Deepak Chopra - Buddha - A Story of Enlightenment

“Walk around, make sure everyone sees your wounds. Don’t dress them for two days.” Suddhodana was focused on him, but not with rage or implacable cold hatred. Channa could almost read sympathy, as if he’d had to punish his own son. “Then have Bikram hide you for a month, somewhere far away. Somewhere a hired assassin won’t look. They’re lazy; they won’t go very far to find you. And never go near Devadatta again, understand?”

They both knew that Channa was being let off easy. By rights he should have been turned over to the priests, who would have meted out maximum punishment as a show of power over the king. As Suddhodana turned away, Channa mumbled, “Thank you.”

The king looked back at him, and now his eyes were stone cold. “Your father was a horse thief when I met him. That’s a hanging offense, and if I ever have a whim to kill him, why not take the son along too? Just to be sure.”

Channa related only the bare bones of this incident to Siddhartha. The prince was troubled enough by the welts he could see; the worst were hidden under Channa’s tunic. Several days passed before Siddhartha told Channa about his own mysterious experience.

Channa was amazed. “You turned into a god. What else could it be?”

Siddhartha didn’t know whether to be shocked or amused. But when Channa’s face remained serious, even a little awed, he said, “I shouldn’t have told you. I should just go to old Canki and get him to purify me.”

“I wouldn’t. Not until somebody purifies him.” Channa’s contempt for the Brahmin was open, despite the risk he was running if the priest should find out. “How long have I been getting school from him? Ever since any of us can remember. You think that matters? He’d see me stretched out on a rack as soon as look at me. He thinks I’m an animal, and he has scripture to back him up.”

Siddhartha looked grim. “And I’m not much better.”

Channa was stunned; the color rushed to his face. Siddhartha rushed ahead. “I mean, caste keeps my life perfect. That’s the word you used, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re stronger than me or smarter or braver. The fact that we embraced when you walked in the door today could mean a death sentence if my father decreed it.”

Channa straightened up. “I am stronger than you, that part’s true.”

“The rest is true too.” Siddhartha couldn’t help smiling.

Channa said, “You can change the world when it’s yours to play with. The rest of us have to live in it.”

“You think I’m going to get the world?”

“It’s just what they say.”

Siddhartha knew it was better to let the whole subject die. He had lived a long time with the knowledge that even his best friend, at some level that reason couldn’t touch, regarded him with superstitious awe. It wouldn’t matter that Channa had seen the worst of Siddhartha, watched him cry, run away, complain bitterly about his father. It wouldn’t matter that the prince was a creature of flesh and blood or that Channa had often in the heat of sword practice drawn his blood. Being the friend of a royal gave Channa the special status and protection that he enjoyed. But there was a limit to royal protection with an enemy as cunning as Devadatta.

The realization came to Siddhartha that he had always regarded his cousin with anxiety. Devadatta had been like a blade held lightly against his throat. That’s what was now missing. Fear. Siddhartha couldn’t bring back the old sense of threat.

If he wasn’t afraid of Devadatta anymore, what else wasn’t he afraid of? Siddhartha reached inside and opened the hidden trunks of memory, expecting that phantoms of dread would fly out. But the trunk was empty. He had been a death-haunted child, a boy full of fears without a mother.

Tears were rolling down his cheeks now. It was the first time in his life that truth had made Siddhartha weep. That’s what had changed when he jumped into the abyss. He exchanged illusion for truth. He felt purified, and yet some part of him couldn’t rejoice in it. What would it be like to be the only man who wasn’t afraid? His father was afraid despite his battles won; Canki was afraid despite the favor of the gods; Channa was afraid despite his bravado. None of them would be able to grasp this change in Siddhartha. They might even hate him for it.

WITH THE CURTAINS CLOSED and one candle guttering to a spark, Sujata’s room was almost dark. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling. In her mind she kept going over what she should have said to Siddhartha. Everything had gone wrong. Even when she got her heart’s desire and he showed that he wanted her, she had run away. Sometimes when she woke up in the middle of the night, all Sujata could think about was the fact that Siddhartha had looked at her with longing. She fixed that look in her mind and swore she would never let it go.

The simple truth is that Sujata was waiting for Siddhartha to come to her on his own. So when she lay half asleep and the door creaked open, Sujata was instantly wide awake. She trembled under the sheets and widened her eyes to see him in the dark, to make sure this wasn’t another phantom of her imagination.

She saw the outline of a strong young man moving toward the bed, his bearing erect, moving quickly because he desired her so strongly. Fear and exultation fought wildly in Sujata’s breast. If only her bed could have been prepared properly for love, with scattered flower petals, rose water, and sprinkled spices known to make a man aroused.

For a fleeting instant Sujata thought of her mother and wondered if she had been in the same situation. She banished this thought as soon as it came. She didn’t want to think about anything when Siddhartha’s hand took hers; he was bending over her, lowering his face to kiss her.

“Hold still. If you scream I’ll kill you.”

Scream was all she wanted to do, in that instant when she realized this wasn’t Siddhartha and horror had entered her sanctuary. The man’s hand came over her face, covering mouth and nose so that she would be too breathless to cry out, even to think. But panic had already seen to that.

“You’ve been waiting for me a long time. I’ve seen your light. I wanted the moment to be perfect, sweetheart.”

It was unmistakably Devadatta. He tore open her bodice with quick efficiency and began to knead her breasts with his hands, roughly and without consideration for how it hurt her.

Please stop… I’ll do whatever you want.

With her breathing cut off, Sujata didn’t know if she actually spoke those words or if they were a desperate prayer. Devadatta had opened her dress against her feeble struggling, and she felt his hand opening her legs. Half-suffocated as she was, she couldn’t sob. Devadatta was having her, and his thrusts were violent signals of his savagery and disdain.

She went limp, hoping that her rapist would spare her more violence. Devadatta suddenly stopped what he was doing to her. “I know who you want!” he said, and the menace in his voice should have warned her. But Sujata, knowing she was dead, felt a flood of relief.

The only mercy remaining to her was that Devadatta acted swiftly in the dark. She couldn’t detect him pulling out his rippled dagger. “Remember that the last thing you ever saw was me,” he growled at the instant that the blade swept across her eyes. Sujata heard a shriek that must have been her own, then the searing pain came, and she stopped breathing. She was spared the spectacle of Devadatta rolling off her body with a groan. He tried to control himself, but his hands were shaking.

Devadatta realized his predicament: someone would come sooner or later, and there was no time to waste. He seized hold of himself and started the work in front of him. He wrapped Sujata in bed sheets and tied her shrouded body with curtain cords. He easily slipped past the guards and found a sentry’s horse tethered by the gates. He loaded the corpse on its rump and rode quietly toward the river. Mara was already there; he stood by while Devadatta, still not speaking, strong enough that carrying the body didn’t make him groan with exertion, approached the water.