Lord Buddha After Leaving The Palace

Chapter I : Halt at Brighu's Ashram

• With the desire to pursue other ways, Gautama left Rajagraha to meet Arada Kalam.
• On his way he beheld the hermitage of Brighu and entered it out of curiosity.
• The Brahmin inmates of the Ashram who had gone outside for the sake of fuel, having just come back with their hands full of fuel, flowers, and kusa grass, pre-eminent as they were in penances, and proficient in wisdom, went just to see him, and went not to their cells.
• Then he being duly honoured by those dwellers of the hermitage paid his homage to the Elders of the Ashram.
• He, the wise one, longing for liberation, traversed that hermitage, filled with the holy company desirous of heaven,—gazing at their strange penances.
• He, the gentle one, saw for the first time the different kinds of penances practised by the ascetics in that sacred grove.
• Then the Brahmin Brighu, well-versed in the technique of penance, told Gautama all the various kinds of penances and the fruits thereof.
• " Uncooked food, growing out of water, and roots and fruits,—this is the fare of the saints according to the sacred texts ; but the different alternatives of penance vary.
• " Some live like the birds on gleaned corn, others graze on grass like the deer, others live on air like the snakes, as if turned into ant-hills.
• " Others win their nourishment with great effort from stones, others eat corn ground with their own teeth ; some, having boiled for others, keep for themselves what may chance to be left.
• " Others, with their tufts of matted hair continually wet with water, twice offer oblations to Agni with hymns; others, plunging like fishes into the water,dwell there with their bodies scratched by tortoises.
• "By such penances endured for a time,—by the higher they attain heaven, by the lower the world of men, by the path of pain they eventually dwell in happiness,—pain, they say, is the root of merit."
• On hearing this Gautama said : "Today I is my first sight of such a hermitage and I do not understand this rule of penance.
• "This is all I would say at the moment. This devotion of yours is for the sake of heaven—while my desire is that the ills of life on earth be probed and a solution found. Will you allow me to take your leave. I wish to learn the Sankhya Philosophy and train myself in the Samadhi marga, and see what help it can give me for the solution of my problem.
• " There is sorrow to me when I reflect that I shall have to depart, leaving you who are thus engaged, you who are such a refuge and who have shown such excessive kindness to me,—-just as there was when I had to leave my kindred behind.
• "It is not, therefore, any dislike on my part or the wrong conduct of another, which makes me go away from this wood ; for ye are like great sages, standing fast in the religious duties which are in accordance with former sages.
• "I wish to go to Muni Arada Kalam who is known to be the master of the subject."
• Seeing his resolve Brighu, the chief of the hermitage, said : " Prince, brave indeed is thy purpose, who, young as thou art, having pondered thoroughly between heaven and liberation have made up your mind for liberation, ye are indeed brave!
• "If what you have said is thy settled purpose go quickly to Vindhyakoshtha ; the Muni Arada lives there who has gained an insight into absolute bliss.
• " From him thou wilt learn the path but as I foresee, this purpose of thine will go further, after having studied his theory."
• Gautama thanked him, and having saluted the company of sages he departed ; the hermits also, having duly performed to him all the rites of courtesy, entered again into the ascetic grove.