The Birth, the Enlightenment and Nirvana of Gautama the Buddha
THE BIRTH
Morning had broken. The dawn the world and the heavens had for epochs waited to break upon the land, had finally come to pass.
And on that Vesak full moon day over 2500 years ago, in the year 623BC, the rising sun sheds its tender early morn light to reveal the scene of a royal litter emerging from the gates of Kapilavasthu, the capital of the Shakyas, in northern India.
At the centre of this royal convoy, borne upon a golden palanquin, sits the queen of the domain. She is accompanied by her sister and a host of royal attendants. With the blessings of her husband the king, she is leaving the gates of his kingdom, embarked upon a journey to her parents’ palace in Devadaha. Heavy with child, Queen Mahamaya is going home for her confinement to bear a son to her husband King Suddhodana and provide an heir to his royal throne.
As the royal litter progresses upon its chartered path at a sedate pace so as not to jolt the expectant mother and cause any untoward happening, the Queen reflects on the extraordinary events that had occurred in the months recently past. The failure to bear a child for many years had been the subject of vicious social comments and snide court gossip. Her barrenness was taken as an omen to the terrible fate that awaited the royal kingdom and, though none dared to express it in her presence, she knew they privately ostracised her for it. Perhaps even the king, though so kind, gentle and loving, bore some ill will, secretly and unconsciously deep in his heart; and it had caused her pain to think that she was the source of his unspoken grief over her inability to conceive.
And then, just when she had resigned herself to a life of sorrow, there came the dream.
Ah, yes, how vividly she remembered that dream -- the dream she had had nearly a year ago. She had dreamt that she had been carried forth by the four world deities to the tableland of the Himalayas. There the wives of the four world guardians had welcomed her and taken her to the Lake Mansarovar. In its cool, clear and refreshing waters they had bathed her and then dressed her in a robe of exquisite beauty and decked her with gold ornaments and garlanded her with sweet smelling flowers of divine scent.
Then, through the distant hazy mist that engulfed the plateau, she saw approaching her, a white silvery elephant of magnificent appearance, which walked with measured steps and noble bearing. It circled her thrice; and then, with a salutation with its raised trunk, entered her soul.
When she awoke, she had related the dream to the king who immediately summoned the royal astrologers to interpret its import. They prophesied that the queen was destined to give birth to a son who will do his father proud. “He will be,” they proclaimed, “A ruler not only of this province but of the world. An emperor whose empire will be forever.”
Even as she recalled those words now, Mahamaya experiences a sudden surge of tears break out from her eyes and cascade down her cheeks, the same surge of joyous emotion she had felt that day hearing the astrologers proclaim the greatness her son was destined to achieve. As she brushes her tears away with her hand, she also recalls how she had asked them, not in disdain but whimsically, “but will not death steal the spoils of any empire?” and how, and with what confidence, they had replied, “Nay, while death will indeed rob the accumulation of wealth and power, it is impotent in the face of the eternal. Your son, may not rule with arms which is but fleeting but conquer, with his philosophical doctrine, the souls of all mankind which is eternal.”
The queen cannot but help let a smile light her face, as she remembers how the king had not been amused to hear this part of the sages’ prophecy. The king would have none of that. Not for his son to become another wondering fakir babbling stanzas from the Upanishads when he had a kingdom to overlord, administer and to defend as any noble Kshatriyan, the warrior caste, was duty bound to do.
The king had flared. “Religion is for the Brahmins,” he had declared with scorn. “Let them use the monopoly they enjoy having sole access to God. But no son of mine is going to be a hermit, a beggar, parroting lines from the Rig Vedas in return for a measly bowl of alms. My soon to be born son is a Kshatriyan, a warrior born of noble blood, born to be king, born to rule in the self same manner of his ancestors. In the manner his caste dictates and Kshatriyan honour demands. I will see that my son will follow in the path of his ancestors”.
Little did the king know that the path of the Prince’s ancestors lay in the way twenty seven Buddhas had trod before.
Out of a sudden whim, Queen Mahamaya draws the curtains in her palanquin aside and glances out to take in the passing scene and fresh air. What beholds her eye moves her. The royal litter is passing the beautiful tranquil Lumbini Park.
The park’s serenity and its natural beauty which appears akin to the divine grove of Cittalatha, stirs in the queen a strong desire to break journey and to pause there for rest. And she orders the litter to stop and alights from her palanquin. She strolls with her sister and attendants the broad acres of the lush and verdant park; and comes across a sprawling sal tree, where she reclines under its placid soothing shade. A gentle breeze flutters, the leaves rustle and she suddenly sees a branch of the sal tree swoop to the earth until it almost touches the ground.
Drawn by some inexplicable, invisible force, she grasps the bough and is lifted by its upward return and the sudden movement causes her to experience the first pangs of imminent labour. With curtains hastily drawn around her, with one hand clutching the sal bough in direct touch with nature, the other clasping her loving sister Prajapathi’s hand, within cloistered cool and selected privacy, she gives birth to her son.
Thus was the Prince born. Amidst the windblown flow of nature. Amidst the song of birds, amidst the sounds of nature. Amidst the scene of beauty, flushed with greenery. A prince of noble royal blood, born not in the ornate and artificial confines of stately palaces but by the wayside, beneath the leafy shade of a sprawling sal tree, born in nature, alike nature’s beings on earth.