And having in mind the hour of awakening, he instantly fell asleep.
XXI
In Mid Career
When the Master awoke in the grey dawn, he saw the pilgrim Kamanita busy, rolling up his mat, hanging his gourd over his shoulder, and looking round for his staff which he hadn’t at once been able to perceive in the corner in which he had placed it, owing to its having fallen down. While thus engaged, there was, in his every movement, the appearance of a man in a great hurry.
The Master sat up and gave him friendly greeting.
“Art thou going already, brother?”
“Surely, surely,” called out Kamanita, full of excitement, “just think, it is hardly to be believed—absolutely laughable and yet so marvellous—such rare good fortune! A few minutes ago I awoke and felt my throat quite parched after all the talk of yesterday. Without more ado, I jumped up and ran to the well just across the way, beneath the tamarinds. A maiden was standing there drawing water. And what dost thou suppose I learned from her? The Master isn’t in Sravasti at all. But canst thou imagine, then, where he is? Yesterday, accompanied by three hundred monks, he arrived here in Rajagriha! And at this moment he is in his mango grove on the farther side of the town. In an hour, in less, perhaps, I shall have seen him—I, who believed that I should have to journey other four weeks! What do I say—in an hour? It is only a good half-hour thither, the maiden said, if one doesn’t go through the chief streets, but runs through the lanes and squares to the west gate. … I can scarcely realise it. The ground burns beneath my feet—farewell, brother! Thou hast meant well by me, and I shall not fail to conduct thee also to the Master—but now I really cannot delay a moment longer.”
And the pilgrim Kamanita dashed out of the hall and ran away along the street as fast as his legs would carry him. But when he reached the city gate of Rajagriha it was not yet opened and he was obliged to wait for a short time—time which seemed to him an eternity, and raised his impatience to the highest pitch.
He employed the minutes, however, in getting from an old woman carrying a basket of vegetables to the town, and who, like himself, was obliged to halt at the gate, exact information with regard to the shortest way—as to how he was to go through such and such a lane, past a little temple to the right, and to the left past a well, and then not to lose sight of a certain tower, so that he might perhaps recover in the town the time he had lost standing outside its walls.
As soon, then, as the gate was opened he dashed recklessly away in the direction indicated. Sometimes he knocked down a few children, anon he brushed with such violence past a woman who was rinsing dishes at the kerbstone that one of these rolled rattling away from her and broke, or he bumped into some water-carrier. But the abuse which followed him fell on deaf ears, so utterly was he possessed by the one thought that soon, so wonderfully soon, he should see the Buddha.
“What rare fortune!” he said to himself. “How many generations pass and have no Buddha sojourn on the earth in their time; and of the generation that has a Buddha for its contemporary, oh, how few ever behold him. But this happiness will certainly be mine now. I have always feared that on the long and dangerous road wild beasts or robbers might deprive me of this joy, but now it cannot be taken from me.”
Filled with such thoughts, he turned into a very narrow little lane. In his foolish onward rush he failed to observe that from the other end of it, a cow, mad with fear from some cause or other, was dashing towards him, and failed also to notice that while several people in front of him fled into a house, others concealed themselves behind a projecting bit of wall; nor did he hear the shout with which a woman standing on a balcony tried to warn him—but dashed on, with his eyes fixed on the pinnacled tower, which was to prevent his taking some wrong turning.
Only when it was too late to get out of the way did he see with horror the steaming nostrils, the bloodshot eyes, and the polished horn which, the next instant, drove deep into his side.
With a loud scream he fell down by the wall. The cow dashed onward and disappeared into another street.
People instantly hurried up, in part from curiosity, in part to help. The woman who had warned him, brought water with which to cleanse the wound. They tore up his cloak to make a bandage, and, if possible, to staunch the blood which gushed forth as from a fountain.
Kamanita had hardly lost consciousness for an instant. It was clear to him at once that this meant death. But neither that knowledge nor the agonies he was enduring were such torture to him as the fear that he might not now see the Buddha. In a deeply agitated tone of voice
