Creation (44 page)

I don’t know what I said. I suppose I described for him the simultaneous creation of good and evil. Repeated my grandfather’s doctrines. Observed those narrow eyes which were aimed—there is no other verb—in my direction.

When I had finished, the Buddha made a polite response. “Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of creation is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else’s is the wrong one.” Then he dropped the only important subject that there is.

The next silence was the longest of all. I listened to the sound of the rain upon the thatched roof, of the wind in the trees, of the monks chanting in the nearby monastery.

Finally I remembered one of the many questions that I had intended to ask him: “Tell me, Buddha, If the life of this world is an evil, why then
is
the world?”

The Buddha stared at me. I think that this time he might actually have seen me, even though the light inside the hut was now as dim and as green as pond water when one opens one’s eyes below the surface.

“The world is full of pain, suffering and evil. That is the first truth,” he said. “Comprehend that first truth, and the other truths will be evident. Follow the eightfold way and—”

“—and nirvana may or may not extinguish the self.” There was a slight gasp from those present. I had interrupted the Buddha. Nevertheless, I persisted in my rudeness. “But my question is: Who or what made a world whose only point, according to you, is that it causes pain to no purpose?”

The Buddha was benign. “My child, let us say that you have been fighting in a battle. You have been struck by a poisoned arrow. You are in pain. You are feverish. You fear death—and the next incarnation. I am nearby. I am a skilled surgeon. You come to me. What will you ask me to do?”

“Take out the arrow.”

“Right away?”

“Right away.”

“You would not want to know whose bow fired the arrow?”

“I would be curious, of course.” I saw the direction that he was taking.

“But would you want to know
before
I took out the arrow whether or not the archer was tall or short, a warrior or a slave, handsome or ill-favored?”

“No, but—”

“Then, that is all that the eightfold way can offer you. A freedom from the arrow’s pain and an antidote to the poison, which is this world.”

“But once the arrow has been removed and I am cured, I might still want to know whose arrow struck me.”

“If you have truly followed the way, the question will be immaterial. You will have seen that this life is a dream, a mirage, something produced by the self. And when the self goes, it goes.”

“You are Tathagata—the one who has come and gone and come again. When you are here, you are here. But when you go, where do you go?”

“Where the fire goes when it’s gone out. My child, no words can define nirvana. Make no attempt to catch in a net of familiar phrases that which is and is not. Finally, even to contemplate the idea of nirvana is a proof that one is still on the near-side of the river. Those who have achieved that state do not try to name what is nameless. Meanwhile, let us take out the arrow. Let us heal the flesh. Let us take a ride, if we can, on the ferryboat that goes to the far side. Thus we follow the middle way. Is this the right way?” The Buddha’s smile was barely visible in the twilight. Then he said, “As the space of the universe is filled with countless wheels of fiery stars, the wisdom that transcends this life is abysmally profound.”

“And difficult to comprehend, Tathagata,” said Sariputra, “even for those who are awake.”

“Which is why, Sariputra, no one can ever comprehend it
through
awakening.”

The two old men burst out laughing at what was obviously a familiar joke.

I remember nothing more of that meeting with the Buddha. I think that before we left the park, we visited the monastery. I believe that I first met Ananda then. He was a small man whose life work was to learn by heart everything that the Buddha was reported to have said and done.

I do remember asking Prince Jeta if the Buddha had said anything to me that he had not said a thousand times before.

“No. He uses the same images over and over again. The only new thing—to me—was the paradox about awakening.”

“But it was not new to Sariputra.”

“Well, Sariputra sees him more than anyone else, and they tell each other complicated jokes. They laugh a good deal together. I don’t know at what. Although I am sufficiently advanced that I can smile at this world, I cannot laugh at it just yet.”

“But why is he so indifferent to the idea of creation?”

“Because he thinks it, literally, immaterial. The ultimate human task is to dematerialize the self. In his own case, he has succeeded. Now he has set up the wheel of the doctrine for others to turn as best they can. He himself is come—and he is gone.”

Democritus finds these ideas easier to comprehend than I do. I can accept the notion that all creation is in flux and that what we take to be the real world is a kind of shifting dream, perceived by each of us in a way that differs from that of everyone else, as well as from the thing itself. But the absence of deity, of origin and of terminus, of good in conflict with evil ... The absence of purpose, finally, makes the Buddha’s truths too strange for me to accept.

