The story of the Buddha

Professor Sunanda Mahendra

RELIGION: With the dawn of the Vesak season, attention is drawn towards some of the rare books and periodicals pertaining to the subject of Buddhism in its varying forms.

The Vesak kalapayas or the traditional Vesak annuals appear with interesting articles and creative works like poems, short stories, plays, photographs and illustrations of religious places, making the reader aware of the aspects of the life and the doctrine of the Buddha.

The Story of the Buddha is one of the rarest books I found recently published way back in 1916, written by Edith Holland about whom nothing is mentioned either in the printed or online text.

Just one factor made to be known is that she had written one more book titled The Story of Mohammad. The book is published in London by a publishing firm named George G Harrap and Company in Portsmouth Street, Kingsway WC.

The book contains 15 short chapters with source material drawn from various books written by Buddhist scholars of the time like Rhys David, Max Muller, Oldenberg and Fausboll. The author's attention is to address the general English-speaking audience, which has no access to the eastern thought. As such she says:

"Before the days of books, records of historical events were handed down by word of mouth. It was therefore but natural that, as time passed and a story came to be often repeated many details should have been added to the original narrative.

Thus in all histories of very early times we find the fact and the legend mingled together. When the story of the Buddha's life was told again and again in countries far removed from the scenes where the events had taken place tales of wonders and miracles were added to the first simple story.

As she exemplifies many of these legends which are very beautiful were intended to be understood as allegories and stories told in this way, have always been favourites with Eastern people."

Historical facts

She concludes her foreword to the book in the following words: "We know that the events of chief importance in the life of Buddha are historical facts and that is all that really matters."

In the first chapter 'The East and the West', the author makes a clarification as to the differences lying in the cultures of the countries belonging to these divisions and states that the West is the new world of action and progress, and the West is the world of thought and wisdom.

She however does not imply that the rule should be strictly followed. The salient factors of the study of wisdom beauty and truth is underlined in the Eastern cultures and given way to the paths of purity and truth seeking.

She adds that the very name of East sounds enchanting and at times mysterious and a visit to an Eastern country may make you feel those factors in your pulse. She nevertheless visualises this world of splendour intermingled in sorrow of the humans such as sicknesses, disasters and poverty, which ultimately make a rich prince like Siddhartha renounce the worldly life in search of the real truth behind the suffering.

The second chapter deals with an exposition of the nature of the kingdom of sakyans [or sakyas], where the traditional belief in a Hindu God denoted as Brahma was a predominant factor.

As the author says they had the loving kindness to animals and humans a feeling that they all possess a soul like their own striving to arrive at a state of perfection. But a man should live countless lives before his soul can be perfected and fit for union with Brahma to whom in the end all life must return.

Contemporaries

Details of the geographical location of Kapilavaththu city, which stood on the banks of the river Rohini, are also laid down. This is followed by the introduction of the royal family of King Suddhodana and his Queen Maha Maya. The birth of the prince Siddharatha or Siddhatha, the future Buddha, is depicted vividly in chapter three.

The strange behaviour patterns of this prince is shown as opposed to his contemporaries, the young princes of his own clan. The event of the Vapmagula or the ploughing ceremony, and the impact it had on the King Suddhodana, are traced dramatically.

The young prince Siddhartha is shown as a person of prophetic nature, who shows signs of being a higher being than just a King, who is destined to rule the kingdom is the main factor laid down.

This is followed by the events laid down in the fourth chapter as the great renunciation [mahabinikmana], where the prince is shown as a person, who understands his strength to leave the life full of pleasures, in search of truth, and the ultimate bliss of emancipation.

He sees the four signs such as the sign of a sick man and the sign of an old man that make him feel sorry for the worldly life of luxuries. All these go to make him feel sorry for the entire mankind.

The fifth chapter is detailed on 'the search after truth', where he exposes himself to the society where he preaches a doctrine different from the preaching already existed, making himself a great teacher, mainly in the first instance to five disciples, and later to a whole gathering of truth-seekers.

This chapter is an explanation of the Enlightenment (Buddhatva) concept.

Details of the nature and the learning of the disciples are laid down in the Chapter Six, which shows the types of the conflicts the Buddha had with his own family members, and how he resolved to help them learn more about the nature of the life in its real form devoid of enmity and hatred.

In the chapters that follow the eighth chapter, the reader comes to know events about the king Suddhodana attempting to bring back his son Siddhatha in vain seeing how different he is from his childhood nature maturing into a great being, who wants to conquer a world of sensory life.

The details are also given about the Buddha's wanderings and in Chapter Ten, which is one of the most important facts about the order of monks or the great order of Sangha of the Buddha, and how it had the impact on the social issues are made to be known with examples.

The reader is given quite a number of stories and legends pertaining to the early life of the Buddha, and his previous births as found in the Jataka collection, which is quite readable and significant as literary creations.

The service rendered by the Buddha and his disciples, go into the making of the chapters titled as kingship of all life and the Buddha's last journey.

In the fifteenth chapter, the last one, which is titled 'the spread of the faith', Holland mentions of the countries to which the doctrine of the Buddha spread inclusive of Sri Lanka, and how it had its roots in the human mind as a great path of freedom or emancipation.

Edith Holland's life-account may be kept in dark, yet her book turns out a mirror of her expanded knowledge on the Buddha.

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