From Amitabha

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The Conspiracy
The Man-eating Tiger
The Buddhist Abbot and the Brahman
The Parable of the Elephant
The Double Wedding

11. The Conspiracy

ASVAGHOSHA conversed daily with Kanishka, and not only his friends Charaka and the king of Magadha, but also his chosen bride, princess Bhadrasri, were now wont to join.
One day Subahu was detained by important affairs of state, and when he appearded in the circle of philosophical friends, he was full of distress.
"Friend," said Kanishka, "what disturbs your mind?"
"Dear friend and ally," replied king Subahu, "it is your life that is endangered And I am given to understand that unless I join conspirators against you they will elect another king. But my duty is to save you or to die with you!"
Kanishka was a man of deeds, not of words. He bade Charaka to hoist on the tower of the palace a blue flag, which was the secret sign to summon the Gandhara generals that were camping in the vicinity of the town. He next asked the king to call for the treacherous prime minister who was at the head of the conspiracy.
The prime minister entered, and the king spoke to him about his fidelity to King Subahu and the kingdom of Magadha, and said that he himself, anxious to honour the people of Magadha, wished to show some recognition and confer some favour on him, the most faithful servant of King Subahu.
The prime minister felt uneasy, for his fellow conspirators, generals from the south, were waiting for a signal to overpower the few foreign guards, to close the gates, and take possession of the palace.
King Kanishka and Subahu went with him to a hall where the generals were assembled. The conspirators were dumbfounded when they saw at the side of their most hated enemy their own sovereign accompanied by the prime minister. Kanishka addressed the conspirators with great cordiality and said that the two nations Magadha and Gandhara should forthwith be like brothers, and that they would join.
King Kanishka then told the story of Brahmadatta, the powerful king of Benares, how he had conquered the little kingdom of Kosala and had the captive king Long-suffering executed in Benares. But Prince Long-life escaped and, unknown to any one, entered the service of King Brahmadatta, whose confidence he gained by his talents and reliability. Thus he became King Brahmadatta's personal attendant.
Kanishka was a good story-teller. So the conspirators were as though spellbound and forgot their evil designs; nor did they notice how the hall began to fill more and more with the officers of the king of Gandhara. They listened to the adventures of Prince Long-life; how on a hunt he was left alone with King Brahmadatta in the forest, how the prince drew his sword, how the king was frightened when he awoke and learned that he was in the power of his enemy's son; and finally how each granted the other his life and made peace, thus demonstrating the wisdom of the maxim, that hatred cannot be appeased by hatred, but is appeased by love, and by love only.
When the king finished the story of Prince Long-life, the hall was crowded with armed officers of the Gandhara army, and seeing his advantage, King Kanishka, feeling the satisfaction of one who had gained a great victory in battle, paused and glanced with a good-natured look over the party of conspirators. He remained as self-possessed as a schoolmaster teaching a class of wayward boys. "I am anxious to be at peace with all the world," he said, "but what shall be done with traitors and conspirators who misunderstand my good intentions?" Then addressing the prime minister of Magadha by his full name and title, he added: "Let me hear your advice, my friend. I meant to promote your welfare, while you attempted to take my life."
The prime minister sobbed: "You are in wisdom like the Enlightened One!"
King Kanishka made no answer. The conspirators, one by one, joined the kneeling prime minister. Then the king saw Asvaghosha in the audience, approached the sage respectfully and said: "Now, most reverend sir, it is your turn to speak, for I want you to tell me what a king ought to do to those men who conspire to take his life. Would it be wise for him to follow the behest of the Tathagata and to grant them forgiveness?"
Said Asvaghosha: "Pronounce judgement according to your own discretion."
"Thank you. I have learned that to hate none is a sign of highest wisdom. But a king cannot let crime go unpunished. The duty of a judge is justice. Rise, gentlemen, and if you will promise to banish from your heart all falsehood, spite, and envy from now on, come and shake hands with your august sovereign, the king of Magadha, and myself, his ally and brother."

