Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Samsara movie (YouTube clip)
Prince Siddhartha looks in on his wife and newborn before renouncing the world. |
The royal wedding of Prince Siddhartha and Princess Bimba called Yasodhara (Hintha) |
.
Princess Bimba called "Yasodhara" |
He remained married 13 years, from 16 to age 29, when he grew to understand that life was not what his father had presented to him. There is in fact suffering for all in the form of old age, sickness, death and more fundamentally from impermanence, the impersonal nature of existence, and the unsatisfactoriness of all composite things.
Time for a royal teen wedding. |
Nirvana is the end of all suffering. And as there was no teacher who knew the path, the ascetic Siddhartha had to become a trailblazer. He had felt this way for years and must have shared his realization with his wife. The final straw came when his son was born.
Because we misunderstand and read things only from our perspective with assumptions about men today, we think the worst.
"Oh, what a heartless brute that Siddhartha to leave his poor wife all alone...with nothing but three palaces, a staff of servants, parents, friends, an extended family, royal status, a new son -- future heir to the throne -- to groom for the position, her choice of any man in the kingdom or surrounding kingdoms in Scythia ("Shakya Land"), money, and news of his ascetic adventures. She mimicked him from a distance wanting to be like him even as she lived in splendor declining offers to remarry.
I'll be back to save everyone, family. |
We will rule Shakya Land (Scythia). |
One would not get that from this Hollywood version of the story, which is strange because Samsara is a Tibetan Buddhist movie with Asians in lead roles and behind the scenes, but far too many Western sensibilities, pandering to a modern audience.
- A better book to read about Siddhartha and Yasodhara's wedded life is a recent book by happy Ven. Walpola Piyananda of Dharmavijaya Vihara Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. It details many of their conversations and is much more accurate than moviemakers and others' assumptions. He must be contacted for the title.
Brilliant, beautiful Bimba (A. Thammasak) |
Princess Yasodhara as the Buddhist nun Ven. Bhaddhakaccana (aka Rahulamata) became the greatest disputant in northwest "India" (there was no such place as "India" until later but only loosely affiliated kingdoms like Magadha).
Many members of the family clan, who lived in the northwest, at the foothills of the Himalayan range known as the Hindu Kush, very likely in modern Afghanistan, Gandhara, and Pakistan (which only came into being as a country a half century ago).
No good deed goes uncriticized. He came back. |
Then after 13 years of this, she gave birth to a beautiful prince but had to see him raised by royal servants and the king and his wife, Siddhartha's adoptive mother (Maha Prajapati, who later became the world's first Buddhist nun).
There is a path to the end of suffering! |
A man has a spiritual goal to accomplish so he renounces the throne and the world, gives everything up, then succeeds in his efforts AND comes back to save everyone. What a "brute." What a "selfish brute." How could Yasodhara ever have married a man like that?
No comments:
Post a Comment