face of Ananda gladdened even like his name which signifies Joy, and he said:
“Then I beseech the Perfected One to consider how great a benefactress to the Order has been the Queen. She is sister to the mother of the Blessed One and at her breast was he nourished. I beseech and yet again beseech that they be admitted, for if it be possible that they thus make an end of sorrow shall not this be permitted?”
Then said the Blessed One:
“Hard is it to refuse and I cannot. If therefore these women will accept eight weighty regulations in addition to those accepted by the Order—eight weighty regulations making them subject to the Order, it shall be reckoned to them for ordination.”
And when he had received the eight weighty regulations hard to be borne, for they set the oldest and most venerable of nuns below the youngest and least of the Order, Ananda went out to the Queen and told her all as she stood patiently with the wearied women. And when they heard the regulations sorrow passed from them as when the moon escaping from a cloud floats in pure radiance in pure air, and the Queen answered for Yashodara and for all those tender ones:
“Reverend Ananda, as a woman young, beautiful, and loving to beautify herself, having obtained a wreath of blue lotus-flowers, or of perfumed jasmin, takes it and wreathes her head with joy, so do we. O venerable Ananda, we take up those eight weighty regulations, not to be transgressed while life lasts.”
And that was their ordination, as the Exalted One had said, and Ananda returned to the Lord and told him of their joy. And he meditated and said:
“If, Ananda, women had not retired to the homeless life, under my discipline then would religion have endured long in this country, even a thousand years. But now, not very long will the discipline and religion endure. And just as a man prudently builds a dike in order that water confined may not transgress its bounds, have I laid down the eight weighty regulations. Yet shall it not endure, since women have accepted the rules.”
And true it is that in India the faith has not endured, but over the rest of Asia has it spread, strong and mighty.
But the women were glad at heart, for the homeless life drew them with the very passion of peace and many became great saints, some dwelling in forests and in caves, and great to them was the joy of peace in the solitudes far from crowds, and they were filled with the life of trees and great forests and the strength of the up-running sap and the speechless communion and growth of trees and plants. And in many joy broke forth in words and they made the Psalms of the Sisters, even as their brothers the monks also sang for joy and could no more be silent than birds at dawn, and the world they had known called to ears that heard no longer. And thus it called:
“Young art thou, sister, and faultless—what seekest thou in the holy life?
Cast off that yellow-hued raiment and come!”
And each replied in her own manner.
“I what was well to do have done, and what
Is to my heart delectable. Therein
Is my delight, and thus through happiness
Has happiness been sought after and won.”
Young and old they rejoiced, and the solitudes were kind to them, admitting them to fellowship. And one aged sister spoke this:
“Though I be suffering and weak and all
My spring of youth be gone, yet have I come
Leaning upon my staff and climbed aloft
On mountain peak. My cloak have I thrown off
My little bowl o’er-turned; so sit I here
Upon the rock. And o’er my spirit sweeps
The breath of Liberty. I win, I win
The Triple Lore! The Buddha’s will be done.”
For now, they who had been the prisoners of man and of opinion learnt the beauty of the solitudes, and knew the silence that is in the starry sky, the sleep that is among the lonely hills, and it became theirs, and they attained to the coolness, purity and luminance of the Peace, bathing in it as in moonlit water. For they had passed through the Three Grades of Training, the Higher habit of Conduct, the Higher Consciousness, and the Higher Wisdom, and thus, knowing the world, not as it appears to be but as it is, knowing “This is Ill; this is the cause of Ill; this is the way leading to the cessation of Ill,” they were glad, and right ecstasy was theirs and joys that cannot be told, and they were free.
And another said this:
“Nirvana have I realized and gazed
Into the mirror of the holy Norm.
I, even I, am healed of all my hurt.
Down is my burden laid, my task is done,
My heart is wholly set at liberty.”
And again:
“One day bathing my feet, I sit and watch
The water as it trickles down the slope.
Thereby I set my heart in steadfastness,
As one shall train a horse of noble breed.
Then, going to my cell, I take my lamp,
And seated on my couch I watch the flame.
Taking the pin I pull the wick right down
Into the oil. Extinguished is the fire.
Lo, the Nirvana of the little lamp.
Emancipation dawns. My heart is free.”
For as the flame is quenched so are all lusts, desires and cravings extinguished in the clear waters of Nirvana. There is no fire so burning as the greed of passion, no luckless cast of the dice so cruel as hate, no ill so miserable as that of the ego that would claim all. Nor is there any bliss to be compared with the Nirvana.
And the monks, also musing, made psalms that cannot die, for upon them also was the bliss.
“When in the lowering sky thunders the storm-cloud’s drum,
And all the pathways of the birds are thick with rain,
The brother sits within the hollow of the hills
Alone, rapt in thought’s ecstasy. No higher bliss
Is given to men than this.
Or where by rivers flowers crowd the bank,
And fragrant rushes scent the tranquil air
With heart serene the brother sits to see,
Alone, rapt in an ecstasy. No higher bliss
Is given to men than this.”
