Note 6 — Chapter III

The triumphant return of Phralaong from his garden to the city, when he is attired with the richest dress, is commemorated by Buddhists, at least in Burmah, on the day a young boy is preparing to enter into a monastery of recluses for the purpose of putting on the yellow robe, and preparing himself to become afterwards a member of the order, if he feel an inclination to enlist in its ranks. Phralaong was bidding a last farewell to the world, its pomps and vanities. So the youthful candidate is doing who is led processionally through the streets, riding a richly-caparisoned horse, or sitting on an elegant palanquin, carried on the shoulders of men. A description of this ceremony will be found in the notice on the Buddhistic monks or Talapoins.

I am obliged to confess that I have found it somewhat difficult to discover any connection between the expressions made use of by Keissa Gautami and the inference drawn therefrom by Phralaong. The explanation of the difficulty may be, however, stated as follows:—Gautami bestows the epithet happy or blessed upon the father and mother as well as on the wife of Prince Theiddat, because she remarked and observed in him those qualities and accomplishments befitting a worthy son and a good husband. The words blessed and happy struck the mind of the future Buddha, attracted his attention, and drew forth his exertions to find out their true import. He asks himself, In what consists true and real happiness? Where is it to be found? By what means can such an invaluable treasure be procured? Can it be conferred upon man by the possession of some exterior object? Can his parents or wife be really happy by the mere accidental ties that connect them with his person? No, answers our young philosopher to himself: Happiness can be procured but by waging war against passions, and carrying it on until their total destruction. Then the victorious soul, sitting calmly on the ruins of her deadly opponents, enjoys in the undisturbed contemplation of truth an indescribable happiness. In this we clearly perceive the unmistakable bearing of Buddhistic morals. It is as it were the embryo of the whole system.

King Thoodaudana, influenced by worldly considerations, eagerly wished his son to become a great monarch instead of a poor and humble recluse, even a Buddha. This alone suggests the idea that in those days the rôle of a Buddha was not held in so great an esteem and veneration as it was afterwards. Had it been otherwise, the most ambitious father might have remained well satisfied with the certainty of seeing his own son becoming a personage before whom the proudest monarch would one day lower to the dust their crowned heads.

At that time a Buddha, or the personage honoured with that title, was looked upon as a mere sage, distinguished among his fellow-men by his great wisdom and eminent proficiency in the study of philosophy. It is highly probable that this name had been bestowed upon a great many illustrious individuals who lived before the days of Gaudama. Hence the fabricated genealogy of twenty-eight former Buddhas, supposed to have lived myriads of years and worlds previously, including the three that have preceded him during the continuance of this system of nature. Here a superstitious and ill-judged enthusiasm has raised up heaps of extravagancies, setting up a ridiculous theory, designed to connect the rôle of the present Buddha with those of a fabulous antiquity, and give additional lustre to it. There is no doubt that the glowing halo of sacredness and glory, encircling now the name of Buddha, has never adorned that of any former one. It has been created by the extraordinary progress his doctrines made at first in the Indian Peninsula, and next throughout eastern Asia, and kept up by the fervent admiration of his enthusiastic followers.

The means resorted to by Thoodaudana to retain his son in the world of passions, and thereby thwart his vocation, could not, we hardly need mention, be approved of by any moralist of even the greatest elasticity of conscience and principles; but they were eminently fitted to try the soundness of Phralaong's calling, and the strong and tenacious dispositions of his energetic mind. They set out in vivid colours the firmness of purpose and irresistible determination of his soul in following up his vocation to a holier mode of life; and what is yet more wonderful, the very objects that were designed to enslave him became the instruments which helped him in gaining and ascertaining his liberty. Magnificent, indeed, is the spectacle offered by a young prince remaining unmoved in the midst of the most captivating, soul-stirring, and heart-melting attractions; sitting coolly on his couch, and looking with indifference, nay, with disgust, on the crowd of sleeping beauties.