“For what do I then really need those robbers?”
I had longed for their torches and pitch garlands to come and free me from the burden of this magnificent property. There are men, however, who, of their own free will, divest themselves of their possessions and lay hold of the pilgrim’s staff. As a bird, whithersoever he flies, flies furnished with his wings only, and is with these content, so also is it with the pilgrim who is content with the robe that covers his body, with the bread of charity which prolongs his life. And I have heard them say in praise of that life: “A prison, a slut’s corner is domestic life; the free air of heaven is the portion of the pilgrim.”
I called upon the swords of the robbers to kill this body. But if this body crumbles into dust, a new one is formed; and out from the old life goes forth a new one as its fruit. What type of life would go forth from mine? It is true, Vasitthi and I solemnly swore by yonder heavenly Gunga whose silver waves feed the lotus ponds of the Western Paradise that we would meet in those Fields of the Blest—and with that vow there was formed, as she said, for each of us there in the crystal waters of the sacred sea, a life bud—a bud that would grow by every pure thought, every good deed, but at which everything evil and unworthy in our lives would gnaw like a worm. Ah! long since must mine have been gnawed away. I have looked back over my life; it has grown unworthy. Unworthiness would go forth from it. What should I have gained by such an exchange?
But there are, as we know, men who, ere they leave this life, destroy every possibility of rebirth on earth, and who win the steadfast certainty of eternal bliss. And these are the very men who, forsaking everything, adopt the pilgrim’s life.
What, then, can the burning torches of the robbers, what their swords, do for me?
And I, who had at first trembled anxiously because of the robbers and had afterwards longed impatiently for them as my one hope—I now neither feared them nor hoped for anything from them. Freed alike from fear and hope, I felt a great calm. In this peace I assuredly experienced a foretaste of the joy which is theirs who have reached the pilgrim’s goal; for, as I stood over against the robbers, so those pilgrims surely stand over against all the powers of this world; neither do they fear such, nor do they hope for anything from them, but abide in peace.
And I, who, twenty-four hours earlier, feared to start out on a short journey on account of the hardships and the meagre fare of the caravan life—I now decided without fear or vacillation to journey shelterless and on foot to the end of my days, content to “take things as they come.”
Without once going back into the house, I went straight away to a shed lying between the garden and courtyard, where all kinds of tools were kept. There I took an ox-goad and cut off the tip of it in order to use it as a staff; and a gourd-bottle, such as the gardeners and fieldworkers carry, I hung over my shoulder.
At the well in the courtyard I filled the gourd.
Upon which, the house-steward approached me.
“Angulimala and his robbers will not come now, O Master! will they?”
“No, Kolita, they will not come now.”
“But how, O Master—dost thou go abroad already?”
“Even so, Kolita, I go abroad, and of that very matter I desired to speak with thee. For I go the way now, that men call the way of the noblest birds of passage. From this way, however, Kolita, there is, for one who perseveres in it, no return—no return to this world after death, how much less to this house during life. But the house I give into thy care, for thou hast been faithful unto death. Administer house and fortune until my son attains to manhood. Give my love to my father and my wives, and—farewell!”
After I had thus spoken and freed my hand from the good Kolita, who covered it with kisses and tears, I walked towards the gate, and at sight of the gatepost, against which the figure of the ascetic had leaned, I thought: “If its likeness to Angulimala was but a vision, then have I read the vision aright!”
Quickly, and without looking back, I went through the suburb with its gardens; and before me there lay, stretched out in the first grey shimmer of the dawn, as if it went on and ever on to all eternity, the desolate far-reaching country road.
Thus, O Reverend One, did I adopt the life of the homeless.
XVIII
In the Hall of the Potter
With these words, the pilgrim Kamanita brought his narrative to a close, became silent, and gazed meditatively out upon the landscape.
And the Lord Buddha also became silent, and gazed meditatively out upon the landscape.
Lofty trees were to be seen, some near, some farther off, some grouping themselves in shadowy masses, others dissolving airily in cloudlike formations and disappearing into the mists in the distance.
The moon now stood directly over the porch, and its light shone into the outer part of the hall, where it lay like three white sheets upon the bleaching-green, while the left side of the pillars gleamed as though mounted in silver.
In the deep silence of the night one could hear a buffalo cow somewhere in the neighbourhood, cropping the grass with short measured jerks.
And the Master pondered within himself—
“Should I indeed tell this pilgrim all I know of Vasitthi?—how faithful she was to him; how, without fault of her own, she was by base fraud brought to marry Satagira; how it was her doing that Angulimala appeared in Ujjeni; and how, owing to that very visit, he
