“And I curse you to hell unless you take me back with you.” The vehemence in the old priest’s voice was like cobra venom. Siddhartha jerked back. Without a word he jumped into the saddle. He felt the priest’s tight, bony grip on his ankle, but he kicked free and galloped off. Behind him the population of the forgotten city jeered and catcalled. Others cried out piteously, and when he could no longer hear any of them, Siddhartha stopped. Kanthaka’s sides were heaving; so were Siddhartha’s. He leaned over and whispered, “Forgive me,” into Kanthaka’s ear, even though he hadn’t driven him that hard.
Channa caught up where the road was starting to slope back upward and become a mountain trail again. Siddhartha waited for him. “How often have you come here?” he asked.
“Once or twice. But you’re not coming back. What’s here for you? Your father won’t let you save them, and by the time you’re king they’ll all be dead. Face facts. One strong wind this winter is all it would take.”
Siddhartha hated these words but didn’t argue. The sun was still mercilessly hot, and they had given their goatskins of water to the old ones.
Channa’s right. It should be called the king’s city. His conscience searched for what to do. Should he go back and farm the fields himself with a few slaves from the palace, against his father’s wishes? Would it do the slightest good to send them to the forgotten city? Underneath all this was Sujata, who haunted him now more than at the moment he had learned she was gone. For a fleeting instant he could see her on a table in the house of the dead.
It was at that painful moment that Siddhartha caught a glimpse of someone. A naked hermit was hidden in the thick underbrush, crouching on his heels. His sun-brown skin made him nearly invisible against the ground except for his beard, which was nearly white. If Siddhartha hadn’t happened to turn for a last glimpse behind, he would have missed him.
“Asita!” Siddhartha called out, jumping down from his horse. The sudden motion must have frightened the hermit, who scurried away into the thicket out of sight. “Wait, don’t you know me?” Siddhartha was baffled but plunged into the underbrush, heedless of thorns and snakes. The hermit was escaping as noiselessly as a deer. Siddhartha stopped, straining his ears to catch any telltale sound. Channa came up behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t see him? It was Asita.”
“If it was, he’s a million years old. I thought I saw an old man, that’s all. Probably following us from the village,” said Channa.
But they both knew an old man couldn’t keep up with horses. Siddhartha was too excited to stop and convince Channa. “Asita!” he called.
Siddhartha set a direction upslope and followed it, telling Channa to wait below. There was no trail to follow anymore, and after a moment he was immersed in deepest jungle. Scarlet parrots scolded him from overhead; a lone monkey scouring the ground for fallen fruit was startled and leaped up a tree with a scream. Siddhartha pressed on with more energy, even though he knew he was running aimlessly, fueled by what he wanted to find rather than what he would. Then, just when it was undeniable that the jungle had swallowed up all traces of the hermit, he stumbled on something.
Hidden in the dense growth was a small clearing, so shaded by trees that it felt like a green cave. Panting, Siddhartha stopped and looked around. Someone definitely lived here. From a fire circle, wisps of smoke arose. A bamboo lean-to nestled in one corner with moss spread for a bed. His eye was caught by a pile of rocks made into a shrine. On top was the only sign that anyone but a primitive called the place home: a small picture of Shiva painted in jewel tones, like the forlorn one he’d seen at the house of the dead.
But this god was well tended, with fresh pink wood orchids at the base. Shiva was sitting in lotus position, a tiger skin wrapped around his shoulders. His eyes were closed; a mysterious smile played across his face. Gazing at him, Siddhartha felt exhausted. He had no idea where he was and no longing for anywhere else. Perhaps the faint memory of a rose-apple tree when he was a boy came to mind. He felt his legs give way, and he sat on the ground facing Shiva. He folded his legs in the same position as the god’s and closed his eyes.
The green cave was cool and soothing. Siddhartha felt that he belonged here, but there was little time for thinking. A kind of seductive silence wanted to pull him in. It softly surrounded him, and he gave in to the embrace. He could feel his breath moving in and out of his chest, growing fainter and fainter. A fly landed on his arm, and it was as if he could feel every step of its feet before it flew away again.
