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• SUNDAY PUNCH VESAK FOCUS ON SIDDHARTHA’S BIRTH

Morning has broken. The dawn, the world and the heavens had for epochs been waiting to break, has, finally, come to pass.

On a Vesak full moon day in the far-off northern plains of India over twenty-five centuries ago, the rising sun sheds its tender early morn light upon the scene of a royal litter emerging from the gates of Kapilavasthu, capital of the ruling Shakya clan.

At the centre of this royal convoy, borne aloft on a golden palanquin, sits the queen of the domain. She is accompanied by her sister and guarded by a retinue of royal attendants. With the blessings of her husband, the king, she is leaving the gates of his kingdom, embarked on a journey to her father’s palace in the province of Devadaha.

Heavy with child, she is going home for her confinement to bear a son to her husband, the King, and provide the long-awaited heir to his royal throne, a future king to his people.

WHEN A BUDDHA-TO-BE IS BORN: The birth of Siddartha

As the royal litter progresses upon its chartered path at a sedate pace, the expectant mother reflects on the extraordinary events that have taken place in the last few months gone by.

Her failure to beget an heir to the Kapilavasthu throne has been, for many years, the subject of vicious social comments and the focus of snide court gossip. Her barrenness was taken as a bad omen of the terrible fate awaiting to befall the royal kingdom, and, though none dared express it in her presence, she knew they privately held her as the royal clan’s harbinger of doom.

Perhaps, even the king, though so kind, gentle and loving, unconsciously bore some ill will deep in his heart, and it pained her to think that she, due to her failure to conceive, may well have been the source of his unspoken grief.

And then, just when she had resigned herself to a life of sorrow, there came the dream.

Ah, yes, how vividly she remembered that dream, the dream she had nearly a year ago. She had dreamt, the four world deities bearing her to the tableland of the Himalayas. Their wives greet her and take her to Lake Mansarovar and bathe her in its cool, clear, refreshing waters. They dress her in a robe of exquisite beauty and deck her with gold ornaments. They garland her with flowers of a heavenly fragrance and lay her down by the soft and sandy banks of the tranquil lake to rest.

Then through the distant hazy mist that suddenly swarms the plateau, she sees emerging from the waters of the lake, a white silvery elephant of magnificent appearance that walks with regal gait towards the banks on which she lies. With measured steps, the elephant circles her thrice; and, with a salutation with her trunk held aloft, enters her soul divine.

She wakes from her ecstatic dream and wonders what it may portend. She relates the dream to her sire, who immediately summons royal astrologers to the palace to interpret its full import.

They prophesy that the queen is destined to give birth to a son, one who will do his father proud. ‘He will be,’ they proclaim, ‘A ruler not only of this province but of the world. An emperor whose empire will be forever’.

Even as the queen recalls those pride-swelling words inside her palanquin, a sudden surge of tears breaks out afresh and starts cascading down her cheeks. It’s the same surge of joyous emotions she had experienced that day upon hearing the sages say of the destined greatness that lay in wait for the son she bore in her womb.

As she brushes her tears away, the queen also recalls how she had asked them, not in disdain but whimsically, ‘But will not death steal the spoils of any empire?’

And how, and with what confidence, one old sage had replied, “Nay, while death will indeed rob the accumulation of wealth and power, it’s impotent in the face of eternal truth. Your son will not command with arms an empire which is but fleeting but conquer, with his philosophical doctrine, the souls of all mankind which is everlasting.’

The queen cannot help but let a smile light her face, remembering how the king not being too amused, to hear the old sage prophecy such a dismaying fate for his son and heir to the throne. He’s furious. A spiffing pot of boiling milk churned by sages to the brim, and this old sage adds a drop of dung to it. The nerve!

He will have none of that. Certainly not for his son to become another wandering fakir, babbling stanzas from the Upanishads, when he had a kingdom to overlord, administer and defend as any noble Kshatriyan of the warrior caste was duty bound to do.