IN THE LAST WEEK OF THE RAINY SEASON, the river flooded. The yellow waters rose, covered the quays, burst through the wooden stockade, half drowned the city.

Those who had tall houses like Prince Jeta simply moved to the upper stories. But those whose houses were on a single level were forced to move onto their roofs. Fortunately, the palace enclave was on a slightly higher ground than the rest of the city, and my own quarters were flooded only to the depth of an ankle.

On the second day of the flood I was dining with Caraka and Fan Ch’ih. Suddenly our meal was interrupted by a series of blasts on a conch shell. Then we heard the ominous sounds of metal striking metal. Since floods and civil disobedience go together in India, we were all agreed that those who had been dispossessed by the river had suddenly attacked the palace.

Attended by Persian guards, we hurried to the palace. I remember how the hot wind blew the rain in our eyes. I remember the slipperiness of the mud beneath our feet. I remember our surprise when we found that the garden entrance to the palace was unguarded.

Swords drawn, we entered the vestibule, which was waist-deep in water. Although there was no one in sight, we could hear shouts in other parts of the building. At the entrance to the reception hall, we saw an amazing sight. The king’s guards were fighting one another—but very slowly, because the water hampered their movements. As we watched this curious dreamlike battle, the doors to the hall were flung open and a line of spear carriers appeared in the doorway, weapons lowered for attack. At the sight of the spear carriers, the guardsmen sheathed their swords. In silence, the fighting stopped. In silence, King Pasenadi appeared in the doorway; he had a long chain about his neck, which an officer of his own guard held in one hand. In the watery silence, the rhythmic clatter of the king’s chain made the sort of harsh music that Vedic gods delight in.

As the king passed us, I bowed. But he did not see me. In fact, no one paid the slightest attention to the Persian embassy. Once the king was out of sight, I waded to the door of the reception hall and saw a dozen dead soldiers floating in the red-streaked yellow water. At the far end of the room, the throne had been overturned and several men were trying to put it back onto the dais. One of the men was Virudhaka.

When Virudhaka saw me, he left to the others the task of righting the silver chair. Slowly he waded toward me, mopping his face with one end of his wet cloak. I remember thinking how odd it was for a man drenched in blood and river water to want to dry his sweaty face with a wet cloth.

“As you see, Lord Ambassador, we are quite unprepared for ceremony.”

I dropped to one knee. I had seen quite enough to know what was expected of me. “May the gods grant long life to King Virudhaka.”

Caraka and Fan Ch’ih also recited this pious hope.

Virudhaka’s response was grave. “What the gods have given me this day, I shall do my best to prove worthy of.”

There was a crash as the throne again slipped off the dais. All in all, not the best beginning to a reign.

“It has been my father’s wish to abdicate for some years.” Virudhaka spoke smoothly. “This morning he sent for me, and he begged me to let him surrender the burden of this world. And so, today, at his insistence, I have, as a good son, granted his wish and taken his place.”

Obviously, the Buddha’s insistence that this world is a dream had had an effect not only on Virudhaka but on the entire court. No one ever referred, in my presence at least, to the bloody overthrow of Pasenadi. On the few occasions when his name was mentioned, it was said that he had gone into a much longed for retirement in the forest. He was said to be absolutely content; there were even rumors that he had achieved nirvana.

In actuality, later that same day Pasenadi was hacked into a number of small pieces, which were then offered as a sacrifice to the river god. Since the river promptly returned to its banks, the sacrifice was plainly acceptable. Not long after, Prince Jeta and I met in a crowded street where the air was so filled with dust from the dried river mud that we were obliged to hold dampened cloths to our faces; and took shallow breaths.

As we strolled toward caravan square, Prince Jeta said, “Pasenadi kept promising to go, but at the last moment he always changed his mind. ‘Another month,’ he would say. Obviously he stayed one month too long.”

“Obviously. But he was so old. Why didn’t ...
he
wait?” In India, it is always a good idea to substitute pronouns for great names.