Nothing changed for a time—how long, he couldn’t judge—and then Siddhartha’s eyes opened. Before him squatted the old hermit on his heels. It wasn’t Asita, but the two were made from the same mold. The hermit had deep brown eyes whose calm belied his weathered skin. Neither of them moved. Then the hermit raised a finger to his lips, and Siddhartha nodded imperceptibly, letting his eyelids close again, sinking back down into the silence. Now he clearly saw the image of a boy sitting under a rose-apple tree while the anxious world swirled around him. How had he forgotten Asita’s advice back then, that there would always be a place for him to go when he was in trouble?
With a deep sigh of relief, Siddhartha knew he was back. He hadn’t remembered the silence, but it had remembered him. And waited. It would be so easy to sit forever. A gentle current flowed through his body, and when a thought chanced to arise, it escaped like a dandelion puff blown away in the breeze.
Before time and space disappeared like thieves in the night, he had a fleeting perception. Something he couldn’t identify—a cloud of golden flecks? a ghost wearing a smile? a god?—was hovering a few inches over his head, just where the current had escaped. The cloud or god shimmered for a second. Siddhartha had the distinct feeling that it was watching him.
Then without any warning it began to descend.
PART TWO
GAUTAMA THE MONK
11
The skies had given plenty of warning all day. Clouds with sagging gray bellies almost touched the treetops. Night fell quickly, before shelter could be found. The young monk was curled up under a sal tree in the forest when the rain hit, not with a few warm droplets but all at once, as if mischievous monkeys in the trees had overturned a bucket on his head. The monk awoke with a sputter. He squatted in the mud, shivering, soaked to the bone. Being Prince Siddhartha had filled up twenty-nine years; being a penniless monk had filled up barely a month.
He noticed something nearby. A small clutch of men had built a campfire whose flicker peeked through gaps in the jungle. The monk crept near and saw that they had found protection in the mouth of a cave. It was dangerous to intrude on them. They might be dacoits, bandits who had no scruples about killing a holy man simply for his sandals. Also, asking for help wasn’t part of the rules. If a wandering monk appeared at their back door, householders were obligated to bring food out to him and offer shelter for the night; sacred duty demanded as much. But the beggar at the door had to remain silent. Only his presence could speak for him, no matter how hungry he might be, even starving.
Sitting in meditation while your nose filled with the smells of rice and lamb cooking over a fire was pure agony. A warrior’s discipline, by comparison, was child’s play. The young monk always lost focus: he salivated; his stomach growled. But this particular night he didn’t have to beg. One of the men sitting around the campfire noticed him and took pity. Siddhartha was startled to see him carrying an ax as he approached, but then he realized the men were woodcutters.
“Namaste,” he murmured, bowing his head. The woodcutter, a lumbering, thickset man, made no reply. Namaste was the simplest form of hello, but from a monk it was also a blessing: I greet what is holy in you. Siddhartha noticed that without thinking, he had put a harmless tone in his voice. So in a single word he had said, “Hello, I bow to your sacredness. Please don’t hurt me.”
“What are you hanging around for?” the man said gruffly.
“I saw your fire,” said Siddhartha. “I
should have headed for a village, but it got dark too soon.”
“Someone like you isn’t going to get very far.” The man was scowling now. “What’s your name?”
“Gautama.” Siddhartha held his breath. He had taken on his family name, which was known everywhere. But for centuries it had also been a clan name, and many common people carried it.
“Well, you didn’t get any food today, Gautama, that’s clear enough.”
The young monk had practiced saying the name in his head—Gautama, Gautama—but this was the first time another person had used it. Losing his old name was the start of losing his old self. He felt forlorn and victorious at the same time.
“You’d be better off with an honest living that doesn’t depend on another man’s sweat,” the woodcutter said.
Gautama hung his head. If this was a taunt, it was better not to look him in the eye. Exhausted or not, Gautama still knew how to defend himself like a warrior. (When suspicious characters would stare at him and wait by the road while he passed, his hand had reflexively reached for his sword hilt before he remembered that it wasn’t there.) He forced himself to have humble thoughts. You’re a holy man. Let God protect you.
