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Let Hindus may wake up and may please learn a lesson from this story- Buddha and the Young Mother
Let Hindus may wake up and may please learn a lesson from this story- Buddha and the Young Mother
ONE day, as Buddha was sitting under a banyan tree, a young woman went weeping to him with a dead child in her hands. 'Lord,' she said, 'my first-born, my only child, is dead. Take pity on me and bring it back to life.' And she wept as if her heart would break. The Blessed One knew the futility of reasoning with her in her then frame of mind. So he told her, 'Daughter, bring a handful of gingili seeds from a person none of whose relations have died, and I shall bring your child back to life.'
The young mother was overjoyed at this seemingly simple request She put her dead child tenderly on the lap of the world-teacher and went to the adjacent village. Her experience of the world was so little that she did not know the impossible nature of her quest. She went first to a house and knocked at the door. A young woman came.
'Will you please give me a handful of gingili seeds?' asked the young mother.
Most willingly,' said the other and brought a handful of gingili seeds. The young mother took them and, as she was about to go, she said casually, 'I hope none of your relations have ever died.' At that the other burst into a loud moan and said, 'Why do you rake up my unhealed wounds? Don't you know that my only brother died but a month ago and that my father died only a year ago? ' The young mother said, 'I am very sorry for you, but I don't want your gingili seeds.'
She went to another house. She found an elderly woman there and wanted a handful of gingili seeds. The elderly lady brought them. Before receiving them, the young mother said, 'I hope none of your relatives have died' on which the other burst out into loud lamentations saying, 'My son, my only son, the boy whom I tended for twenty long years, he died six months ago. Who are you that remind me of my misery? The young mother said, 'I am very sorry, but I do not want your gingili seeds.'
She went to another house where she found a widow aged about sixty. The young woman said, 'Mother, give me a handful of gingili seeds if none of your relatives have died.' The old widow laughed and said, 'Daughter, I shall give you ten handfuls of gingili seeds if you want, but, of course, several of my relations have died. Why, my dear husband died thirty years ago. I felt it as an inconsolable loss then. But when I come to think of it now I don't feel so sorry. Unless people die, where is the room in this world for the babes who are born every day? The world will become overcrowded like Hell. Where is your father, his father, his father, and so on? Some of these must assuredly have died. Death is the one universal event in the life of every man who is born.'
The young mother felt how impossible her quest was and so returned to Buddha and told him about the fruitlessness of her search. 'Daughter,' said Gautama, 'go, bury your child. This is the way of the world. None can cure death here below.'
BY DESTROYING NATURE
By destroying nature, environment, man is committing matricide, having in a way killed Mother Earth. Technological excellence, growth of industries, economical gains have led to depletion of natural resources irreversibly. Indifference of the grave consequences, lack of concern and foresight have contributed in large measures to the alarming position. In the case at hand, the alleged victim is the flora and fauna . The forests in the area are among 18 immediately recognized “Hotspots” for bio-diversity conservation in the world.
‘Environment’ is a difficult word to define. Its normal meaning relates to the surroundings, but obviously that it is a concept which is relatable to whatever object it is which is surrounded. Einstein had once observed, “The environment is everything that is n’t me”. About one and half century ago, in 1854, as the famous story goes the wise Indian Chief of Seattle replied to the offer of the great. White Chief in Washington to by their land. The reply is profound. It is beautiful. It is timeless. It contains the wisdom of the ages. It is first over and the most understanding statement on environment. The whole of it is worth quoting as any extract from it is to destroy its beauty.
“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every cleaning and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky creats, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man-all belong to the same family.
We will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.
This shining water moves is the stream and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of event and memories in the life of people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The river carry our canoes, and feed our must remember, and teach your children, that the river are our brothers, and yours and you must hence forth give the kindness your would give any brother.
We know that the white man does understand our ways. Our portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a strange who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father’s graves behind, and he does not care.
He kidnaps the earth from his children. His father’s grave and his children’s birth right are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
There is on quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of in insect’s wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there in life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with the pinon pine.
The air is precious for all things share the same breath-the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man lying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives the last sign. And if we sell you land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept. I will make one condition. We must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.
I am a savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What a man without beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. All things are connected.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes do our grandfathers, so that they will respect the land. Tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the son of the earth. If man spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
This we know: The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. This we know: All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not wave the web of life; he is merely a stand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.
Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brother after all. We shall see. One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover-our God is the same God. You may think now that you own him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God man, and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. This earth is precious to him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on the creator. The white too shall pass perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fried by the strength of the God who brought you this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the wild buffaloes are slaughtered, the wild horse are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone, where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival.”
It would be hard find out such dawn to earth description of nature. “Nature hates monopolies and knows no exception. It has always some levelling agency that puts the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate substantially on the same ground with all others” and Zarathustra. Environment is polycentric and multi-facet problem affecting the human existence. The Stokholm Declaration of United Nation on Human Environment, 1972, reads its Principle No. 3, inter alia, thus:
“Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality, and adequate condition of life. In an environment of equality that permits a life of dignity and well being and bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.”
0532/2436451—(2)-2637720—(Mobile)-9415284843----(mobile)-9451181638
Yogrekha@rediffmail.com
YOGESH KUMAR SAXENA
ADVOCATE, HIGH COURT
SENIOR VICE- PRESIDENT, ADVOCATE’S ASSOCIATION
STATE TRESURER , ALL INDIA LAWYER’S ASSOCIATION
( U.P. ADHIVAKTA SANGH) R/O H.I.G.203, PREETAM NAGAR, SULEM SARAI, ALLAHABAD, U.P. INDIA
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