And another:
“Whene’er I see the crane, her clear pale wings
Outstretched in fear to flee the black storm cloud,
A shelter seeking, to safe shelter borne,
Then does the river Ajakarani
Give joy to me.
Who shall not love to see on either bank
Clustered rose-apple trees in bright array
Beyond the great cave of the hermitage?
Or hear the soft croak of the frogs, their foes,
The legions of the air, withdrawn, proclaim
Now from the mountain streams is’t time to-day
To flit. Safe is the Ajakarani.
She brings us luck! Here it is good to be.”[[5]]
[5] These Psalms are all translated by C. F. Rhys Davids.
Thus very great joy had come to be by the Blessed One’s sufferings, and for each pang he had paid came a golden harvest of the peace of others.
To Him who had thus Attained came men and women from far and near with doubts and questions, and seated with dignity (for his noble Aryan birth was upon him as well as the Peace) he received them all, answering and resolving their doubts, nor was it difficult for him to do this for his eyes were as the sun in his strength to divide light from darkness.
Yet let it be well understood that of certain things he would not speak, counting them beyond human knowledge and knowing well that in no human speech are there words to bear the burden of the Ineffable. Therefore when men asked him of the Beginning, how division from the Eternal into the false ego-self came into the world and from what well of bitterness evil thought and evil doing flowed to become tears and blood in their flowing, he would not answer, for none but a Buddha can comprehend the deepest, and he only in ways beyond transmission to others. And he would say:
“The arrow sticks in the wound, will you wait before the healer draws it out to enquire of what wood is it made and whether the bowstring is of hair or vegetable fibre? Life is ebbing while you theorize credulously about present and future, self or identity. Of the origins I do not teach.”
And when again they besought him to say whether life or nothingness lay beyond death, only his own nearest disciples could read the fathomless depths of his calm, looking rather to this than to his speech. For he said, being alone with them to whom it was given to know:
“In this world of forms and illusions created by our senses, according to our illusion a man either is or is not, either lives or dies, but in the true and formless world this is not so for all is otherwise than according to our knowledge and it is easier to answer in negatives than in affirmatives. And if you ask Does a man live beyond death, I answer No, not in any sense comprehensible to the mind of man which itself dies at death. And if you ask does a man altogether die at death, I answer No, for what dies is what belongs to this world of form and illusion, that is the false I, but beyond this is another world incomprehensible as yet to such as are not instructed and beyond all human categories, so that if I would I cannot tell you of it, but I would not, for the things are disturbing and do not aid the traveller on the only path which can bring him to their threshold. Therefore of that and of the origins I do not teach.”
But this ego which the unenlightened believes to be himself, very certainly falls apart and dissolves at death, nor is there any place of continuance for it, and it is wholly extinct.
And it so happened that one day a wandering monk, by name Vacchagotta, came to the Exalted One, and saluting him with friendly greetings he sat down beside him, and he asked:
“How does the matter stand, venerated Gotama? In a man is there the Ego?”
And the Exalted One was silent, and Vacchagotta asked again and yet again and still there was silence, and after awhile he rose and went away.
But the beloved Ananda came to Him who has thus Attained, and said:
“Why, sir, did you not answer the wandering monk Vacchagotta?” And, smiling, he looked in the face of the beloved Ananda.
“If, Ananda, when he asked me, I had answered ‘The ego is,’ then that reply would have confirmed the teaching of those who believe in the permanence of that false ego which is a bundle of tendencies and consciousness and proudly calls itself I and the Soul; and if I had said the ego is not, this would have confirmed the teaching of those who say there is annihilation and nothing beyond death. For neither of these schools, nor yet Vacchagotta, know the distinction between the ego of which he asked me and the true Ego, for this last is eternal and beyond comprehension, and the false ego passes and is gone like a dream in the awakening of dawn. Therefore since Vacchagotta has not attained to the threshold of that knowledge, being prisoned in the world of appearances, what could I do but keep silence?”
And the beloved Ananda laid his hand upon his mouth and retired, for with all his heart of love he had not yet attained to the full insight of the unreality of appearances, but where he could not understand he loved. And love is also the Way, as witness the monk Purna who was about to carry the light into a land of violent and perilous people. So the Perfected One sent for him, and asked:
“And if, monk, these people abuse and injure you, what will be your thought?”
“That these people are good in that they only abuse me and do not beat me.”
“But if they beat you?”
“Then I shall think they are good in that they only beat me and do not stab me with swords.”
“But if with swords?”
“Then I shall think: They are good. They leave me my life.”
“But if they take your life?”
“Then,—They are good to me in that they have lifted a burden from me.”
And looking upon his face the World-Honoured said:
“Well have you spoken, Purna. Go and deliver, you who have delivered yourself. Comfort, for you are comforted. Guide to the Peace, for you have entered it.”
So Purna went in joy.
And there was a monk named Yamaka who, considering the teaching, believed that on the dissolution of the body the man who has lost all depravity is annihilated and exists no more. And his fellow monks having in vain urged him to abandon so wicked a heresy called upon Sariputta the Great to teach him better, and by his silence he consented.
