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The following summer, as they were driven to their summer palace by faithful Channa, Siddhartha’s boyhood attendant, Siddhartha
introduced Yasodhara to places throughout the kingdom she did not yet know. They stayed several days at each location, sometimes
spending the night in the homes of country folk, sharing their simple foods and sleeping upon their woven string beds. They learned a great
deal about the way of life and the customs of each place they visited.
At times they encountered terrible misery. They met families with nine or ten children, every child racked with disease. No matter how
hard the parents toiled day and night, they could not earn enough to support so many children. Hardship went hand in hand with the life of
the peasants. Siddhartha gazed at children with arms and legs as thin as matchsticks and bellies swollen from worms and malnutrition. He
saw the handicapped and infirm forced to beg in the streets, and these scenes robbed him of any happiness. He saw people caught in
inescapable conditions. In addition to poverty and disease, they were oppressed by the brahmans, and there was no one to whom they
could complain. The capital was too distant and even if they went there, who would help them? He knew that even a king had no power to
change the situation.
Siddhartha had long understood the inner workings of the royal court. Every official was intent on protecting and fortifying his own
power, not on alleviating the suffering of those in need. He had seen the powerful plot against each other, and he felt nothing but revulsion
for politics. He knew that even his own father’s authority was fragile and restricted—a king did not possess true freedom but was
imprisoned by his position. His father was aware of many officials’ greed and corruption, but was forced to rely on these same individuals
to maintain the stability of his reign. Siddhartha realized that if he stood in his father’s place, he would have to do the same. He understood
that only when people overcame greed and envy in their own hearts would conditions change. And so his desire to seek a path of spiritual
liberation was reignited.
Yasodhara was bright and intuitive. She understood Siddhartha’s longings, and she had faith that if Siddhartha resolved to find the path
of liberation he would succeed. But she was also quite practical. Such a search could last months, even years. In the meantime, sufferings