Princess Yashodara was Siddhartha's wife before he attained enlightenment & became the Lord Buddha. It is said that Siddhartha left in the dead of the night when Yashodara was sleeping.. It was the very day that their son Rahul was born. Yashodara on waking up, and realizing that her husband had left cursed herself for falling asleep and vowed to sleep with her eyes open.. Lest he returned...
And return he did.. After attaining enlightenment, he came to the town begging for alms.. The first door he decided to visit was his own.. When his (erstwhile) wife opened the door, he uttered the words "Ma! Bhiksha!" (Mother! Alms please!).. What went through Yashodara's mind is anybody's guess.. Suffice to say that she didnt raise a big hue and cry and quietly gave him what he wanted.. Her husband.. who had left her in the dead of the night with their new born son..who had returned as a monk who had renounced all worldly desires.. who addressed her as Ma.. She quietly gave him what he wanted..
Buddha returned again.. To deliver a sermon in the town.. By this time, Rahul was older and about to ascend the throne.. When Gautama heard of this.. he got scared that his son might get entrapped in the tribulations of a worldly king and decided to take him away...
Yashodara, now bereft of both husband AND son, didnt want to live the rest of her life pining away for either.. and decided to follow... She joined the my enlightened namesake as a Bhikshuni and lived the rest of her life as an ascetic..
One wonders when one thinks of this.. What is enlightenment? Does achieving nirvana mean rising so much above the world that one becomes impervious of another's joy and sorrow? Does moksha entail us the right to decide right and wrong for others? Does spiritual and holistic edification make us so arrogant & narrow minded that we fail to see our own inadequacies? Does enlightenment really complete the circle?
As for Yashodara, one doesnt know what happened to her as an ascetic.. We read that so majestic and mystifying was Buddha's aura that it drew his own wife onto the very path he himself followed.. Perhaps... But one cannot help but think about Yashodara the wife.. And Yashodara the mother.. Did not her heart lament.. Did not her mind sing a melancholous tune:
I await you. It is not commonplace
With breath beheld, beckoning gaze
Hasten to me in form or fury
In blaze, in sweat, in sleet or calm
Where dost thou wander, my tender fawn?
In the maze of people In the swarm of populace
I envy the people you meet.
I drink in my last vision from memory
As lost, as simple as you come
Nourished I resume my quest
I tire myself nevertheless
Faith stands at test, sister patience lays in wait
Eyes hurt yet refuse to yield
Many an evening thus is spent
And defeated, I get back to living
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1 comment:
...perhaps 'being' or 'existing' would hav been more apt as the last word of the poem.
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