“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Siddhartha said quietly. It was a deceptive quiet because inside himself he felt a battle being fought on the edge of awareness. It wasn’t a battle of words or images; everything proceeded silently, like a creeping epidemic or like foul, noxious air seeping through a cracked windowpane.
This was no stranger. Siddhartha had known all along who he was and that his name was Mara. He felt trapped and helpless. All his life he had endured the demon’s attentions on the periphery of his mind.
“What do you want of me?”
Mara offered his hand. “I want to teach you. I want to help.” He smiled, but the taint of his intentions marred the effort. Siddhartha didn’t take the proffered hand. He sank on the ground, burying his face between his knees. If he was the special target of Mara’s intentions, there must be a reason. It could be great sin or great weakness on his part, but Siddhartha knew this wasn’t the case. It was nothing he had ever done that attracted the demon. Therefore, it had to be something he might do. The fact that he hadn’t defeated Mara in one night didn’t mean he would always fail.
Mara scowled, watching the motionless youth crouched before him. It was a delicate moment. He could feel the workings of Siddhartha’s mind; gradually the crack that Mara had found began to close up again. Siddhartha began to feel calmer. His mind had created a train of argument that he could believe in. He would vanquish the demon, not by resisting him but by finding a place that was already safe from him. Siddhartha didn’t know where that place was yet, but with an uncanny certainty he knew it existed. Siddhartha looked up, seeing the full moon overhead, and he realized that no one was looming over him anymore and no shadow appeared except the one cast by the high walls of the maze.
Mara, who had shed his mortal form, watched the prince leave without pursuing him. The demon felt that a great secret had been stripped from him, and by someone so guileless and young. Siddhartha had figured out that demons enter the mind when we resist them. The stronger our efforts to fortify ourselves against temptation, the stronger temptation has us in its grip. Mara sighed. But his confidence wasn’t shaken. He still had his allies. The coming battle would be interesting, which wasn’t often the case. He was irked, but he wouldn’t be defeated. Of that Mara could be certain.
8
The day after the banquet everyone’s attention shifted to the king’s entertainments and the part that his son, now elevated in the world’s eyes, would play. No one saw the prince, however. The next morning Canki was summoned to Suddhodana’s chambers, where he found father and son huddled together. Siddhartha looked away, lost in his own private world. Obviously his father had been hammering at him, with less and less effect.
“Tell him,” Suddhodana commanded the moment Canki entered the room. “Put some sense in his head. He has to understand how serious this is.”
“The prince knows his duties very well, Your Highness,” Canki began.
Jumping to his feet Suddhodana erupted. “Stop it! I don’t need a politician. The boy doesn’t understand anything.”
“What exactly is the matter?” Canki resorted to his most placating tone.
Suddhodana glared at him. “I’ve arranged mock combats for tomorrow. The army has been readied. I want him”—he pointed at his son—“to fight the way he’s supposed to.”
Canki turned to Siddhartha. “And you refused? I’m surprised.”
Siddhartha kept silent. Canki already knew about the war games and the zeal that Suddhodana had put into them. The king didn’t want to stop at creating awe among his guests. He wanted them to witness firsthand what would happen to anyone who had secret hopes of defeating the son after the father was gone.
It was like going back to old times. The army had been roused from its long, lazy slumber. “Tell them they’re fighting for real,” Suddhodana had ordered. “Three gold pieces to the bloodiest warriors at the end of the day. Nothing impresses like blood.” Instead of dulling their swords and padding themselves with straw, his soldiers prepared to give and take real wounds. The only limit was that no blow should be deliberately fatal. “If you hit him and he doesn’t get up again, consider your enemy dead, for this one day only,” the generals instructed.
From the Shiva temple’s perch on the hill, Canki had looked over the plain stretched before the palace, filled day after day with military exercises. Suddhodana rode among his troops, nodding with approval the bloodier the games got. Behind him rode Siddhartha, looking pensive but raising no objections. Obviously, however, when the time came for him to lead the combat, he had balked.