So when the evening was come, Sariputta the Great rose from deep meditation and drawing near to Yamaka he greeted him with courtesy as one monk should another and sitting down respectfully beside him he questioned him thus:
“Is the report true, brother Yamaka, that the wicked heresy of annihilation has sprung up in your mind?”
“Even so, brother, do I understand the teaching of the Blessed One.”
And Sariputta the Great mused a moment and resumed:
“What think you, brother Yamaka;—is his bodily form the saint?”
“No indeed, brother.”
“Are sensation, perception, predispositions, the saint?”
“Certainly not, brother.”
“Then can you consider the saint as apart and distinct from form, sensation, perception and predispositions?”
“Brother, I cannot.”
“And if separately they are not, are they when united the saint?”
“Brother, no.”
“Then what think you, brother Yamaka? If you cannot prove the very existence of the saint in this world of forms and appearances, is it reasonable for you to say that at death the saint is annihilated and does not exist.”
And holding down his head for shame Yamaka answered:
“Brother Sariputta, it was through ignorance I held that wicked heresy, but now I have acquired the True Doctrine.”
For Sariputta the Great taught as did his Master that the true being is detached from each of these delusive selves of consciousness, sensation, perception, and predispositions, and the saint who has attained has detached himself even in this life from belief that these are himself—his ego. How then should it be that the essential perishes when these dissolve with the dying brain in death? Yet has this wicked heresy been spread, though clear as day must it be made to those who tread the way that it is a lie and no truth.
For thus have I heard. After the death of the Perfected One, the King of Kosala, journeying from Savatthi, met with the learned nun Khema, renowned for wisdom, and the King, respectfully saluting her, asked her of the Teaching.
“Venerable Lady, the Perfect One is dead. Does he exist after death?”
“Great King, the Exalted One has not declared that he exists after death.”
“Then, venerable Lady, does the Perfect One not exist.”
“The Perfect One has not declared that he does not exist after death.”
“But, venerable Lady,—does and does not? How is this possible?”
And, smiling a little, the learned nun replied:
“Great King, have you an accountant or a mint-master who could count the sands of Ganges and lay the figure before you?”
“Venerable Lady, no.”
“Or who could measure the drops in the ocean?”
“Again no, venerable Lady.”
“And why? Because the ocean is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable. So also is it if the existence of the Perfect One be measured by any human category, for all statements of bodily form are abolished in the Perfect One; their root is severed; they are done with and can germinate no more. The Perfect One is released from the possibility that his being can be gauged in any human terms. He is now deep, immeasurable and unfathomable as the ocean, and neither the terms of existence or of non-existence as understood by the world fit him any more.”
Then there was a long silence and the King having heard the nun Khema’s words with approbation, rose and bowed reverently before her and went his way.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor can the tongue tell of such matters for they are beyond and above us. And it is for this reason that the Blessed One replied thus to the venerable Malukya, when he reproached the Perfect One as follows:
“Is the world eternal or the slave of time? Does the World-Honoured live on beyond death? It pleases me not at all that all these important matters should remain unanswered. May it please the Master to answer them if he can. And if he does not know let him say so plainly.”
But the Master replied with his smile:
“Did I say to you, Malukya,—‘Come and be my disciple, and I will teach you whether the world is everlasting or finite, whether the vital faculty is separate from the body or one with it, whether the Exalted One lives or does not live after death?’ Did I promise all this?”
“No, sir, you did not.”
“And, Malukya, if a man is struck by a poisoned arrow, suppose he says—‘I will never allow my wound to be treated until I know who shot the arrow—was it a man of high or low caste. And I must know whether he is tall or short, and how his bow and arrows are made!’—Would this be a sensible proceeding? Surely no. He would die of his wounds.
“Why have I not made these things clear? Because the knowledge of them does not conduce to holiness nor right detachment, nor to peace and enlightenment.—What is needed for these I teach, the truth of suffering and its origin, the truth of the Way to its cessation. Therefore let what I have not revealed rest, and follow that which I have revealed.”
And Malukya was content, knowing at last that in this life these questions are deep, mysterious and unanswerable, and the sole way to their understanding is to live the life, untroubled by controversy and dogma on such things as cannot be uttered in terms of human knowledge.
For there is a Knowledge veiled in excess of light which dazzles the eyes to blindness. Let words be few. Let good deeds be many. He understands it for whom it passes thought. Who thinks of it can never know it. And if it could be told in words it would not be the Truth.
And there is yet another example of this. For once in early days the Blessed One sat high among his own upon the Peak of Vultures, and there came before his quiet feet a Shining One and laid there a golden flower, praying that he would speak and in sweet speech instruct them of the innermost of the Peace. The Blessed One received the golden flower within his hand and sat in utter calm but spoke no word and all the Assembly mused what this might mean, and, musing, could not know. But at long last, Kassapa the Great smiled, also in silence, and the Blessed One said softly:
“I hold within my heart the Treasure of the Law, the wondrous knowledge that is the Peace. This have I given to Kassapa wordless, and wordless he has seen and known.”
So passes the vision from heart to heart. But words cannot tell it to the brain.