He flared. ‘Religion is for Brahmins,’ he scornfully declared. ‘Let them use the monopoly they enjoy having sole access to God. But no son of mine will be a hermit, a beggar, parroting mystical lines from the Rig Vedas in return for a measly bowl of alms. My son will be a Kshatriyan, a warrior born of noble blood, born to be king, born to rule in the self-same manner of his forefathers. In the manner his caste dictates and Kshatriyan honour demands. I will ensure my son follows the warrior path of his ancestors.’

Little did the king know that the path of the Prince’s ancestors lay in the way twenty-seven Buddhas had trod before.

Out of a sudden whim, the queen draws the curtains inside the palanquin and glances out to view the passing scene. What she beholds entrances her, for the royal convoy is passing the tranquil Lumbini Park. The park’s serenity and natural beauty appear akin to the divine grove of Cittalatha. It stirs in her a strong desire to break journey and pause for rest.

She orders the litter to stop and, alighting from her palanquin, strolls with her sister and attendants across the lush and verdant park. She searches for a shady grove to briefly rest her limbs and, coming before a sprawling sal tree with flowers in spring bloom, reclines beneath the cooling shade of the sturdy sal tree.

But hardly had she closed her eyes, she feels a gentle breeze flutter and the leaves begin to rustle, even as flowers start to fall like the drizzle before a storm, when suddenly, out of the blue, a sal tree branch dramatically swoops to almost touch the ground, like an eagle swoops to pounce on its prey.

Inexorably drawn by some inexplicable force, she instinctively grasps the swooping bough, only to be lifted by its upward return. It leaves her suspended, dangling on a branch in midair. But her weight, however, forces the branch to gently return her to earth, with her feet firmly on the ground. In sudden shock, she experiences the first few pangs of imminent labour.

The trained midwives that form part of the royal retinue quickly take charge of the situation, somewhat unfazed by the crisis. Prepared in advance to meet such exigencies, curtains are drawn around the queen to safeguard her personal privacy.

With one hand still clutching the stooped sal bough and the other around her sister’s shoulder, the queen, in cloistered cool and in strict privacy, gives, in the midst of a rain of flowers, birth to a son. His advent on earth, though some days away. Fates had decreed he be self-born at a time of his own choosing.

Thus is Siddhartha born. Not in ornate palace halls but in the windblown flow of nature. Amidst the song of birds. Amidst the gush of streams and rivulets, leaping to join rivers that rush headlong to an eternal sea. Amidst scenes of natural beauty, flushed with greenery. Born in the bosom of nature beneath the leafy shade of a sprawling sal tree laden with flowers in full bloom. Born a child of nature, alike all nature’s beings on earth.

