BOOK V.
Now mighty Mara, spirit of the air,
The prince of darkness, ruling worlds below,
Had watched for Buddha all these weary years,
Seeking to lead his steady steps astray
By many wiles his wicked wit devised,
Lest he at length should find the living light
And rescue millions from his dark domains.
Now, showing him the kingdoms of the world.
He offered him the Chakravartin's crown;
Now, opening seas of knowledge, shoreless, vast,
Knowledge of ages past and yet to come,
Knowledge of nature and the hidden laws
That guide her changes, guide the roiling spheres,
Sakwal on sakwal,[1] boundless, infinite,
Yet ever moving on in harmony,
He thought to puff his spirit up with pride
Till he should quite forget a suffering world,
In sin and sorrow groping blindly on.
But when he saw that lust of power moved not,
And thirst for knowledge turned him not aside
From earnest search after the living light,
From tender love for every living thing,
He sent the tempters Doubt and dark Despair.
And as he watched for final victory
He saw that light flash through the silent cave,
And heard the Buddha breathe that earnest prayer,
And fled amazed, nor dared to look behind.
For though to Buddha all his way seemed dark,
His wily enemy could see a Power,
A mighty Power, that ever hovered near,
A present help in every time of need,
When sinking souls seek earnestly for aid.
He fled, indeed, as flies the prowling wolf,
Alarmed at watch-dog's bark or shepherd's voice,
While seeking entrance to the slumbering fold,
But soon returns with soft and stealthy step,
With keenest scent snuffing the passing breeze,
With ears erect catching each slightest sound,
With glaring eyes watching each moving thing,
With hungry jaws, skulking about the fold
Till coming dawn drives him to seek his lair.
So Mara fled, and so he soon returned,
And thus he watched the Buddha's every step;
Saw him with gentleness quell haughty power;
Saw him with tenderness raise up the weak;
Heard him before the Brahmans and the king
Denounce those bloody rites ordained by him;
Heard him declare the deadly work of Sin,
His own prime minister and eldest-born;
Heard him proclaim the mighty power of Love
To cleanse the life and make the flinty heart
As soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
And when he saw whither he bent his steps,
He sent three wrinkled hags, deformed and foul,
The willing agents of his wicked will—
Life-wasting Idleness, the thief of time;
Lascivious Lust, whose very touch defiles,
Poisoning the blood, polluting all within;
And greedy Gluttony, most gross of all,
Whose ravening maw forever asks for more—
To that delightful garden near his way,
To tempt the Master, their true forms concealed—
For who so gross that such coarse hags could tempt?—
But clothed instead in youthful beauty's grace.
And now he saw him pass unmoved by lust,
Nor yet with cold, self-righteous pride puffed up,
But breathing pity from his inmost soul
E'en for the ministers of vice themselves.
Defeated, not discouraged, still he thought
To try one last device, for well he knew
That Buddha's steps approached the sacred tree
Where light would dawn and all his power would end.
Upon a seat beside the shaded path,
A seeming aged Brahman, Mara sat,
And when the prince approached, his tempter rose,
Saluting him with gentle stateliness,
Saluted in return with equal grace.
"Whither away, my son?" the tempter said,
"If you to Gaya now direct your steps,
Perhaps your youth may cheer my lonely age."
"I go to seek for light," the prince replied,
"But where it matters not, so light be found."
But Mara answered him: "Your search is vain.
Why seek to know more than the Vedas teach?
Why seek to learn more than the teachers know?
But such is youth; the rosy tints of dawn
Tinge all his thoughts. 'Excelsior!' he cries,
And fain would scale the unsubstantial clouds
To find a light that knows no night, no change;
We Brahmans chant our hymns in solemn wise,
The vulgar listen with profoundest awe;
But still our muffled heart-throbs beat the march
Onward, forever onward, to the grave,
When one ahead cries, 'Lo! I see a light!'
And others clutch his garments, following on.
Till all in starless darkness disappear,
There may be day beyond this starless night,
There may be life beyond this dark profound—
But who has ever seen that changeless day?
What steps have e'er retraced that silent road?
Fables there are, hallowed by hoary age,
Fables and ancient creeds, that men have made
To give them power with ignorance and fear;
Fables of gods with human passions filled:
Fables of men who walked and talked with gods;
Fables of kalpas passed, when Brahma slept
And all created things were wrapped in flames,
And then the floods descended, chaos reigned,
The world a waste of waters, and the heavens
A sunless void, until again he wakes,
And sun and moon and stars resume their rounds,
Oceans receding show the mountain-tops,
And then the hills and spreading plains—
Strange fables all, that crafty men have feigned.
Why waste your time pursuing such vain dreams—
As some benighted travelers chase false lights
To lose themselves in bogs and fens at last?
But read instead in Nature's open book
How light from darkness grew by slow degrees;
How crawling worms grew into light-winged birds,
Acquiring sweetest notes and gayest plumes;
How lowly ferns grew into lofty palms;
How men have made themselves from chattering apes;[2]
How, even from protoplasm to highest bard,
Selecting and rejecting, mind has grown,
Until at length all secrets are unlocked,
And man himself now stands pre-eminent,
Maker and master of his own great self,
To sneer at all his lisping childlike past
And laugh at all his fathers had revered."
The prince with gentle earnestness replied:
"Full well I know how blindly we grope on
In doubt and fear and ignorance profound,
The wisdom of the past a book now sealed.
But why despise what ages have revered?