12. The Man-Eating Tiger

KING KANISHKA conquered his enemies but by the superiority of his mind.
It was at this moment that a messenger arrived and told that a man-eating tiger has been seen in its garden and parks, and people in the neighbourhood were sore afraid of the beast."
The generals of the South were allowed to go to hunt the tiger. They set out the same evening, while the two kings and their retinue with many officers followed them on the following day; Charaka, however, stayed behind at the command of King Kanishka, to observe the courtiers and councilors of King Subahu and keep an eye on the populace of the city, the capital of Magadha.
Charaka sat at a window in company with the venerable Asvaghosha to see the suite of the two kings with their hunters and elephants leaving the city, and Charaka said to the sage: "My reverend friend, I have seen how much evil can be avoided by kingly discretion. Then what about Amitabha, the omnipresent wisdom source?"
"My young friend," replied Asvaghosha, "No being has a right to blame Amitabha for existing. Beings exist by their own karma under the influence of circumstances.
"By Amitabha all beings are merely educated. Some have gained more insight than others. Amitabha is the same to all, but diverse creatures make different use of the benefits of truth.
"Amitabha is not a god that would assert himself or care for worship and adoration. He is not Ishvara, not Sakra, not Indra, not Brahma: He is the good law, the order and intrinsic harmony and the bliss of goodness.
"We are not creatures of Amitabha, but educated by Amitabha and raised by him: We are Amitabha's children.
"Ask your own self, but you grew to be what you are because you wanted to too."
"If I am determined to love life," asked Charaka, "is it wrong and shall I be punished for it by suffering?"
Replied Asvaghosha: "There is neither punishment nor reward, my son, yet there is cause and effect. And what authority has any one to command his brother beings? The ten commandments are ten ways pointed out by the Tathagata how to avoid ten evils. He who does not take the Tathagata's advice must bear the consequences. As to love of life, there is nothing wrong in it. If you love life, you must not be afraid of suffering, but bear its ills nobly.
Avail yourself of the light of Amitabha. Let your light shine in the world and you will be like your master, Buddha-Amitabha, the omni-benevolent source of all illumination."

13. The Buddhist Abbot and the Brahmin

KING KANISHKA stayed at the summer palace to witness the tiger hunt, a Buddhist abbot came and told that a Shiva shrine close by was neglected."
"What can I do about it?" queried Charaka.
Asvaghosha said,"The Shiva worshippers may be mistaken in their religious views, but in their own way do good service to the people."
Asvaghosha also said to clarify matters: "The good law is supreme, and it is a father omni-benevolent, as we rightly designate it. It is the measure of righteousness. Amitabha is love, and free from the vanity of egoism. Amitabha cares not for prayer, is indifferent to worship, and cannot be flattered by praise, but the good law is thwarted when his children err. Amitabha remains the same forever, all creatures are his disciples, he guides them, he teaches them, he is like a father to them. So far as they partake of his nature, they are his children."
"When I was young," said Asvaghosha, "I was a Brahmin myself. I know there is much that is good in the Brahman faith. I abandoned it, because the doctrine of the Tathagata was superior. The Tathagata says that those who believe the method of salvation consists in adoration, worship, and prayer, are subjected to a doctrine for children.
"Brahma, the Absolute, is generally interpreted to mean Being in general, but Amitabha is Enlightenment. We go for goodness, truth, inward purity.
"By Amitabha we understand the ever-light of comprehension. This light is the reality. An inborn standard of right and wrong is Amitabha. We have to ground ourselves on that which we know, and Amitabha is certainly not a limited self-consciousness, but a norm that is higher than any individual.
"We know something but not all about Amitabha. He is the Dharmakaya, the embodiment of the good law. He is the bliss of good deeds. The philosophers, scientists, poets, of the future, the thinkers and dreamers of mankind, will find in Amitabha a wonderful source of inspiration. The Tathagata's way of life urges the practical issues of life, and does not turn vague."

