Miss Buddha by Ulf Wolf Read Free Book Online Page B

shielded from the mundane.
    He was a true prince.
    At twenty-nine, however, Siddhattha had had
his fill of secluded luxury and insisted (and not for the first
time; in fact, this was the third time) that his father let him
leave the palace and visit his subjects.
    Give me a week, said his father, though not
in so many words. What he said was, “Uposatha,” meaning the next
full moon, a week away.
    And this was a busy week for his father who
ordered a massive all-hands on deck to clear large parts of the
city—those along Siddhattha’s path—of any sign of misery, that’s to
say, any trace of age, sickness, or suffering; sights unsuitable
for the prince and king-to-be.
    In fact, considering the time constraint,
they did a remarkable job, for riding down the prescribed route
(which Suddhodana insisted Siddhattha take—that and none other) all
the prince saw was young, healthy, smiling faces, greeting their
prince.
    “You are right, this is a beautiful city,”
said Siddhattha to Ananda who came along for this ride. “It’s all
like the palace, though larger.”
    Ananda, biting his tongue, agreed.
    At the end of the prescribed route,
however—where they were meant to turn around—Siddhattha spotted a
multi-colored fountain through the foliage to his right and asked
his charioteer Channa to go there.
    When Channa did not answer, or show any
indication of carrying out the prince’s wishes, Siddhattha asked
again. “Channa, take us to that fountain.” Now pointing to it.
    Again Channa remained ear-less, and instead
focused all his attention on some problem with the reins, or was it
his hands?
    “Channa,” said Siddhattha. “Why do you
ignore my request?”
    Channa, being almost as much a father to
Siddhattha as Suddhodana, finally answered. “By the King’s
wish.”
    “What is the King’s wish?”
    “That we travel to this place, then turn and
travel back.”
    “This is well and good,
Channa,” said Siddhattha. “But my wish is to take a closer at that fountain.” And
with that Siddhattha stepped off the chariot and said, “Ananda.
Follow me.”
    Thus it came to be that Siddhattha, at age
twenty-nine, for the first time in his life encountered old age,
for resting by the beautiful fountain, wrapped in a much-washed
light-blue sari, was an eighty-eight-year-old woman, as bent and
wrinkly and toothless a thing as you’d ever see, smiling up at the
prince: all tongue, thin lips and gum.
    Siddhattha, at first repulsed, but soon more
curious than repelled, looked more closely at the woman and said to
her, “Why have you no teeth?”
    “I have not had teeth for one hundred and
twenty moons,” answered the old woman.
    “Why is that?” asked Siddhattha.
    “Why?” The woman did not seem to understand
the question.
    “Yes.”
    The woman looked long at the prince—as if to
determine whether or not he was dream—before her gaze slipped past
him to Channa, now approaching with horses and chariot. Ananda and
Siddhattha both turned at the sound of hoofs and wheel.
    “My prince,” said Channa. “We need to
return.”
    “Not until she answers my question,” said
Siddhattha.
    “What question is that?” wondered
Channa.
    “The Prince wants to know why an old woman
has no teeth,” said the old woman, as if the question was too
foolish even to acknowledge. As if the prince had asked her why
clay pots fall to the ground when dropped.
    Channa said something to his horses, who
came to rest, and then, snorting importantly—one white and one
black, beautiful steeds both—appeared to scrutinize the old woman
as well.
    “And what do you answer,” said the
Prince.
    “An old woman answers that the Prince is
mocking her,” she said.
    “The Prince,” said the Prince, who felt
impatience rise, but reined it in, “is not mocking an old woman.
The Prince does not know the answer and seeks it. Or he would not
waste air to ask.”
    Again, the old woman looked at the prince
for a long, silent spell filled with