Now the stranger was holding out something. “Take it. You can’t expect any food without a bowl, can you?” He pushed forward a smooth hollow gourd, split in half and filled with steamed rice and potatoes. “I’d ask you to the fire, but some of the others—” He nodded in the direction of the group huddling in the mouth of the cave. None had turned their heads to look at the stranger crouching in the mud. “They’ve had bad run-ins with monks.”
Gautama nodded. In the month he had been wandering, he’d heard tales of criminals and madmen who assumed the disguise of monks so they could roam the countryside undisturbed.
“A blessing on you, brother.” Gautama said this with complete sincerity, and he continued looking into his benefactor’s eyes rather than diving into the food. He knew that his accent gave away that he was high-caste. He touched the man’s arm in gratitude, and the woodcutter was startled. Sometimes, very rarely, a high-caste warrior or noble might take up the life of a wandering monk, but they never touched anyone of low caste, even as beggars.
“And a blessing on you,” the man said. He got up and walked back to the fire.
As a sannyasi, one who has completely renounced the world, Gautama was allowed no possessions other than his saffron robes, a walking stick, a string of prayer beads around his neck, and a begging bowl. A monk ate out of his bowl, and when he was done, he washed it in the river and wore it as a hat to keep off the sun and rain. The bowl was what he drank from, and while he was bathing in the river he rinsed himself with it. Gautama turned the gourd around, admiring its simplicity.
Once he had eaten the food the woodcutter gave him, Gautama got to his feet, trying not to groan from the cracked blisters on his soles. He took a last, longing look at the fire—the men were drinking and laughing loudly now—and began slip-sliding through the mud toward the road. You couldn’t sleep too near the roads because of bandits. As he walked, he wrapped his arms around his thin frame for warmth and tried to find resignation. It’s just rain. This is nothing important. I accept it. I’m at peace. But resignation was empty peace, with no real satisfaction. What else could he try? Reverence.
Holy gods, protect your servant in time of need.
Repeating a prayer felt better, but his mind wasn’t fooled by reverence, either. It injected an ironic aside: If the gods wanted to protect you, why did they leave you out in the rain? Gautama was astonished at how many ways his mind could plague him. It blamed him for everything—for his blistered feet, for getting lost in the forest, for making a bed from tree boughs that turned out to be full of lice. Hadn’t Prince Siddhartha’s mind been calmer before he left home? Sick of arguing with himself, Gautama began to count his steps.
One, two, three.
It was a feeble trick to keep his doubts from attacking him. But he had too many memories, the kind that he couldn’t escape on the longest road.
Four, five, six.
The worst memory was of leaving his wife, Yashodhara. She had refused to watch Siddhartha ride beyond the gates. “Go at night. Don’t tell me when. It would be like having my heart broken twice,” she said. Her face was careworn with the tears she had shed. The two had been married almost ten years. It was such a love match that they had never spent a single night apart.
Yashodhara kept silent the first few days after he made his intention known, but they shared a bed, and one night she found her voice, softly, next to his ear. “Isn’t love enough, being here with me?”
Siddhartha wrapped his arm around her. He knew this question cost her an effort. If he said no, she wasn’t enough, Yashodhara would feel like a widow when he left. If he said yes, he had no argument for leaving. After a moment he said, “You are enough for this life.”
“Are you looking ahead to the next one?” she asked.
“No, not that. This life is only part of who I am. I need to know everything, and I can’t by staying here.” His expression was deeply serious, although she couldn’t see his face in the dark. “How can I know if I have a soul? Ever since I was a boy I’ve assumed I did because everyone says so. How can I know if the gods are real? Or that I came from them?”
“Knowing everything is impossible,” she said. Siddhartha sighed and held her closer. “It won’t be forever,” he promised. Yashodhara tried to believe him despite her experience. Everybody knew of husbands who ran off into the forest and never came back. Becoming a sannyasi was a holy act, but respectable men left it for old age.
