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The Birth of the Buddha 2. The Birth of the Buddha The Birth of the Buddha
The Birth of the Buddha
3. The Four Encounters
This brings us straight to the next act, Siddhartha's disenchantment with his
life of pleasure. This stage of the Buddha's life is told through story of
Siddhartha's rides with his charioteer. As he leaves the confines of his
luxurious apartments, he encounters for the first time in his life a decrepit
old man, a severely ill man, and a corpse being carried to the funeral pyre by
mourners. The experience is traumatic, and when he afterwards sees a wandering
ascetic with serene and composed features Siddhartha resolves that he will leave
his home and take up the life of a wandering ascetic himself.
Figure 5, a Chinese
Painting from the Tang Dynasty, shows the two scenes of the young prince
encountering these painful miseries of a human life. It is perhaps difficult to
understand why Siddhartha reacted so violently to the sight of these miseries,
because we know that most people become accustomed to seeing them from childhood
on. His reaction can be understood only by learning that his father Shuddhodhana,
always haunted by the fear that his son might enter the religious life, had
succeeded in keeping such sights from him until his manhood.
The Birth of the Buddha 4. The Great Departure
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