I kept watch there for some days in vain, but was quite prepared to be obliged to wait for a whole month. On the eighth day, however, when the sun was already so low that I had to shade my eyes with my hand, I became aware of a form in the distance approaching the wood. I presently saw the gleam of a yellow cloak, and as the figure passed a woodcutter going homeward, it was easy to see that it belonged to a man of unusual stature. It was indeed Angulimala—alone. My Kamanita he had not “brought with him safe and sound”; but what did that matter? If he could only give me the assurance that my loved one was alive, then I would myself find the way to him.
My heart beat violently when Angulimala stood before me and greeted me with courteous bearing.
“Kamanita lives in his native town in great opulence,” he said; “I have myself seen and spoken to him.”
And he related to me how he had one morning arrived at thy house, which was a veritable palace; how thy wives had grossly abused him; and how thou didst then thyself come out and drive thy wicked wives into the house, speaking to him friendly and apologetic words.
After he had related everything exactly—just as thou dost know it—he bowed before me, threw his cloak again about his shoulders, and turned round, as though he intended to proceed in that direction, instead of going into the wood. Much astonished, I asked whether he were not going to the hall of the monks.
“I have now faithfully carried out thy charge, and there is no longer anything to prevent my taking my way to the east, in the tracks of the Master, towards Benares and Rajagriha, where I shall find him.”
Even as he spoke, this powerful man started off with his long strides, along the edge of the wood, without granting himself the smallest rest.
I gazed after him long, and saw how the setting sun threw his shadow far in front to the crest of the hill on the horizon—yes, to all appearance even farther, as though his longing, in its vehemence, outran him, while I remained behind, like one paralysed, without a goal for longing to which I could send forth even one precious hope.
My heart was dead, my dream dispelled. The hard ascetic saying, “A slut’s corner is domestic life,” echoed again and again through my desolate heart. On that splendid Terrace of the Sorrowless, under the open, star-filled, and moonlit heaven, my love had its home. How could I, fool, ever have thought to send it begging to that sluttish domesticity in Ujjeni, in order that quarrelsome women might asperse it with their invective.
I crawled back to my cell with difficulty, to stretch myself on a sickbed. This sudden annihilation of my feverishly excited hopes was too much for powers of resistance already weakened by months of inner strife. With matchless self-sacrifice, Medini nursed me day and night. But as soon as my spirit, buoyed up by her tender care, was able to raise itself above the pain and inflammation of the fever, the plans I had formed for my journey developed in another direction. Not to the place where I had sent Angulimala, but to the place whither he now, of his own initiative, journeyed, did I want to make my pilgrimage. I would follow in the footsteps of the Master till I overtook him. Was I not done with my sentence? Had I not learned in the deepest sense that, when loves comes, suffering also comes? And so I might, I thought, seek the Buddha, and gain new life from the power of the Holy One in order to be able to press farther forward to the highest goal.
I confided my intention to the good Medini, who at once adopted the unexpected suggestion with wild enthusiasm, and painted, in her childish fantasy, how splendid it would be to roam through exquisite regions, free as the birds of the air when the migratory season calls them to other and far-distant skies.
Of course, for the first thing, we were obliged to wait patiently till I had regained sufficient strength. And just as that was, to some extent, accomplished, the rainy season, which had begun, imposed a yet longer trial of our patience.
In his last address the Master had spoken thus: “Just as when in the last month of the rainy season, in harvest, the sun, after dispersing and banishing the water-laden clouds, goes up into the sky, and by his radiance frightens all the mists away from the atmosphere, and blazes and shines, so also, ye disciples, does this mode of life, which brings present as well as future good, shine forth, and, by its radiance, frighten away the gossip of common penitents and priests, and blazes and shines.”
And when Nature had made this picture a reality round about us, we left the Krishna grove at the gates of Kosambi, and, turning our steps eastward, hurried towards that sun of all holy living.
XLIII
The Passing of the Perfect One
My lack of strength did not admit of our undertaking long daily journeys, and made it necessary sometimes to take a day for rest, so that only after a pilgrimage of a month did we arrive in Vesali, where, as we knew, the Master had made a considerable stay, but whence he had been gone about six weeks.
A short time before we had learned, in a village in which lived pious followers of the doctrine, that Sariputta and Moggallana had entered into Nirvana. The thought that these two great disciples—the chiefs of the doctrine, as we named them—no longer dwelt on earth, moved me deeply. Of course we all knew well that these great ones, as even the Buddha himself, were merely human beings just as we, but the idea that they could leave us had never arisen in our minds.
