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SPEAKING
FREELY
The Buddha is smiling
By Bhaskar Dasgupta
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
When the first
Indian nuclear device exploded at Pokhran, India,
the scientists involved sent a notification
message to the prime minister: "The Buddha is
smiling." While it was touted as a peaceful
nuclear explosion, the fact that it was announced
by referring to the Buddha made a dramatically
shocking and jarring note. The Buddha - prophet of
non-violence, cycle of life and death,
self-sacrifice, renunciation, prayers and ultimate
enlightenment, being associated with a nuclear
explosive device? Shocking or what? Funnily
enough, having a weird mind, which associated the
strangest things together, I linked up the Buddha
with alleged London suicide bombers Mohammed
Sadique Khan and Germaine Lindsay.
One of
the most startling things that I have ever heard
was when I was banging on about the Buddha and his
message in front of my long-suffering wife, who
snapped at me and said, "Big deal - your prophet
of enlightenment. He abandoned his wife and young
child while he went off to attain enlightenment.
Same with Laxman, who went off for 14 years with
Ram and Sita, leaving his wife Urmila behind? Who
has thought about Richard Lionheart's wife who
frantically spent time and energy trying to raise
the ransom money for him in return for rumored
non-consummation of marriage, boorish behavior and
a very difficult life (including financial
problems after his death)?" While I was gaping at
her, she explained that each of these "heroes" is
considered great for their respective faiths.
The Buddha gave rise to his own religion -
Buddhism, Laxman is considered to be the epitome
of loyalty and filially (in terms of being the
model brother), and finally Richard the Lionheart
- the star of so many heroic tales, the defender
of Christianity, the leader of Christian crusades
against the infidels, so on and so forth. What
about their marriage vows, promises and
responsibilities to their wives and children?
Needless to say, I was gobsmacked and
intrigued. Now this was an interesting angle. We
have three examples, each considered to be great
by some or all of their co-religionists and even
revered by other religions. Buddha is venerated by
all, Richard the Lionheart by the Christians.
Laxman's statue is present with Ram and Sita and
worshipped by Hindu millions, while these suicide
bombers are considered to be great martyrs by a
certain section of the Muslim population.
Nevertheless, all of them abandoned their
families, in some cases, their little children for
the sake of their religions. Interesting or what?
Therefore, off I went to do a bit of digging.
Siddharth Gautam was the son of a chief of
the Shakyas, a warrior tribe in India. Born into a
princely family, he grew up in the lap of luxury,
got married at 16 to Yashodhara and became the
father to Rahul. On visiting the city outside the
palace, he saw an old crippled man, a corpse, a
diseased man and finally a wandering monk. It was
an eureka moment for him and thus gave rise to the
concept of the eternal circle of life, which
encompasses death, disease, pain and age. He
decided to leave his wife and son, his position
and riches, stealing away in the middle of the
night into the wide world. The rest, as they say,
is history. That is what we know as common
mythology behind the early history of the Buddha.
When I started researching Yashodhara, the
situation became curioser and curioser. The
earliest Buddhist texts in the Pali Canon are
silent on the matter of Yashodhara, except for one
very obscure Chinese translation, which refers to
Yashodhara, mother of Rahul, in a list of nuns who
are known for their good deeds.
Be that as
it may, it was in the later stages of Buddhist
scholarship and the requirement to appeal to women
that seems to have driven the emergence of
Yashodhara as a minor, yet significant part of
Buddhist theology. You see? This included making
Yashodhara go back to the Buddha and become a nun.
Still, even if we go by the latter mythological
treatment, we find Yashodhara spending years on
her own, not knowing what happened to her husband,
bringing up her near-orphaned son on her own.
Laxman, on the other hand, was the brother
of Ram, one of the incarnations of Vishnu the
Preserver. Due to various reasons, Ram was asked
to go into exile for 14 years with his wife Sita.
Laxman, who was married to Sita's sister, Urmila,
joined Ram in his exile, leaving Urmila behind. As
with matters of faith, whatever be the real life
of Laxman, his persona has now been morphed into
divinity. Hindu gods are usually representations
of natural or human forces. Laxman stands for
steadfast loyalty, even at terrible personal cost
or taken in another way, brotherly love.
Ram-Laxman is an enduring lesson for
brothers-in-arms, love or any other form of male
family relationships. Unfortunately, research on
Urmila, Laxman's wife, was a bit troublesome.
There seems to be an Indian film actress who has
the same name, and trying to locate books, papers
or articles on mythological Urmila was a bit of a
pain. Still, what we know is that she is another
personification of the ideal wife or Shakti
(besides Sita). She spent 14 years of loneliness,
not knowing where her husband was, but was
expected to suffer in silence, as she did. The
names of her brother-in-law, sister and husband
are named in millions of prayers daily, but she is
almost unknown.
Then let's take up the
case of Richard I, also known as the Lionhearted.
Richard, who by all accounts, was a unique man of
his age, with a strapping huge figure, very
interested and experienced in the martial arts,
but also educated and a poet of some note. His
claim to fame was his participation in the Third
Crusade, which was motivated by the loss of
Jerusalem to Saladin. So off he went to fight the
infidels. On the way, he married Berengaria after
lots of adventures, and even took Berengaria with
him on part of his crusade. Not wanting to repeat
the entire story, he went, fought, massacred,
drank, conquered and slept around the holy land.
His wife, on the other hand, went back home and
pined for him. Once he was taken hostage by Henry
VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, his mother and his
wife tried their level best to raise the
munificent sum of 100,000 marks as a ransom. He
hardly repaid his wife's efforts or loyalty,
preferring to be with his boys.
Richard is
now well known through the aegis of the Robin Hood
story, but hardly anybody knows of Berengaria, his
wife. She had financial troubles after Richard
died and while she wasn't exactly at the pauper's
door, she had her share of troubles. So, here's
the third example of a wife who was left behind,
unknown or little known, no concern about her
sacrifices, while her husband takes off on
religious grounds, gains wide following and fame
for his piety and service to his religion.
I know what could be running through your
mind, it's a feminist portrayal. In many ways it
is, but it is an interesting view to take.
Abandoning your wife and child(ren) is a pretty
drastic step to take, no? In each of these cases,
the woman concerned was pretty well fixed - they
were all royalty, so it is expected that they
would be reasonably comfortable. Be that as it
may, in the vast majority of cases in modern life,
women who lose their husbands or have their
husbands walk out, their lives are shattered.
Going off on some noble cause for your religion is
one thing, but abandoning that very same
religion's main message is another, for after all,
all religions place a huge importance on marriage
and the family unit with all that entails.
The concept of love and responsibility
toward your nearest and dearest like parents,
children and siblings ranks high on the list of
all religions, almost right behind worshipping
God/gods. Now take for example the kids of the
suicide bombers who struck in London, how will
they feel as they grow up and are called the
children of a murderer? We have a welfare state
here in the United Kingdom, so basic essential
needs will be met, and they will have other family
members, so it should be fairly OK. Sadly, we have
seen that the pull of religion was stronger than
the pull of fatherhood or husbandhood and the
child will grow up fatherless. If I put myself in
the abandoned wife's or the orphaned child's
place, I would perhaps react in the same fashion
as my wife did. As for the orphaned child of the
suicide bomber and the bomber himself, I came
across this poignant snippet by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge.
An orphan's curse would drag to
hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! More
horrible than that
Is a curse in a dead man's
eye!
Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta works
in the financial sector in London. He has
extensive international experience and is
currently working on his second doctorate in
terrorism and international relations, at Kings
College London.
(Copyright 2005 Dr
Bhaskar Dasgupta)
Speaking Freely is
an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
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