The splendour of Asia: The story and teaching of the Buddha

by L. Adams Beck

And peaceful was the City of Kapila, the City of Red Earth, home of the Sakya clansmen, a race strong and high, for they were of the Arya, the Noble People, and it was they who descending into India through the passes had conquered the dark men of the land and driven them before them like the shadows of night fleeing before the arrows of dawn; and having dispossessed the dark-skinned, the lawless, the godless, the fair-skinned Noble People entered in upon their lands and made them theirs. With them the Noble People brought their Gods of Heaven and Earth, and these they worshipped with sacrifice and ritual and chanting of mantra and offerings of cows and grain and ghi and all the savours dear to hovering divinity. And in peace and plenty their Maharaja ruled them.

Very fair was the city on the banks of bright Rohini. As there were few men of arrogant, dominant riches, so was there no piercing poverty, and, since life was simple, all had enough. The streets were clean-swept and watered, and parks and gardens lay about them where men might shelter in the great heats and the gay, golden-skinned children played beside the river and grew sleek and round on their food of pure rice and plantains and milk from the deep-dewlapped cattle that wound home in the evenings from high pastures by running water.

Nor was there fare only for the body. Wise men, the Wanderers, they whose minds are fixed on things unearthly and whose souls climb toward keen stars as the cragsmen follow the eagle to her eyry above the clouds, came in from mighty forests where the hermits and their families dwell in peace with God and man pursuing the purities of the householder’s life in the wilds;—bringing with them the dreams, the speculations, the conclusions of the hermits and themselves. And for such the Raja had made a hall of cedarwood in the city, where they might hold disputations with its wise men and the simpler folk sit and listen, bestowing applause or condemnation as they heard. For there was none in the city, gentle or simple, noble or humble, but set the things of the spirit above the chaffer of the market-place and lent a ready ear to such talk. Nor did they fear to speak, for the Arya are free peoples, coming from the north and bold and adventurous.

And of these Wanderers the people learnt much, for if the clansmen were free, these were freer. No love of earthly homes or riches held them. Strip one of them of his worldly all—his tattered robe and bowl for alms—and he would depart content, smiling his strange, secret smile, as a man whose treasure is beyond thief or destroyer. But for the Wasa, the three months’ rainy season, they would stay, willing to speak or to hear, satisfied with a very little, and when the sun shone again, depart like migrating birds on their mysterious way. And sometimes would come one, God-intoxicated, utterly heedless of men, scarce emerging from samadhi, the mystic ecstasy; and him would men surround with mute envy because in that trance he beheld things not lawful nor possible to be uttered. And such would stay but a little while and then, heedless of rain or sun or wind or snow, press on to the cold glories of the mountains, alone and in haste, and reappear no more.

So does the flame of the Divine draw the moth of the spirit of man to hover about it until, dazzled and drunken with radiance, it joins itself to the flame and is consumed into pure light.

Yet was not the talk of the City of Kapila for ever of things divine, for bygone Rajas and this one also (knowing that where there is a North-man he must still be talking and much trouble thereby averted) had made a Folk Mote, a meeting hall, and not one only, where in the different quarters of the town men might gather and talk of their affairs, the farmers and handicraftsmen alike,—the sowing and harvesting of rice, the well-doing of cattle, the doings of the Kosalans, of whom they themselves were a clan, the subjugation of the swarthy natives among whom they lay as pearls in a black ocean, the ambitions of the Kings of Magadha, the trading of the merchants, and many things more which concerned them nearly. And each householder had the right to be heard, for each in his own house was king and priest and there none might say him nay, were it not that the Brahmans made or unmade his peace with the Lords of Heaven through gifts and sacrifices and a ritual grown exceedingly heavy and burdensome. But against these even the fair-skinned people, the Arya, as they called themselves, did not as yet dare to murmur.

The women of Kapila also were wives and mothers of free men. Their faces were not veiled save when they themselves for modesty chose to draw the folds between themselves and too bold a gaze. They shared the joys and sorrows of their men, though the great ladies were screened. And if they walked in the ways of ritual piety even more eagerly and laid daily gifts even more precious at the feet of the Brahmans, this is the way of women all the world over.

And these happy people had a good Maharaja, named Suddhodana, or Pure Rice, because not only were his granaries and those of his fathers’ before him full to overflowing, but his heart was pure as the grains of living pearl; a man grave and kind, rich also in cattle and elephants, yet not arrogant with riches, charitable, alms-giving, reverencing the Brahman and the ascetic, walking in peace in the way of ancient pieties, with thoughts of his own to think as he raised his eyes to the mountains, awful in the heavens as intermediaries between men and Gods. And he had taken to wife two fair sisters, the elder, Maya, the younger, Prajapati; and by the elder, the more dearly loved, had as yet no child and by neither a son to succeed him on his peaceful seat of rulership. And this was a grief to him, for when he was gone who should sacrifice to his soul and the souls of the great dead fathers? Very sweet and grateful is the tenderness of daughters, but this they cannot do.

And one day, as they sat in the pleasure pavilion beside the waters of Rohini, listening to her song of the snows as she danced onward, downward from the heights, the Maharaja Suddhodana opened his heart once more to his wives. And one, Maya the Maharani, sat at his feet on a cushion of silk woven with gold, and her beauty was calm as the evening star shining in a faint moonlight, luminous, remote, veiled with dreams and hopes unknown to others. The second Queen, Prajapati, was fair and gentle, and no more—yet that is much, as shall be shown. And these two were sisters in heart as in blood and wifehood. So, laying his hand on the head of Maya, the Maharaja spoke softly:

“What dreams my Queen?”