“Fear.
He
is a devout man, and even though it was plain to him that his father was destroying Koshala, he was willing to wait. But when Ajatashatru seized power in Magadha, he knew that there would be war. So he did what he felt he had to do, to save what is left of the kingdom.”

We stopped at a booth filled with odd-looking glazed pottery from Cathay, recently introduced by Fan Ch’ih. “Do you approve of what he did?”

Prince Jeta sighed. “How can I? I am a Buddhist. I do not believe in hurting any living thing. Also, the ... dead man was my old friend. But”—idly, Prince Jeta pointed at a dragon-headed pot—“I am told that there are many creatures like that in Cathay.”

“’So Fan Ch’ih tells me. The best medicine is made from dragon’s bone.” I waited for an answer to my question.

Prince Jeta bought the pot. “If anyone can save this country from Ajatashatru, it is the new king,” he said.

“What was the Buddha’s reaction?”

“The Buddha laughed—like a lion.”

“He is not compassionate.”

“How can he be? He has come and gone. Kings are simply a part of that distracting puppet show that the perfect one no longer attends.”

During the hot season, Ambalika arrived from Rajagriha with our son. Prince Jeta offered his granddaughter and great-grandson a wing of the river mansion, and I moved in with them. Meanwhile, a message had come to me from Susa by way of Taxila. The Great King denounced me for having paid too much for the shipment of iron, but since I had reopened the old trade route between Persia and Magadha, he was more pleased than not with his slave and I was a hero at court, or so the letter from the chancellor for the east implied. I was to come home immediately.

Carefully, I made my plans. I ordered Caraka back to Rajagriha, where he would act as business agent for the Great King. He would also prepare a second caravan of iron from Magadha, at a more reasonable price than the one that I had agreed to. Ambalika and our son would remain in Shravasti until I sent for them, or until I returned myself.

To everyone’s pleased surprise, the war between Magadha and Koshala did not take place. Although Ajatashatru sent troops to Varanasi, he did not try to seize the city. Meanwhile, Virudhaka led the Koshalan army not south to his own beleaguered city of Varanasi, but east to the Shakya republic. In a matter of days, the republic collapsed and its territory was absorbed by Koshala. The federation of republics was now on a war footing.

All in all, I was happy to be going back to Persia, where battles take place at a considerable distance from Susa, and the high crime of parricide is virtually unknown amongst
our
Aryans. Although I found it curiously abominable that India’s two most powerful Aryan kings should be murdered by their sons, Prince Jeta seemed not at all perturbed. “We have an old saying, ‘Princes, like crabs, eat their own parents.’ ” Ultimately my embassy to the Indian kingdoms was conducted most bloodily in the astrological sign of the crab.

Practically speaking, I found Virudhaka much easier to deal with than his father. For one thing, he was a superb administrator and, briefly, Koshala was again what it must have been in those great days that everyone so enjoyed telling me about. But then, I have never visited any city in the world where I was not told that I had just missed the golden age. I seem never to be on time.

I was a guest of honor at Virudhaka’s coronation, an ancient ritual that took place in a fairground just outside the city. I don’t remember much about the elaborate ceremonies except that they seemed a bit hurried.

I do recall the magical moment when the new king took three steps on a tiger skin, in imitation of the three steps that the god Vishnu took when he crossed creation and filled the universe with light. Ananda says that the Buddha did the same thing shortly after his enlightenment. But as far as I can tell, the Buddha himself never seems to have mentioned this remarkable tour of the universe to anyone except Ananda. It was my, perhaps mistaken, impression that the Buddha was not given to such exaggerated gestures.

Although Virudhaka had begged the Buddha to attend his investiture, the perfect one had seen fit to leave Shravasti the night before. He was last seen on the road to the land of the Shakyas. It was later said that the Buddha knew that the king intended to attack his native country and that he wanted to be with his own people when war began. But years later, when I asked Prince Jeta if this theory was true, he shook his head. “The Buddha would not have cared one way or the other. All attempts to involve him in politics failed. To the end, he laughed at the puppet show. It’s true that the Shakyas thought that he might help save them because he seemed to approve of their sangha. Perhaps he did. But it was not the Shakyan but the Buddhist sangha that interested him—if anything did.”