But the minister remained respectfully silent, and the Maharaja continued:
“For my son is not as the other young nobles, free and gay and enamoured of sports and battle and women, but the opposite—rather enduring than sharing the frolics suited to his age; and when I see him meditating beneath the rose-laurels and mark his calm, abstracted eyes, it recalls to me the saying of the sage Asita, that ‘embarking in the boat of wisdom, he shall save the world from peril.’ Now, were this to be the wisdom of a great King delivering his people, I might triumph as I did in hearing it, but if it is to be the cold wisdom of the Wanderers and forest-dwellers, then I desire none of it, for to embark in that boat is to be severed from power and from all things dear and desirable to the heart of man. What, then, is your counsel?”
And with grief written in his face, the aged minister replied:
“Great sir, who shall challenge Fate and the unwritten laws of the Divine? I will own that sometimes in the noble youth’s presence I have felt as it were a cold air blowing between him and me, as though he stood apart from lesser men. And more than once this thought has occurred: Suppose this noble Siddhartha is a Bodhisattva, destined in his next re-birth to be a Buddha, how then shall we fight against a destiny so great and awful? But yet it may not be thus, and so rarely does a Buddha appear upon the earth that there is neither experience nor knowledge to guide us.”
And, trembling, the Maharaja replied:
“You voice my very fear. It is certain that many of the predictions which my soul applied to earthly glory, may be read otherwise if considered. But since I dread this unspeakably and we are by no means certain of the end, what is your counsel that we may divert him and so fulfil his mind with beauty and bliss, that these cold visions may blow away like mists at sunrise and leave him glad?”
Then, smiling subtly, the old man answered:
“There is one way, and one only. For it is acknowledged throughout the three worlds that there is no charm of forgetfulness like the beauty of a woman. On her bosom the Gods are forgotten and the wisdom of the wise is vanity.”
But the Maharaja, with impatience:
“This is true of others, but as for my son, he has seen the loveliest face to face and has never turned to look again. Think better, old man.”