Nay, not the world but heavens, too,

Resounded with delight,

A Buddha born on earth, they knew,

Would gods and men enlight

Thank India, for saving Buddha’s relics from Sotheby’s crass auction Exactly ten days after the Lankan government staged a public exposition of the Buddha’s Tooth Relic, international auctioneers Sotheby’s of London were to stage a public auction of the Buddha’s Relics in Hong Kong this Wednesday. The Indian government must be hailed today for its timely action to prevent these sacred Buddha Relics from going under the hammer to the highest bidder, as if they were some old furniture used by a feudal lord in the colonial world of Suzy Wong. They were the mortal remains of India’s Greatest Son, sacred relics that would have received public adoration and worship had they been enshrined in a temple’s inner sanctum even as the Buddha’s Tooth Relic receives public veneration and worship, daily at the Dalada Maligawa in Kandy. Instead, they are condemned to humiliation and profanation and forced to go under Sotheby’s squalid auctioneer’s hammer, up for grabs to the highest bidder. Sotheby’s stand condemned for the crass insensitivity they’ve shown in their unscrupulous pursuit to make a quick buck by the sale of these relics to collectors to store in their vaults and boast to their friends as little curios they picked up on their latest voyage to the sleazy world of Suzy Wong. The Buddha’s Bone Relics are not collectors’ items but treasures that belong to all of mankind. These relics had been first discovered and identified as the Buddha’s Bone Relics, found in the Piprahwa stupa in Kapilavasthu, the birthplace of Gautama the Buddha. BUDDHA’S BONE RELICS: Squalid attempt by Sotheby’s to auction them in Hong Kong The efficient way Modi’s India planned and executed the operation to rescue the relics from the auctioneer’s hammer deserves the gratitude of all Buddhists. The mission to secure the relics and demand their return to India was a five-pronged legal attack, delivered almost simultaneously to the offending parties concerned. The Indian authorities were alerted to the auction by a listing on Sotheby’s website. It said, ‘Sotheby’s is honoured to present the Piprahwa gems, appearing for the first time in Hong Kong. The 1898 discovery of these gems by William Claxton Peppé at Piprahwa in northern India—where they were found buried together in reliquaries with the corporeal relics of the Historical Buddha—ranks among the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of all time.’ What honour is there but sacrilege for Sotheby’s of London in selling ‘the corporeal relics of the Historical Buddha’? Sure, they are not from a fictitious Buddha, are they? Really, do Sotheby’s have no sense of Buddhist sensitivities that they wantonly trample on without remorse nor of the pain they cause when they act like ghouls, preying on the corporal remains of the historically dead? Will Sotheby’s of London have the impudence to do the same with the Holy Sepulchre? FIRST, on Monday evening, India’s Ministry of Culture served legal notice on Sotheby’s, demanding immediate withdrawal of the relics from the auction sale and to cooperate with Indian authorities to return these sacred artefacts to their rightful place. SECONDLY, the Ministry of Culture also served legal notice on Chris Peppe, who had inherited his great-grandfather’s discovery while working in colonial India. They asked him to immediately withdraw the relics from the auction and demanded they be returned to India. A note by Chris Peppe on Sotheby’s website says, “The Piprahwa gem relics were passed down from my great uncle to his son; then, in 2013, they came to myself and two cousins. It was at this point that I began in-depth research into the discovery of the gems by William Claxton Peppé, my great-grandfather.’ THIRDLY, the Archaeological Survey of India also requested the Consulate General of Hong Kong to take up the matter with authorities and immediately stop the auction. FOURTHLY, the Ministry of External Affairs was also requested to engage with embassies in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong to ensure the auction is stopped. FIFTHLY, the Financial Investigation Unit was asked to coordinate with its counterpart in Hong Kong to highlight the illegality of the auction and ensure compliance with international law. The combined and well-coordinated legal and diplomatic offensive launched by a determined India to save the Buddha’s Bone Relics from the ignominy of being sold to the highest bidder as a ‘lor’ at a Hong Kong auction forced the authorities to immediately postpone the bizarre auction sale. The high esteem in which the Sotheby’s were held lay in the mire after being exposed by India as virtual fences, handling stolen goods and dumping the ‘ hot stuff’ at public auctions in Hong Kong, as evidenced by India’s legal demand to return the Buddha’s Bone Relics to its rightful place in India. Surprisingly, the Lankan government, which with great fanfare staged a ten-day exposition of the Buddha’s Tooth Relic which ended only eight days before Pradeshiya Sabha elections, made not a hum of protest nor hissed a whisper of indignation over the abject sale of the Buddha’s Bone Relics by Sotheby’s at a public auction in Hong Kong. True, the Lankan government has no legal right to prevent the auction being held nor demand its return, but there is no bar to protest and condemn the revolting sacrilege. No need for it to crawl beneath a blanket of silence and, ignoring the whole issue, stay mum. Instead, it was left to the Mahanayake Theras of the Siam, Amarapura, and Ramanna Nikayas to express the nation’s outrage, with their condemnation delivered through letters to the British High Commission. Citing the High Commissioner’s familiarity with Sri Lanka’s religious practices, they urged diplomatic intervention to prevent the auction. ‘The relics hold “immeasurable spiritual significance” and called for their preservation and protection in the interest of global heritage reverence.’ Pity the government could find no voice to give echo to the people’s condemnation.