Canki didn’t want to be caught between them, but he didn’t dare disobey the king. “Are you afraid to fight?” he asked Siddhartha. The prince shook his head but didn’t offer a word to defend himself.
“I’ve seen him with Channa. They go at it. No, it’s something else, something he won’t tell me,” Suddhodana grumbled.
Ignoring the presence of the priest, Siddhartha threw himself flat on the floor and seized his father’s feet. Suddhodana turned away, embarrassed by this show of humility, which to him expressed weakness. “For God’s sake, get up!”
“I won’t, not unless I can speak freely.”
Suddhodana’s eyes wandered the room in confusion. “Whatever you want. Just get up.”
But Siddhartha didn’t. His face touching the stone floor, he said, “I have never been what you wanted, and the more you demand, the less I am.”
“If you’re not what I wanted, then what are you?” the king said, now more bewildered than angry.
“I don’t know.”
“Ridiculous! I know who you are. He knows who you are.” Suddhodana looked at Canki, asking for support. The priest was at a loss. Canki was in service to a warrior king, but at heart he despised violence and had contempt for those who used it to get whatever they wanted. Kings were no better than murderers, the only difference being that they had a legal monopoly on killing. The Brahmin’s way was one of guile, patience, persuasion. To him, those were marks of superiority.
After a moment, he knelt beside Siddhartha and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do what is asked of you. If you go one step at a time, everything will come easier. This is only a shadow, a charade of war. How will you know about yourself until you try?”
Skillful as he imagined himself to be, Canki had no effect on the prince, who ignored him and kept his eyes fixed on his father. “I want to go away,” he said.
A chill passed through Suddhodana’s body, a cold premonition of failure. “No, that isn’t possible,” he said in a flat, toneless voice. “Ask me for anything else, but not that.”
The sudden weakness in his father’s voice stirred Siddhartha, and he got slowly to his feet. “What have I said that makes you so disturbed? If you love me, let me see what lies beyond these walls.”
“You know nothing about my love,” snapped Suddhodana. He gazed into his son’s eyes, and what he saw there couldn’t be answered. Turning abruptly, the king left the room, pausing a moment at the door to signal to the high Brahmin. “No more words. Leave him be.”
CANKI SAT IN HIS STUDY, a plate of sesame rice uneaten by his side. His mind was filled with the troubles to come when the world discovered, as surely it would, the rift between king and prince. The Brahmin’s thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock at his door. He had to conceal his surprise when it opened and Siddhartha, unannounced and alone, entered.
“Tell me about the gods,” he said.
Canki smiled easily. He pushed aside the plate of sesame rice, wondering inside if he shouldn’t be worried. To side with the prince, or to even seem to, could soon be an act of treason.
“I attend to the gods,” said Canki. “You don’t have to concern yourself with them.”
“But what do the gods want?” asked Siddhartha. “Why would they curse someone? Can a person sin and not know it?”
Canki cleared his throat to hide his momentary confusion. He had never known Siddhartha to conf
ide in him, or to openly show anxiety. The youth was guarded, as princes should be. The priest decided not to ask why the sudden interest in curses.
“You want to know how to get into favor with the gods?” he said. “And so you should. It’s commendable.” Siddhartha, for the first time, placed himself at the priest’s feet, in the classic pose of a disciple asking his master for wisdom.
“The gods allow great suffering—wars, famine, crime, and immorality—because the people have forgotten how to please them,” Canki said. “Since no one can be perfectly good, there is much sin in the world. Rituals and sacrifices honor the gods and erase that sin.”
“But everyone honors the gods, and not everyone is happy,” Siddhartha pointed out. “Why does misfortune visit us?”
Canki waved his hands, pointing to piles of scriptures written on dried palm leaves and vellum, hundreds of scrolls lining the shelves of his cramped, airless study. “Every sin is a karma, and every karma has a precise remedy. It takes years to delve deep enough. You study and try to understand every detail. The invisible world is complex. The gods are fickle. Even then you may fail.”
