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