As some rude plowman casts on rubbish-heaps
The rusty casket that his share reveals,
Not knowing that within it are concealed
Most precious gems, to make him rich indeed,
The hand that hid them from the robber, cold,
The key that locked this rusty casket, lost.
The past was wise, else whence that wondrous tongue[3]
That we call sacred, which the learned speak,
Now passing out of use as too refined
For this rude age, too smooth for our rough tongues,
Too rich and delicate for our coarse thoughts.
Why should such men make fables so absurd
Unless within their rough outside is stored
Some precious truth from profanation hid?
Revere your own, revile no other faith,
Lest with the casket you reject the gems,
Or with rough hulls reject the living seed.
Doubtless in nature changes have been wrought
That speak of ages in the distant past,
Whose contemplation fills the mind with awe.
The smooth-worn pebbles on the highest hills
Speak of an ocean sweeping o'er their tops;
The giant palms, now changed to solid rocks,
Speak of the wonders of a buried world.
Why seek to solve the riddle nature puts,
Of whence and why, with theories and dreams?
The crawling worm proclaims its Maker's power;
The singing bird proclaims its Maker's skill;
The mind of man proclaims a greater Mind,
Whose will makes world, whose thoughts are living acts.
Our every heart-throb speaks of present power,
Preserving, recreating, day by day.
Better confess how little we can know,
Better with feet unshod and humble awe
Approach this living Power to ask for aid."
And as he spoke the devas filled the air,
Unseen, unheard of men, and sweetly sung:
"Hail, prince of peace! hail, harbinger of day!
The darkness vanishes, the light appears."
But Mara heard, and silent slunk away,
The o'erwrought prince fell prostrate on the ground
And lay entranced, while devas hovered near,
Watching each heart-throb, breathing that sweet calm
Its guardian angel gives the sleeping child.
The night has passed, the day-star fades from sight,
And morning's softest tint of rose and gold
Tinges the east and tips the mountain-tops.
The silent village stirs with waking life,
The bleat of goats and low of distant herds,
The song of birds and crow of jungle-cocks
Breathe softest music through the dewy air.
And now two girls,[4] just grown to womanhood,
The lovely daughters of the village lord,
Trapusha one, and one Balika called,
Up with the dawn, trip lightly o'er the grass,
Bringing rich curds and rice picked grain by grain,
A willing offering to their guardian god—
Who dwelt, as all the simple folk believed,
Beneath an aged bodhi-tree that stood
Beside the path and near where Buddha lay—
To ask such husbands as their fancies paint,
Gentle and strong, and noble, true and brave;
And having left their gifts and made their vows,
With timid steps the maidens stole away.
But while the outer world is filled with life.
That inner world from whence this life proceeds,
Concealed from sight by matter's blinding folds,
Whose coarser currents fill with wondrous power
The nervous fluid of the universe
Which darts through nature's frame, from star to star,
From cloud to cloud, filling the world with awe;
Now harnessed to our use, a patient drudge,
Heedless of time or space, bears human thought
From land to land and through the ocean's depths;
And bears the softest tones of human speech
Faster than light, farther than ocean sounds;
And whirls the clattering car through crowded streets,
And floods with light the haunts of prowling thieves—
That inner world, whose very life is love,
Pure love, and perfect, infinite, intense,
That world is now astir. A rift appears
In those dark clouds that rise from sinful souls
And hide from us its clear celestial light,
And clouds of messengers from that bright world,
Whom they called devas and we angels call,
Rush to that rift to rescue and to save.
The wind from their bright wings fanned Buddha's soul,
The love from their sweet spirits warmed his heart.
He starts from sleep, but rising, scarcely knows
If he had seen a vision while awake,
Or, sunk in sleep, had dreamed a heavenly dream.
From that pure presence all his tempters fled.
The calm of conflict ended filled his soul,
And led by unseen hands he forward passed
To where the sacred fig-tree long had grown,
Beneath whose shade the village altar stood,
Where simple folk would place their willing gifts,
And ask the aid their simple wants required,
Believing all the life above, around,
The life within themselves, must surely come
From living powers that ever hovered near.
Here lay the food Sagata's daughters brought,
The choicest products of his herds and fields,
This grateful food met nature's every need,
Diffused a healthful glow through all his frame,
And all the body's eager yearnings stilled.
Seven days he sat, and ate no more nor drank,
Yet hungered not, nor burned with parching thirst,
For heavenly manna fed his hungry soul—
Its wants were satisfied, the body's ceased.
Seven days he sat, in sweet internal peace
Waiting for light, and sure that light would come,
When seeming scales fell from his inner sight,
His spirit's eyes were opened and he saw
Not far away, but near, within, above,
As dwells the soul within this mortal frame,
A world within this workday world of ours,
The living soul of all material things.
Eastward he saw a never-setting Sun,
Whose light is truth, the light of all the worlds,
Whose heat is tender, all-embracing love,
The inmost Life of everything that lives,
The mighty Prototype and primal Cause
Of all the suns that light this universe,
From ours, full-orbed, that tints the glowing east
And paints the west a thousand varied shades,
To that far distant little twinkling star
That seems no larger than the glow-worm's lamp,
Itself a sun to light such worlds as ours;
And round about Him clouds of living light,
Bright clouds of cherubim and seraphim,
Who sing His praise and execute His will—
Not idly singing, as the foolish feign,
But voicing forth their joy they work and sing;
Doing His will, their works sound forth His praise.