“Have you ever failed?”
Canki was taken aback. “Brahmins cannot fail. Every word in the scriptures was delivered to a Brahmin.”
“And no one else? The gods have to find a priest or they don’t talk?”
Canki had a ready answer. It was his job to know all the answers, but he hesitated, his mind searching for a solution. Despite all the king’s efforts, his son was turning the other way. His deeper nature hadn’t been diverted. Canki wasn’t alarmed, however. Now he had a chance to influence Siddhartha, and it might be his last. He looked at the youth sitting at his feet and decided that the canniest course, for once, was to tell the truth. He said, “You are among the few who can understand. I’ve always sensed that, ever since you were a little child.”
He leaned closer and put his hand on Siddhartha’s shoulder. He had no real affection for his pupil, but experience told him that physical contact was a more powerful bond than words. “I want to tell you about the Golden Age.” He ignored Siddhartha’s puzzled look, pressing his fingers into the youth’s flesh. “Just listen. There was an age, long, long ago, when the world was perfect. The scriptures tell us that no one had to struggle. There was no evil or wrongdoing. Abundance was the only life that people knew. But then decay gradually set in. This perfect world was only possible because the gods kept the demons at bay, unable to touch human beings and create mischief. Would you wish to bring back such an age?”
Siddhartha started. “Me?”
“It was prophesied when you were born that you could be the king of a new Golden Age. Your father knows this. Why else would he protect you so strongly, covet your safety above everything else?”
Siddhartha was hanging onto the Brahmin’s words now, and Canki smiled knowingly to himself. The prince was listening so eagerly because he felt guilty. He thought he had committed some obscure sin, which was being punished by his imprisonment in the palace.
“Your father loves you, but he’s also in awe of you. If he ruins the chance to bring back the Golden Age, how much guilt will he carry for the next hundred lifetimes?”
Siddhartha considered this seriously. “So he’s not disappointed in me?”
“On the contrary, the failure he’s anxious about is his own. You must prove to him that he has raised you as the gods and the stars prophesied. If you can do that, you will both be favored for the rest of your lives. If not—” Canki held his breath for a reaction. He had his private doubts about the destiny that awaited Siddhartha. There had been little evidence so far of a great warrior or a great saint in him.
“Tell me about demons,” said Siddhartha abruptly.
Now it was Canki’s turn to be startled. Demons? The Brahmin almost replied, “Have you met a demon?” Then Canki caught himself and realized that bluntness wouldn’t work, not with a withdrawn youth just coming out of his shell.
“Don’t worry about demons; they are indestructible and beyond your reach to defeat them. Worry about men who have taken evil to heart. There will be no Golden Age until they are defeated,” said Canki. “You may find it impossible to believe that this all depends on you, but I am willing to risk that you can accept the truth.”
Siddhartha stood up, his demeanor more serious. Canki could see that his words had sunk in. He had dangled a mystery before the youth, and few can resist a mystery, particularly one that features themselves at the very center.
SUDDHODANA HAD SULKED in his room, at first furious with his son, then gradually sinking into moroseness. To face rebellion from the prince just at the moment of victory was too galling to endure. Then moroseness changed to grief. Suddhodana was certain that he had lost his son.
That night the king awoke with a start. A shadowy figure had entered his rooms. Suddhodana fumbled for the table by his bed, reaching for a bell to summon the guards.
“Don’t be afraid, father.” Siddhartha’s voice was soft in the darkness. “I will fight.”
CANKI SAT IN THE GRANDSTANDS with the dignitaries, fanned by slaves waving palm leaves over their heads and charmed by veiled girls passing sweetmeats. He assumed that his talk with Siddhartha had turned the tide. But still there was danger. The prince had come around, but for how long? He was erratic, unpredictable.
The Brahmin remembered the king’s threat from years ago: Just live long enough to see what I’ll do to you if this plan fails.