Many men waited until they were seventy, especially if they had money, and the richest built lavish summerhouses that were a mockery of spiritual retreat. But all kinds of ne’er-do-wells ran away early. It was something you did if life got too hard or you had too many mouths to feed.
Yashodhara realized that some monks had a genuine calling. One day, despite her sorrow, she told her husband, “I know you have to go. I’m your wife. I feel what you feel.” But scandal burned her cheeks anyway; a prince of the blood deserting his kingdom was worse, infinitely worse, than some farmer deserting his barren rice fields.
Seven, eight, nine.
Gautama’s mind wasn’t falling for the feeble trick. You nearly killed her, it said with bitter accusation.
Ten, eleven, twelve.
People can die of grief. How would you feel then?
Gautama winced, remembering how much Yashodhara had suffered as his departure neared. Every night made her dread that she would wake up alone in the morning. There was nothing she could do for him, not even to pack little things for his new life. On the other side of the palace gates a beggar’s existence awaited. Suddhodana, now enfeebled with arthritis, had mustered up a brief, reproachful rage, as in the old days. “You can’t give me one good reason,” he shouted. But the lit fuse sputtered out, and after that his father ignored the whole subject.
When it was finally time, the prince performed two farewell rituals. He went into his wife’s chamber and kissed her while she slept, a bar of soft moonlight across her lips. This was a familiar ritual from the days when he had first begun to ride out before dawn in order to reach poor, faraway villages. The forgotten city had shriveled to nothing, its last feeble cast-offs taken under the prince’s personal care. He had knelt by the bedside of those who had cursed him the first day he rode into the village.
There was one, a withered scarecrow of a woman named Gutta who was as old as Kumbira, a former ladies’ maid overjoyed to come back to the palace. She knew she was there to die. Siddhartha sometimes imagined that Gutta might have been an auntie to him long ago. During her last days he sat vigil, and one night he trusted her enough to ask, “Does it hurt to die?”
She shook her head. “Not as much as you’re hurting.”
“Why am I hurting?”
“How should I know?” The withered old maid had always been crabby, he knew,
and dying hadn’t sweetened her temper. After a moment she said, “I’m luckier than you. I’m throwing off my burden, but you keep adding more to yours.”
“Is that what you see?” He had heard that the dying told the truth and even had prophetic powers.
She snorted. “Everybody does. Just look at you. You’re kind, but you think it’s not enough. You give to the poor and sick, but you don’t feel happy from it.” Her voice grew softer. “You mourn a dead girl there was no hope of finding.”
The prince had looked away, feeling a pang from every word. His mission of mercy began while he was searching for Sujata. It became his custom to lead a pack mule loaded with food, crop seeds, and clothing behind his magnificent white stallion, and the three became a familiar sight in the countryside. For the sake of safety, an armed guard rode behind, but he had made sure that the men kept far back, out of sight.
“What does it say if I ride into a village with soldiers?” he asked his father.
“It says nobody better lay a hand on you,” replied the old king, who wanted to send half the garrison with him.
But his son couldn’t stand the idea of showing people mercy with one hand and a sword with the other. Soon his kindness was the thing that kept him safe. The local thieves and bandits belonged to their own caste of dacoits. Many of them benefited from the food he took to the starving villages, since dacoit families and dacoit relatives lived in them. The younger, headstrong thieves argued that they still had a right to loot any gold a traveler might be carrying, but the elders knew he carried none.
“His type can’t stop himself. If he lays eyes on one colicky baby, he’ll throw all his money on the bed if he has any,” they said, quieting the hotheads.
Siddhartha’s second ritual of farewell had been to kiss his baby son. The boy was four, old enough to have his own room. The prince had taken a candle and tiptoed in. Rahula slept, not curled up in a ball like most children, but facedown with his limbs spread-eagled, as if he was prepared to take flight. He lay like that now, and his father looked at him a long time, then turned away without kissing him. Resolved as he was, regret would have its way. If he wakes up and sees me, I’ll never go.