Deepak Chopra: Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment

“Hello,” Siddhartha said. The two girls exchanged a look, as if trying to decipher this message. The braver one took a deep breath.

“Hello,” she replied. No guards descended; nothing exploded. So the other one tried saying a word. “You’re the prince?” Not as if she doubted it, but as if she might not have the right to ask.

Siddhartha nodded. “My father is the king.”

The girls lapsed into silence. Siddhartha wasn’t sure how well things were going. He wished he weren’t alone.

“Hey, cousin!”

Siddhartha turned around to see Devadatta a few feet away. He had his fist poised in the air, and a second later he threw with all his might. A green cloud billowed out. Siddhartha was reaching into his own pouch, happy to join in, when he felt a sharp pain in his forehead. He staggered back, then touched the spot. His hand came away stained a warm, sticky crimson. Devadatta had put a rock in with the powder before he threw it.

A new surprise, not the pain, held Siddhartha’s attention. He had yet to see his own blood. His cousin was laughing at him and looking toward the girls, expecting them to appreciate the joke. But they had run away in alarm. Devadatta shrugged and turned his attention back to Siddhartha. “Let’s play again, only try to stay awake this time, okay?” He stooped down to find another sharp rock.

Siddhartha was never far from watchful eyes, and it was only a moment before Suddhodana arrived on the scene as Devadatta threw his second missile, not bothering to disguise it with dye. It hit Siddhartha in the chest and made him cry out. He doubled over with a wince. Devadatta considered this a favorable outcome and had another rock in hand already, but he spied the king and hesitated. There was a small crowd around them now. Suddhodana nodded at Devadatta, “Go on.”

The boy didn’t need any more encouragement. He threw again and hit Siddhartha in the shoulder, hard enough to draw blood again. None of the onlookers came to the rescue; even Prajapati, late to arrive, glanced at the king and knew that she couldn’t interfere. Siddhartha looked around. His face flushed with shame, and he wanted to run, but his father’s voice stopped him.

“No! Stay and fight.”

The courtiers exchanged nervous glances; some of the more tenderhearted ladies clutched their hands to their breasts. Suddhodana kept his eyes on his son, watching stonily for a response. When the boy didn’t move, only gazing vaguely into the distance, his father gave a small, almost indecipherable snort, which Devadatta took as a signal that he had won. He relaxed and dropped the rock in his fist, giving one last look of pity at his victim. He pushed his way through the spectators and was gone.

Suddhodana stepped forward and knelt beside his son. “Listen to me. You can’t let him do that. In this family, we fight.” Siddhartha hung his head, biting his lip. “You’re my only son, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“From now on, there’s not going to be any more ‘papa,’ you understand? From now on it’s ‘sir.’”

Siddhartha felt a rock being put into his hand, and his father’s much larger hand closed it into a fist.

“Go.”

The king stood up, and the courtiers parted the way, making a path in the direction Devadatta had gone. Siddhartha felt the sharp edges of the flinty stone against his palm. He gathered himself to run but had taken only a step when his father’s voice stopped him.

“Here, let me clean you up first.” Suddhodana bent over and wiped the blood from the boy’s forehead. “You have to see him to fight him. It might get in your eyes.” His father’s tone still had an edge, but Siddhartha instinctively knew that in those few seconds his father had changed, had felt a twinge of remorse or tenderness. The next instant he was being given a rough shove and found himself running hard toward a pavilion beside the pond where Devadatta had disappeared.

SIDDHARTHA ROUNDED THE CORNER of the pavilion by the lotus lake beyond the sight of his father. He ducked into an archway that led inside, then he made an escape near the water’s edge. He didn’t care where his cousin was. He dropped the rock clutched in his fist; the flinty edges had dug red indentations in his palm. His other wounds were throbbing, but Siddhartha ignored the pain. He threw himself down among the tall reeds by the pond. It was almost the only real hiding place he had ever found. Panic distorts time, so he had no idea how long it was before he began to feel better. But his heart eventually stopped racing, and in the aftermath of distress he began to feel drowsy and drained.

Siddhartha was his father’s son, yet he wasn’t. There were no words to express why this was true. The heavy expectations weighing on his shoulders mystified him. The rocks thrown at him, the humiliation that followed-all hurt. But worse was knowing that Devadatta, a cruel stranger, filled his father’s expectations better than he did. Siddhartha watched a hawk circling on motionless wings overhead. Unable to see beyond the palace walls, he could still gaze above them. Then the hawk closed its wings like scissors and dropped toward earth. In less than a second it changed from an emblem of escape to a deadly missile hurtling down upon an innocent prey.

At that moment, although he scarcely suspected it, not Siddhartha but Devadatta was the prey. Devadatta had fled from his victory in high spirits, tinged with the bitterness of knowing that he was still the king’s prisoner. The boy was bored with the childishness of the festival. He slowed his pace, and then noticed that a man, a stranger, had appeared from nowhere. He was tall and cloaked in the coarse hemp of a traveler. Despite the man’s stealth and the difference in their sizes, Devadatta wasn’t afraid; his arrogance protected him. His hand felt for the dagger at his side.

The cloaked stranger raised an admiring eyebrow as if to say, We have a man here after all. He drew his own dagger.

“Come on,” he said. “You deserve to die.”

Devadatta backed away, startled. “Why?” His voice still betrayed no fear, and he unsheathed his own weapon, ready to fight.

“Not for anything you’ve done, but for what I’m going to make you do.” Quicker than the eye could catch, the stranger lunged forward, grabbed Devadatta’s dagger by the blade, and snatched it from his grasp. Then he burst out laughing at the boy’s stunned reaction. The stranger’s hand held the razor-sharp blade tightly, yet not a drop of blood appeared.

“You were unkind to draw on me,” the stranger said calmly, “but Mara is kind enough for two.” He handed Devadatta his knife back. It was as hot as a burning coal, and the boy dropped it with a shriek of pain.

“Damn you, demon!”

Mara bowed ironically at being recognized so quickly. “Not many are brave enough to curse me. Not on first meeting. Usually they’re more occupied with their terror.”

Devadatta glared back defiantly. “Why are you here? I’m not going to die.” He uttered these words with impressive certainty. Mara said nothing in reply. One arm lifted, bringing the edge of his cloak with it. The cloak was lined with black. Devadatta’s gaze fell on it for an instant before the blackness seemed to expand. One moment the cloak was making a small billowy circle around Mara’s head; the next it swelled to enclose the boy before the entire pavilion disappeared, and Devadatta found himself in total darkness, warm and suffocating.

With a shriek he plummeted into a looming void. There was no telling how long he fell, but it was certain that when he landed, it was with a bone-jarring crash. For a moment Devadatta writhed helplessly, the wind knocked out of him, before he became aware of hard, cold stone beneath his body.