All about Princess Yasodhara
Professor Sunanda Mahendra
VALUES: Princess Yasodhara is famous as the wife of prince
Siddhartha, who renounced the worldly life to become the Enlightened One
or the Buddha.
The princess who had just given birth to prince Rahula, was not aware
of his departure and as such, she was moved to grief, but resisted the
sentiments thinking that prince Siddhartha had left the luxurious life
seeking a supreme state of life beyond the worldly plane.
This fact, she is hinted to have understood even prior to the
departure from his general behaviour pattern, where he goes out and
returns with a sunken face complaining of the sorrows in the city
inclusive of seeing a sickman, an old man walking with a stick, and a
funeral.
These views create the basic attitudes pertaining to the great
departure or the renunciation [Mahabinikmana]. She eventually had felt
that she could help him despite the grief of separation that enters a
feminine mind. The character of Yasodhara is depicted in most works as
one of the noblest women who had the courage to understand the great
renunciation of Siddhartha.
The Sinhala classical works like Pujavaliya as well as the folklore
recreate this incident, bringing to the forefront the previous births of
the two characters as descendants of a series of encounters in the cycle
of births as believed by the Buddhists and as narrated in Jataka tales.
One of the finest and most sensitive events recorded poetically is
the work Yasodharavatha (the profile of Yasodhara) by an anonymous poet
who is said to have lived in the Kandyan period of Sinhala literature.
This work, if considered on a plain layer of appreciation, looks like
a series of moving reminiscences packed with lamentations, but the
subtext of which is in reality a recollection of the noble inner
reflective utterances of the feminine expression devoid of common place
sentimentalities, instead an expression of feelings emanating good
wishes for a supreme state.
Yasodhara
Among the large number of works and discussions ensued on the subject
of Yasodhara, the one I read recently is one of the finest compilations
on the subject.
Written as a manual cum factfile on princess Yasodhara, followed by a
series of interpretations adding a devotional flavour [Bhakti Rasa] to
the same, the well-known Sinhala journalist Sriya Ratnakara had compiled
a work titled Sonduru Yasodhara [Gunasena 2007].
The compiler makes use of the material basically from the Sinhala
classical work Pujavaliya, but ascends a few steps ahead by tracing the
significance of the great and noble personality of the Siddhartha
Gautama, who by now is none other than the Buddha the Enlightened One, a
sage or a monk clad in robes.
Buddhist legend
In this direction, the writer makes use of the background stories of
many a Buddhist legend found in texts as flashbacks in the mind of
Yasodhara. Here Siddharatha’s character is created as one of the saintly
ones.
In this manner, there are quite a number of cross-references to the
life of Siddhartha and his later life as the Buddha. While reading the
events in the life of the two characters Siddhartha and Yasodhara, the
reader will also have the chance of knowing some socio-cultural traits
that existed in the pre-Buddhist era in India.
For example, in chapter eight, the writer recreates, in the form of
series, dialogues and monologues of the evil manners of Devadatta,
Yasodhara’s brother, who shoots down a swan and wounds it while prince
Siddhartha attempts to heal the creature.
When Devadatta claims that the swan belongs to him, Siddhartha
retorts that it belongs to him as it was healed by him. Yasodhara
listens to this and the writer makes use of the event to bring back to
the forefront the virtues in the character of Siddhartha.
Yasodhara shows her little son Rahula, his father, and utters the
great qualities possessed by his father, Esai Tuhiya Pita Narasiho - and
that’s how he, your father, the lion-like human looks, and wants Him to
walk down the street to see Him and request for the legacy the Buddha
can impart.
Noble sage
The little son Rahula who walks with the noble sage too inherits the
membership as a monk and gets ordained later in the Order of Sangha.
These stanzas are known to the Buddhists as Narasiha Gatha or the
stanzas on the lion-like noble human qualities possessed by Siddhartha
Gautama.
The sensitive expressions embedded in the original Pali stanzas ought
to make one feel that this is one of the rarest feminine experiences
expressed with restraint at its best. But the significance of Narasiha
Gatha to a Buddhist is that they express, in totality, the eternal
embodiment of the Buddha’s qualities, both physical and spiritual.
Ratnakara translates the Pali stanzas to simple Sinhala prose, which
helps the reader in many ways to edify the underlying meanings.
Pious life
The culmination of the events in the character of Yasodhara is her
own selection to renounce the worldly life following the footsteps of
Siddhartha in order to lead a pious life in the order of the nuns. She
becomes Yasodhara Therani.
As a supplementary feature the writer includes the accounts of the
seven types of wives [Sapta Vida Bharya] as recorded in Buddhist
literature followed by another brief ballad titled Sandakinduru Kava, a
poetic legend based on the same name of the Jataka tale. This ballad has
many variations, and this brief one is one of the folk creations.
Analysis
These accounts are laid down by the writer accordingly to show the
reader the place given to Yasodhara by the Buddha Himself in the
ultimate analysis of her virtues as a wife. Perhaps a reader may feel
that this is a compilation meant to ensure the great feminine features
of a woman hinting that these are the virtues that should be restored in
a decadent society.
This compilation, indeed, is a tribute to the family where human
values are concerned.
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