On the two following sculptures (123 and 125 W. L., 2 and 3 after the staircase) he communicates his resolution to his wife (or wives), and his meditating posture, but also the larger disc of light crowning the higher seat upon which, among sleeping women and servants, he is watching the last night, all this speaks of the holy task of life which raises him for ever above his family.
The following scene (127 W. L., 1 after the first angle) tells us, how, in spite of closed doors and sleeping gate-keepers, he succeeds in leaving house and home to begin abroad the life of a poor wanderer seated on the noble sun-horse Kanthaka. The lotus-cushion carrying him again, just as it happened when he descended to earth, and which, on the next sculptures (129 W. L., 1 after the second corner) also carries Kanthaka through the air, speaks once more of his heavenly sending.
Then come the leave-takings from his servant Tyhanda (131 W. L., second angle, 2), and the taking off his princely garb (133 W. L., second angle, 3), his hair-dress and weapons (135 W. L., second angle 4 and following ones), and shabbily clothed in a hunter’s skirt—his first cowl turned yellow by long usage—he begins the life of the thinking ascetic whose sanctifying power we see continually indicated by the lotus-cushion and the disc of light.
Mâra, the wicked spirit of darkness, vainly tries to check him by offering him the dominion over the four parts of the world (the East, South, West, and North)[36].
Far from his native town Siddhârta already began his new life which henceforth gave him claim to the name of the wise Shâkya (Shâkya-muni)[37].
The following sculptures show us the penitent clothed as Buddha with the urna and the tiara, the ring of hair on his forehead, and the knot of hair on his crest, with the lotus-cushion and disc of the sun worshipped by princes and inferior people, by priests and laymen, men, women and celestials.
On the seventy-second sculpture (141 W. L., angle three, 1) we see him ask for being instructed by the wise brahmin Alara who is unable to teach his wiser superior[38]. The Shâkya’s superiority appears from his Buddha posture and his lotus-throne.
On the now following one [143 W. L., 1 after the fourth angle] we see him near another wise person, called Udraka[39], and as this one also turns out to be his inferior he leaves him accompanied by five of his [Udraka’s] disciples.
On the following one [145 W. L., 2 after the fourth angle] he approaches Rajargriha[40], the capital of the empire of Magadha. Its king Bimbisâra and the queen come to visit him, and offer him half their empire, but the Bodhisattva doesn’t seek for worldly greatness.
The two first scenes on the north side [151 and 153 W. L., fifth angle, 1 and 2] place him and his five followers on the banks of a brook, vainly trying to seek strength [for wisdom] in a life of abstinence and penitence. He therefore breaks with that life and with his disciples, who wrongly suppose him an apostate and leave him alone to continue elsewhere their lives of penitence. Six years of misery convinced the wise Shâkya that a sound spirit can live in a sound body only.