A story of the Buddha, who filled with light the world, the
soles of whose feet were like unto the faces of two blazing
suns, for that he trod in the Perfect Paths.
...In those days Buddha was residing upon the summit of the mountain
Gridhrakuta, overlooking that ancient and vanished city called
Rajagriha--then a glorious vision of white streets and fretted arcades,
and milky palaces so mightily carven that they seemed light as woofs
of Cashmere, delicate as frost! There was the cry of elephants heard;
there the air quivered with amorous music; there the flowers of a
thousand gardens exhaled incense to heaven, and there women sweeter
than the flowers moved their braceleted ankles to the notes of harps
and flutes.... But, above all, the summit of the mountain glowed with
a glory greater than day--with a vast and rosy light signaling the
presence of the Buddha.
Now in that city dwelt a bayadere, most lovely among women, with whom
in grace no other being could compare; and she had become weary of the
dance and the jewels and the flowers--weary of her corselets of crimson
and golden silk, and her robes light as air, diaphanous as mist--weary,
also, of the princes who rode to her dwelling upon elephants, bearing
her gifts of jewels and perfumes and vessels strangely wrought in
countries distant ten years' journey. And her heart whispered her to
seek out Buddha, that she might obtain knowledge and rest, becoming
even as a Bhikshuni.
Therefore, bidding farewell to the beautiful city, she began to ascend
the hilly paths to where the great and rosy glory beamed above. Fierce
was the heat of the sun, and rough the dizzy paths; and the thirst and
weariness of deserts came upon her. So that, having but half ascended
the mountain, she paused to drink and rest at a spring clear and bright
like diamond, that had wrought a wondrous basin for itself in the heart
of the rock.
But as the bayadere bent above the fountain to drink, she beheld in
its silver-bright mirror the black glory of her hair, and the lotus
softness of her silky-shadowed eyes, and the rose-budding of her
honey-sweet mouth, and her complexion golden as sunlight, and the
polished suppleness of her waist, and her slender limbs rounder than
an elephant's trunk, and the gold-engirdled grace of her ankles. And a
mist of tears gathered before her sight. "Shall I, indeed, cast away
this beauty?" she murmured. "Shall I mask this loveliness, that hath
allured rajahs and maharajahs, beneath the coarse garb of a recluse?
Shall I behold my youth and grace fade away in solitude as dreams of
the past? Wherefore, then, should I have been born so beautiful? Nay!
let those without grace and without youth abandon all to seek the Five
Paths!" And she turned her face again toward the white-glimmering
Rajagriha, whence ascended the breath of flowers, and the liquid melody
of flutes, and the wanton laughter of dancing girls....
But far above, in the rosiness, omniscient Buddha looked into her
heart, and, pitying her weakness, changed himself by utterance of the
Word into a girl far comelier and yet more lissome than even Pundari
the bayadere. So that Pundari, descending, suddenly and in much
astonishment became aware of the loveliest of companions at her side,
and asked: "O thou fairest one! whence comest thou? Who may the kindred
be of one so lovely?"
And the sweet stranger answered, in tones softer than of flutes of
gold: "I also, lovely one, am returning to the white city Rajagriha;
let us journey together, that we may comfort each other by the way."
And Pundari answered: "Yea, O fairest maiden! thy beauty draws me to
thee as the flower the bee, and thy heart must surely be precious as is
thy incomparable face!"
So they journeyed on; but the lovely stranger became weary at last,
and Pundari, sitting down, made a pillow of her round knees for the
dainty head, and kissed her comrade to sleep, and stroked the silky
magnificence of her hair, and fondled the ripe beauty of the golden
face slumbering, and a great love for the stranger swelled ripening in
her heart.
Yet while she gazed the face upon her smooth knees changed, even as
a golden fruit withers and wrinkles, so wizened became the curved
cheeks: strange hollows darkened and deepened about the eyes; the silky
lashes vanished with their shadows; the splendid hair whitened like the
ashes of altar fires; shrunken and shriveled grew the lips; tooth-less
yawned the once rosy mouth; and the bones of the face, made salient,
fore-shaped the gibbering outlines of a skull. The perfume of youth was
gone; but there arose odors insufferable of death, and with them came
the ghastly creeping things that death fattens, and the livid colors
and blotches that his shadowy fingers leave. And Pundari, shrieking,
fled to the presence of Buddha, and related unto him the things which
she had seen.
And the World-Honored comforted her, and spake:
"O Pundari, life is but as the fruit; loveliness but as the flower! Of
what use is the fairest body that lieth rotting beside the flowings
of the Ganges? Old age and death none of us may escape; yet there are
worse than these--the new births which are to this life as the echo to
the voice in the cavern, as the great footprints to the steps of the
elephant.
"From desire cometh woe; by desire is begotten all evil. The body
itself is a creation of the mind only, of the foolish thirst of the
heart for pleasure. As the shadows of dreams are dissipated with the
awakening of the sleeper, even so shall sorrow vanish and evil pass
away from the heart of whosoever shall learn to conquer desire and
quench the heart's thirst; even so shall the body itself vanish for
those who tread well in the Five Paths.
"O Pundari, there is no burning greater than desire; no joy like unto
the destruction of the body! Even as the white stork standing alone
beside the dried-up lily-pool, so shall those be whose youth passes
from them in the fierce heat of foolish passion; and when the great
change shall come, they will surely be born again unto foolishness and
tears.
"Those only who have found delight in the wilderness where others
behold horror; those who have extinguished all longings; those
self-made passionless by meditation on life and death--only such do
attain to happiness, and, preventing the second birth, enter into the
blessedness of Nirvana."...
And the bayadere, cutting off her hair, and casting from her all
gifts of trinkets and jewels, abandoned everything to enter the Five
Paths. And the Devas, rejoicing, made radiant the mountains above the
white city, and filled the air with a rain of strange flowers. And
whosoever would know more of Buddha, let him read the marvelous book
"Fah-Kheu-King,"--the Book "Dhammapada."