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Chapter Seven<br />
White Elephant Prize<br />
When Siddhartha was fourteen years <strong>old</strong>, Queen Gotami gave birth to a son, Nanda. All the palace rejoiced, including Siddhartha, who<br />
was very happy to have a younger brother. Every day after his studies, he ran home to visit Nanda. Although Siddhartha was already of an<br />
age to be concerned with other matters, he often took little Nanda on walks, accompanied by Devadatta.<br />
Siddhartha had three other cousins that he liked very much, named Mahanama, Baddhiya, and Kimbila. He often invited them to play<br />
with him in the flower gardens behind the palace. Queen Gotami enjoyed watching them play as she sat on the wooden bench beside the<br />
lotus pond. Her attendant was always ready to respond to her requests to bring drinks and snacks for the children.<br />
With each passing year, Siddhartha grew ever more adept in his studies and Devadatta had a hard time concealing his jealousy.<br />
Siddhartha mastered every subject with ease, including the martial arts. Although Devadatta was stronger, Siddhartha was more agile and<br />
alert. In math, the other boys yielded to Siddhartha’s brilliance. Arjuna, his math teacher, spent hours answering Siddhartha’s advanced<br />
questions.<br />
Siddhartha was especially gifted in music. His music teacher gave him a rare and precious flute and on summer evenings Siddhartha<br />
would sit alone in the garden and play his new instrument. Sometimes his songs were sweet and soft, while other times the sound was so<br />
sublime that listeners felt as though they were being carried high above the <strong>clouds</strong>. Gotami often sat outside as the evening shadows fell in<br />
order to listen to her son’s music. She experienced deep contentment as she allowed her heart to drift with the sound of Siddhartha’s flute.<br />
As befitted his age, Siddhartha concentrated more intensely in his religious and philosophical studies. He was instructed in all the Vedas,<br />
and he pondered the meanings of the teachings and beliefs they expounded. He devoted special study to the Rigveda and Atharveda<br />
scriptures. From the time he was very small, Siddhartha had seen the brahmans recite scriptures and perform rituals. Now he himself began<br />
to penetrate the subject matter contained in these sacred teachings. Great importance was given to the sacred writings of Brahmanism. The<br />
words and the sounds themselves were seen to h<strong>old</strong> great power which could influence and even change the affairs of people and the<br />
natural world. The positions of the stars and the unf<strong>old</strong>ing of the seasons were intimately connected to prayers and ritual offerings. The<br />
brahmans were the sole ones regarded capable of understanding the hidden mysteries of heaven and earth, and they alone could use prayer<br />
and ritual to bring proper order to the realms of humans and the natural world.<br />
Siddhartha was taught that the cosmos emanated from a Supreme Being known as Purusa or Brahman, and that all castes in society had<br />
issued from various parts of the Creator’s body. Every person contained part of the essence of the transcendental Creator and that<br />
universal essence comprised a person’s basic nature or soul.<br />
Siddhartha devoted serious study, as well, to all the other brahmana texts, including the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. His teachers<br />
wanted only to instruct their charges in the traditional beliefs, but Siddhartha and his companions insisted on asking questions that forced<br />
their teachers to address contemporary ideas that did not always seem to accord with tradition.<br />
On the days the boys were off from school, Siddhartha persuaded them to visit and discuss these matters with well-known priests and<br />
brahmans in the capital. Thanks to these encounters, Siddhartha learned that there were a number of movements in the country which<br />
openly challenged the absolute authority of the brahmans. Members of these movements were not only discontented laymen who wished to<br />
share some of the power that had long belonged exclusively to the brahmana caste, but they included reform-minded members of the<br />
brahmana caste as well.<br />
Since the day young Siddhartha had been given permission to invite a few poor country children to his royal picnic, he had also been<br />
allowed to visit from time to time the small villages that surrounded the capital. On these occasions, he was always careful to wear only<br />
simple garments. By speaking directly with the people, Siddhartha learned many things that he had never been exposed to in the palace. He<br />
was aware, of course, that the people served and worshipped the three deities of Brahmanism—Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva. But he also<br />
learned that they were manipulated and oppressed by the brahmana priests. In order to have the proper rituals for births, marriages, and<br />
funerals, families were forced to pay the brahmans in food, money, and physical labor, regardless of how impoverished they were.<br />
One day while passing a straw hut, Siddhartha was startled by mournful cries from within. He asked Devadatta to enter and inquire what<br />
was the matter. They learned that the head of the househ<strong>old</strong> had recently died. The family was wretchedly poor. The wife and children<br />
were piteously thin and dressed in tattered rags. Their house was on the verge of collapse. Siddhartha learned that the husband had desired<br />
the services of a brahman to purify the earth before rebuilding their kitchen, but before providing these services, the brahman demanded the<br />
man work for him. Throughout several days the brahman had ordered him to haul large rocks and chop wood. During this time the man<br />
became ill and the brahman permitted him to return home, but halfway home, the man collapsed on the road and died.