As a public show of force, the mock battles were a success. The sheer bulk of Suddhodana’s army, and the ferocity of his fighters, impressed the neighboring rulers and depressed their generals. There was a ripple of shock when one of the archers mounted on horseback was killed, but Canki had wandered away by then and witnessed nothing, not even the ladies-in-waiting who fainted and had to be carried from the scene.
By leaving early, Canki had missed the one part of the combats that in the end really mattered.
Siddhartha’s surrender to his father’s will was not a sham. He dressed himself early that morning in his armor, dismissing his father’s grooms because he was ashamed to be seen donning so much padding and protection; he was the one fighter who couldn’t risk being bloodied.
“Not that anyone is going to get near you, much less fight.”
Siddhartha wheeled around. Devadatta had come in, not bothering to knock. He smiled maliciously. “They’ve got you pretty packed in. Why bother? You could go out there buck naked and nobody would so much as scratch you. Unless they want to be dragged out of bed tomorrow morning to kiss the chopping block.”
Siddhartha clenched his jaw. “They have to fight me if I start it first. I’m not going out there just to watch.”
“Of course you’re not.” Recently Devadatta had become more brazen in his contempt. He bent over and occupied himself with the intricate thong laces of his leggings.
“You can challenge me if you want,” Siddhartha said quietly.
Devadatta burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?” Siddhartha stood up and faced his cousin squarely. The two were almost matched in height and strength by now despite the four years separating them. But Siddhartha knew he had one great advantage: Devadatta was so arrogant that he rarely practiced. He may have lost his fighting edge without knowing it or being able to admit it to himself.
“What weapon?” Devadatta looked intrigued now.
“Sword and dagger.” Finished with his equipage, Siddhartha rested his helmet in the crook of his arm. “They’re expecting me.”
“Naturally. The carnival goes on.”
The two cousins exchanged nods in mock courtesy, and Siddhartha left. When he got to the stables he found Channa holding the reins of his favorite white stallion. The horse had come to the king from the wilds, and at first nobody could tame him. But Siddhartha spotted the animal’s fear and used it. Every time he brought a stick of sugar cane for the stallion, he would sit and wait as l
ong as it took for the horse to walk over to him. He never approached on his own, even if it took an hour for the animal to calm down.
When he was tempted enough, the horse wanted to snatch the treat and run off, but Siddhartha made sure that his hand always touched the horse before he released the food. Gradually the white stallion began to accept being touched as part of being rewarded, until the day came when Siddhartha approached him in public and put a bridle on him, a feat nobody else had accomplished. From that point on it was only a matter of time before word went about that the prince had tamed an untamable wild stallion. On the day when the horse allowed himself to be mounted, Siddhartha named him Kanthaka.
Channa looked restless and disgruntled. “I hope you’re not too bulky in all that gear. You need to ride properly, remember that,” he grumbled.
“Don’t worry.” Siddhartha knew that Channa’s resentment wasn’t personal. Despite Channa’s hours of military training beside Siddhartha, he was technically still a stable boy and not a fighter.
Channa said, “I assumed you wanted this one. The king isn’t risking his best horses, but he didn’t exactly say you couldn’t. He’ll carry you better than any of the others.” Channa fixed his expert eye on the stallion’s high shoulders and wide girth. Siddhartha nodded, stroking Kanthaka’s flanks. The animal wanted his touch, and although Kanthaka had quivered nervously at all the neighing and galloping going on around the stables that morning, he calmed down and waited.
Channa managed to crack a smile. “I also assume you know that someone’s staring at you. It’s a mistake, I’m sure. She thinks you’re me.”
A girl had escaped notice following Siddhartha to the stables. Channa didn’t know who she was, but as soon as he turned his head Siddhartha recognized Sujata. She stood shyly in the shadows of a large tree, but the moment their eyes met, she let the blue silk that half-covered her face drop. Siddhartha was at a loss. “What’s she doing here?” he mumbled.