A Novel of the Life of Gautama
Based on the Pali Canon and Other Buddhist Scriptures Part II: The
Homeless One Louise Ireland-Frey At the birth of the royal son of the
Sakya clan of Kshatriyas in northern India some 2600 centuries ago, wise
men were called to consult the stars regarding the child's fortune.
Exclaiming over the astrological signs, the wise men prophesied that the
babe would become either a Universal Monarch, governing all the great
continents, or a Universal Teacher, teaching all nations. A group of
eight wise men learned in the bodily signs predicted the same two
possibilities, depending on whether the boy saw Four Signs sent by the
gods: a sick man, an old man, a dead man, and a monk. The eighth and
youngest prophesied that only one future was indicated: The boy would
become a Universal Teacher.
The child's father, King
Suddhodana, resolved that his son should never see any of the Four Signs
and instructed the palace household to keep all knowledge of these from
the young prince. As the prince grew older, however, he became more and
more frustrated with his imprisonment, for so he felt it.
Eventually he did see the Four
Signs, responding to each with deep emotional turmoil. When the king
refused to allow him to go free to seek the remedies for sickness, old
age, and death, the prince managed to escape by night with the aid of
his charioteer and his old horse. Knowing nothing of the outside world
except for the little that the monk had told him and what his charioteer
had added, the erst-while prince set out alone to seek the answers to
mankind's sufferings and to find the remedies, leaving his cousin-wife
and baby in the care of the palace.
Now he starts a new phase of life as a Homeless One, a mendicant, a wandering beggar.