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Updated: June 14, 2025
In Gotama's youth Bihar was full of wandering philosophers who appear to have been atheistic and disposed to uphold the boldest paradoxes, intellectual and moral. There must however have been constructive elements in their doctrine, for they believed in reincarnation and the periodic appearance of superhuman teachers and in the advantage of following an ascetic discipline.
This is interesting, for it seems to show that it was possible to accept Gotama's doctrine, or the greater part of it, as something independent of his personality and an inheritance from earlier teachers. The Udâna and Jâtaka relate another plot without specifying the year. Some heretics induced a nun called Sundarî to pretend she was the Buddha's concubine and hired assassins to murder her.
They thanked and left and hardly had to ask for directions, for rather many pilgrims and monks as well from Gotama's community were on their way to the Jetavana. And since they reached it at night, there were constant arrivals, shouts, and talk of those who sought shelter and got it.
European clergy are often thought of as interpreters of the Deity, and whenever they have had the power they have usually claimed the right to supervise and control the moral or even the political administration of their country. Something similar may be found in Lamaism, but it forms no part of Gotama's original institution nor of the Buddhist Church as seen to-day in Burma, Siam and Ceylon.
The fact that the Sangha, though nearly five hundred years older than any Christian institution, is still vigorous shows that this noble freedom is not unsuccessful as a practical policy. The absence of anything that can be called worship or cultus in Gotama's regulations is remarkable.
He purged Jehovah of his jealousy and prejudices and made him a spirit of pure benevolence who behaves to men as a loving father and bids them behave to one another as loving brethren. Such ideas lie outside the sphere of Gotama's thought and he would probably have asked why on this hypothesis there is any evil in the world.
Near the town was Gotama's favourite place to stay, the grove of Jetavana, which the rich merchant Anathapindika, an obedient worshipper of the exalted one, had given him and his people for a gift. All tales and answers, which the two young ascetics had received in their search for Gotama's abode, had pointed them towards this area.
He may recount only what is relevant to the purpose of his discourse. Gotama's ascetic life at Uruvelâ is known as the wrestling or struggle for truth. The story, as he tells it in the Pitakas, gives no dates, but is impressive in its intensity and insistent iteration . Fire, he thought to himself, cannot be produced from damp wood by friction, but it can from dry wood.
Thus we hear of the bliss of emancipation and of the happiness which is based on the religious life and the words "Nirvana is the greatest happiness" are put into Gotama's own mouth . The middle way preached by him is declared to be free from all distress, and those who walk in it make an end of pain even in this life . In one passage Gotama is found meditating in a wood one winter night and is asked if he feels well and happy.
In the middle was king Duryodhana supported by a large force. In the left foot, O monarch, was stationed Kritavarma accompanied by the Narayana troops, and those invincible warriors, the gopalas. In the right foot, O king, was Gotama's son of prowess incapable of being baffled, surrounded by those mighty bowmen viz., the Trigartas and by the Southerners.
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