14. The Parable of the Elephant

Asvaghosha saw that every eye was intent upon him, and so he told the story of the white elephant. He said:

"There was a noble and mighty white elephant. He had a strong trunk and long tusks. Trained by a good master he was willing and serviceable in all the work that elephants are put to. This noble and mighty animal was taken by his trainer to the land of the blind. It was noised about in the land of the blind that the king of all beasts, the wisest of all animals, the strongest and yet the meekest and kindliest of creatures, had appeared in their country. So the wise men and teachers of the blind came to the place where the elephant was and everyone began to investigate his shape and figure and form.
When the elephant was gone they met and discussed the problem of the noble and mighty beast. There were some who said he was like a great thick snake. Others said he was like an average sized snake. The former had felt the trunk, the latter the tail. Also, there were some who claimed that he was like a high column, others declared he was large and bulky like a big barrel, still others maintained he was smooth and hard but tapering. Some of the blind had taken hold of one of the legs, others had reached the main body, and still others had touched the tusks.
Every one proposed his view and they litigated, bickered, quarrelled, and called each other names. Each one imprecated all the others, and each one denounced all the others, and they abused, scolded, anathematised, and excommunicated, and finally every one of them swore that every one else was a liar and accursed heretic. Everyone of these blind men had honest intentions and was sure of having the truth and relying on his own experience. In turn they formed schools and sects and factions and behaved in exactly the same way as you see the priests of the different creeds behave.
But the master of the mighty elephant knows them all, he knows that every one of them has a parcel of the truth, that every one is right in his way, but wrong in taking his parcel to be the whole truth.

Asvaghosha also told: "None of these sectarians observed the fact that the elephant was perfectly white and a marvel to see, for all of them were blind. Yet I would not say that they were either dishonest or hypocrites. They had investigated the truth to the best of their ability.
The master of the elephant is the Tathagata, the Enlightened One, the Buddha. He has brought the white elephant representing the truth, the noble and mighty elephant, symbolising strength and wisdom and devotion, into the land of the blind, and he who listens to the Tathagata will understand all the schools, and all the sects and all the factions that are in possession of parcels of the truth. His doctrine is all-comprehensive, and he who takes refuge in Him will cease to bicker, contend, and quarrel."

When Asvaghosha had finished the parable of the noble and mighty elephant, the two kings returned from the summer palace carrying with them in a solemn procession the slain tiger, and close behind on a white charger decked with garlands and gay ribbons, rode the hero of the day, one of the generals from the South, whose dart had struck the tiger with fatal precision and death-dealing power.
"Behold the hero of the day!” said Charaka. "And had the conspiracy not miscarried the same man might now be an assassin and a miscreant.”
Asvaghosha added, "The purpose a life is devoted to, also gives worth to a life. Our aim is to avoid wrong doing and to let right and justice and loving-kindness prevail. Says the Tathagata:

Commit no wrong, but do good deeds,
And let your heart be pure.
All Buddhas teach this true doctrine,
Which will continually endure.
[Dhammapada 183]

15. The Double Wedding

CHARAKA found his mental equilibrium by degrees and not without difficulties, whereas his friend Kanishka seemed to possess it naturally. In the meantime King Kanishka had sent a messenger to his chancellor and vice-regent at Gandhara, Matura, to bring Princess Kamalavati to Benares.
Princess Kamalavati arrived and was betrothed to Charaka. Asvaghosha solemnised the nuptials of both couples, Kanishka with Bhadrasri, and Charaka with Kamalavati; and he read to them:

"Sweeter than fatherhood and motherhood is an old life spent in truth and purity; Sweeter still to reach enlightenment and keep free from evil." [Dhammapada 332-333]

When the marriage ceremony was over a feast was held at the palace.
When his friends praised him during the fiest, Charaka replied: "My science is a beginning only. The Tathagata set the wheel rolling; it is now our duty to follow up, to spread enlightenment, and to increase it. Amitabha is without bounds; thus the possibilities of invention are inexhaustible.
But the enlightenment of our souls is most important. Therefore we praise the Tathagata [Buddha]."

Literature
Carus, Paul. Amitabha. A Story of Buddhist Theology. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company, 1906.

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