To celebrate Buddha Pournami, I would like to post Tagore's version of the interaction between Upagupta, the handsome disciple of Buddha and the beautiful dancing girl Vasavadatta.
This is a poem for the 21st century. When Vasavadatta laments on having lost her destructive beauty, Upagupta consoles her saying, "Vasavadatta, you are sorry for losing your beauty which lasts but the summer of life. You are yet to discover a beauty greater than that you have lost, the beauty of the self."
In the age of liposuction, the message of Upagupta overwhelms in its intensity.
UPAGUPTA
Upagupta, the disciple of Buddha, lay sleep in
the dust by the city wall of Mathura.
Lamps were all out, doors were all shut, and
stars were all hidden by the murky sky of August.
Whose feet were those tinkling with anklets,
touching his breast of a sudden?
He woke up startled, and a light from a woman's
lamp fell on his forgiving eyes.
It was dancing girl, starred with jewels,
Wearing a pale blue mantle, drunk with the wine
of her youth.
She lowered her lamp and saw young face
austerely beautiful.
"Forgive me, young ascetic," said the woman,
"Graciously come to my house. The dusty earth
is not fit bed for you."
The young ascetic answered, "Woman,
go on your way;
When the time is ripe I will come to you."
Suddenly the black night showed its teeth
in a flash of lightening.
The storm growled from the corner of the sky, and
The woman trembled in fear of some unknown danger.
* . *
A year has not yet passed.
It was evening of a day in April,
in spring season.
The branches of the way side trees were full of blossom.
Gay notes of a flute came floating in the
warm spring air from a far.
The citizens had gone to the woods for the
festival of flowers.
From the mid sky gazed the full moon on the
shadows of the silent town.
The young ascetic was walking along the lonely street,
While overhead the love-sick koels uttered from the
mango branches their sleepless plaint.
Upagupta passed through the city gates, and
stood at the base of the rampart.
Was that a woman lying at his feet in the
shadow of the mango grove?
Stuck with black prestilence, her body
spotted with sores of small-pox,
She had been hurriedly removed from the town
To avoid her poisonous contagion.
The ascetic sat by her side, took her head
on his knees,
And moistened her lips with water, and
smeared her body with sandal balm.
"Who are you, merciful one?" asked the woman.
"The time, at last, has come to visit you, and
I am here," replied the young ascetic.
Upagupta’s refusal to entertain the beauty of Vasavadutta at the first instance had an epiphanic reason
ReplyDeleteIn spirituality, there are many things which are unknowable. The lower cannot comprehend the higher, gross cannot understand the subtle and the finite cannot grasp the infinite. Many a time- we tend to get to stuck in the 'why' of our life's experiences. There are no answer to those 'whys'.
Why was Vasavdautta enamoured by Upagupta, a monk of all the people? Why did Upagupta not offer to help Vasavadutta at the first instance and take her to his hermitage? Why did she associate (as a friend) with a sculptor? Why did she have to undergo the calumny of being labeled a murderer of a sculptor? B
By efflux of time, the reasons become mysteriously clear
The larger picture of the reason for her suffering at the hands of subjects of the town became revealed later when Vasavadutta gets to finally meet, through Upagupta, and fall at the feet of Lord Buddha and thereafter make Him her Master and Guru. She was destined to have Lord Buddha as her Master and all the earlier events in her life- her profession as a dancer, meeting Upagupta, her association with a sculptor etc- conspired to make this happen. If she had not experienced the blatant inequity and injustice of being accused of murder of a sculptor she may not have perhaps fled from the town precincts and take refuge under the shadow of the mango grove for Upagupta to finally met her and offer help ‘as needed’ and as promised!
That every event in our human life has a relevance should never be underestimated. But when we have the grace of our Guru or our master, every moment of all our life experiences can be assembled, with the benefit of hindsight, into a mosaic of information which when carefully synthesized will reveal the true meaning and purpose of our life.
I don't know if this is a moment of reckoning, but spiritual vision seems be in hindsight, always. Either way, it takes a real man or woman to connect the dots like Steve Jobs once said. You have to listen to his graduation speech at Stanford... it will blow you away.
ReplyDeleteYes I had seen it earlier -it is mind blowing
ReplyDelete