Where the Buddha trod - a Buddhist pilgrimage

By S. Pathiravitana

The title of this article is exactly the title of the book that Major Raven- Hart wrote years ago with his special emphasis on the sub title - A Buddhist Pilgrimage. What attracted me to this book was what he had to say about pilgrimages. Here are his words: "And a final point: A Buddhist pilgrimage is not an occasion for long faces or solemn writing. On the contrary, it is light-hearted with moments of deep reverence but in the main gay, even playful; and I have tried to keep here something of the spirit."

It reminds you of that pilgrimage made by those pilgrims who were on their way to Canterbury and how Chaucer made great fun out of it, but, I think, with less reverence. Like most of those who make the Buddhist circuit to India, Raven-Hart, too, begins with Lumbini, by making the crossing to Nepal without identity papers like visas and passports that the Nepalese Government no longer insists on. Then from there it's only a distance of 12 miles to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, it must be said, however, that the Lumbini that Raven-Hart saw was somewhat neglected and dilapidated.

Birthplace of the Buddha

It is no longer so. Lumbini is now in the list of the World Heritage series and some reconstruction that has been done so far recalls how Hiuen Tsiang, one of the very early visitors to Lumbini, described it as he found it then, "a beautiful bathing pool the water of which is as bright as a mirror, and the surface covered with all sorts of flowers," a quotation that Raven-Hart includes in his book so that you may get some idea of how it may have been once This placid picture of Lumbini is what you can see today after it had been restored to catch up on that lost lovely Sal which was once a landmark of Lumbini. His description of his dusty journey to Lumbini is in stark contrast to what it may have been in the days of King Suddhodana. He had been advised to take a ride on a pony in preference to a ride on an elephant. The elephant, he was told, would be all right if he was a good sailor.

When you watch an elephant walking,' writes Raven-Hart, 'it looks so smoo-ooth, like floating on soap. But when you are on it, all the legs are walking as if they hated each other, and you may think there are sixteen legs.' Food was another problem he had in his journeyings with his pernickety and discontented stomach. But he liked chapatties so much that he even found out how to make the chapatties, "They are flapjacks of coarsely grounded (often home ground) wheat say a foot across and an eighth of an inch thick cooked on a circular hot plate over charcoal. Fresh, they are vastly preferable to almost any bread I know and a million times better than the insipid white bread of "civilisation".

Even with the pony and the guide who led him along, the path to Lumbini could not be easily traced. They had to stop and inquire from farmers working on paddy fields on which turn to take and when. And the farmers in turn were curious to know where they were going, from where they were coming and from where the stranger was. After a time he caught on to their questions and instead of the guide he answered the questions. To the first he said Rummindell, that's Lumbini in Nepalese, Nautanwa, their point of departure in India and Belaiti, that's from where the stranger came.

Belaiti is actually Blighty, says Raven-Hart, a name the British Tommies used and left behind and from whom the farmers may have picked it up.

Buddha's teachings

When the man from Belaiti saw the criss-crossing ridges in the paddy field it at once reminded him of how the Buddha had used this pattern to make the patch work yellow robe made from rags he picked up from a burial ground. Raven-Hart had done enough reading of the Buddhist texts and uses them from time to time to identify and confirm what he saw on his Buddhist circuit. Referring to the dream of Maha Maya, he quotes, "And the future Buddha in the form of a white elephant approached her, holding in his trunk a white lotus flower. And walking three times he gently struck her right side and seemed to enter her womb."

Here he gives a few words of advice to Christian readers, (he has already made the point that he was not writing exclusively for a Buddhist audience) who may misinterpret this scene. And he says that there is no suggestion in the texts of any virgin birth. That Siddartha "was in the full sense a son of his father, Ruler at that city over the Sakya clan." The full story of this birth of the Enlightened One is tastefully depicted on a Gupta stele in Saranath - first the dream, then the birth with the mother holding a branch of the Sal tree, the infant being received by a god and later the infant standing on a full-blown lotus flower.

As for miracles and magic in general, Raven-Hart summarises the Buddha's views as "an acceptance of their practicability together with a condemnation of their practice." Buddhists may be familiar with the story of how a sceptical rich man challenged anyone to fly up and bring down a begging bowl made of very costly sandalwood, which had been placed on the top of a pole.

"One of the Buddha's monks then 'swam himself up in the air' as a boy put it to me when I first met Buddhism in Burma years ago; and took the bowl and was very prideful about it. The Buddha reproved him: 'like a woman who displays her body for a miserable piece of money, so you for a miserable wooden pot have displayed your powers'; and had the bowl broken up and ground down into sandalwood paste (for the skin); and prohibited the working of such miracles."

Here Raven-Hart contrasts the Christian and Buddhist points of view on miracles. Many Christian Churches, he writes, would insist on its flock believing in all the miracles mentioned in the Bible "most would at least insist on those of the New Testament; and all would, I think, deny you the right to call yourself a Christian unless you accept at least the Virgin Birth.." Whereas to a Buddhist," he says, "such miracles are completely unimportant...he can believe them or put them down to mass hallucinations or dismiss them as mere later interpolations." The only way, says Raven-Hart, is by accepting, not by blind faith but by reason, the Buddha's teaching and the Noble Eightfold path.

He also takes the opportunity here to point out the significance of the alms bowl recommended by the Buddha. The term 'begging'-bowl, he says, is a misnomer. Monks do not beg they only accept food. They pass from house to house not begging but by momentarily staying and giving the opportunity for a gift of alms.

He has also noticed that today, monks doing the round for alms are visibly fading particularly in the towns. The monks seem to be taking advantage of the order made by the Buddha to permit them to accept invitations made by householders for one or more monks to visit homes to eat the midday meal. It is not possible in this short article to permit Raven-Hart to take us to all the places of interest he visited on his Buddhist circuit. So let me end by visiting Sravasti or the place better known to Sinhala readers as Savath Nuwara, where his favourite retreat during the rainy season, the Jetavanaramaya, was situated.

Jetavanaramaya

It is said that the place was once owned by a Prince by the name of Jeta. A certain rich man, narrates Raven-Hart, referring to the well-known benefactor Anathapindika, "saw that the garden of Jeta, the Prince, was well suited for a residence for the Tathagatha. and sought to buy it.'It is not for sale, Sir, even if you cover it with gold pieces laid side by side.' 'I take it, Sir, at that price.' And the judges maintained (somewhat unfairly, to judge from the text) that a sale had taken place. And he brought gold in carts and covered the garden, the Jetavana."

There is a picture of a medallion depicting the paving of Jetavana included in this book, which tells the whole story with a few deft touches. But sad to say at the time he visited Sravasti there was no Jetavana to be seen. Raven-Hart found it even difficult to locate the place. And when he finally got there he wrote, "There is very little to see."

There were two sites one where the coin-carpeted monastery stood and one larger but further away where the old city stood. Of Sravasti even the name had disappeared. It has now been named Sahet-Mahet meaning 'topsy-turvy.' Yes, it's a topsy-turvy world where nothing lasts forever as the Buddha has said.