January 20, 2025
The Life of Sakyamuni Buddha (2)
By Rev. Shinkai Oikawa
3. Birth of Sakyamuni
Next we must determine Sakyamuni’s birthday. His birthday has long been believed to be April 8 in Japan. It is said He was born on the full-moon night in the month of Wesak, which can be April, May or June in the Southern Buddhism. These are not exactly clear either. We just guess it may be April.
He was born at Lumbini in Nepal near India. The Himalaya Mountains can be seen far from this very beautiful place. “Hima” of Himalaya means snow in the Indian language and they are called mountains covered with snow
The climate of His birthplace is mild. It is a very good place, not so cold, not so hot. Its industry is agriculture, mainly rice farming. He is said to be a prince born in the castle, but actually His country was not very large. Its size was 60 km by 40 km, which is much smaller than Tokyo.
Sakyamuni’s father was King Suddhodana which means “clean rice.” His mother was Queen Maha Maya. A stone pillar stands at the Lumbini Grove, His birthplace. The pillar is broken in the middle but the inscription on its foot reads that this is where He was born and that this is free of tax. Tax was exempted because it was a sacred place. King Asoka who inscribed this statement, was a king from 2,200 years to 2,300 years ago. So he is very old and his stone pillar is also very old. This pillar had fallen down and was buried in the soil but was later excavated, proving Lumbini Grove to be His birthplace. So things are getting clearer and clearer.
When was Sakyamuni’s history written? Usually a biography is not written while many things about the person concerned are known. Neither were His biographies.
As the disciples attending Him did not write these kinds of things, His biography was not written until long after His death.
What happened then were fictitious writings. We cannot easily believe such biographies. For example, even if it is written that a person flew in the sky, we cannot believe it is true. We know it is absolutely incredible, because we have been taught that science is true without any doubt. So we can talk only of what is completely obvious. This is difficult when we talk of religion.
His posthumous biographies are filled with episodes of superhuman powers. They are full of stories that He had super-eminent powers. We cannot avoid touching His magical powers of this kind ultimately, whenever we talk of His life.
It is said He used superhuman and magical powers to save people. Few people will follow religious teachings without such plain wonderful powers. Talks of religion easily tend to magical powers. But as for myself, I do not like these tales nor can I satisfy myself of such matters because I cannot fly in the sky nor have I any magical powers.
Then, how did Sakyamuni lead the life of His biographies? I am going to talk of His life chronologically.
4. Sakyamuni in his childhood
I already told you that Sakyamuni was born in Kapilavastu. It is known that there existed sixteen major states in India in those days, but Kapilavastu was not included in them. This means that Kapilavastu was merely a minor state. There was a state called Kosala next to Kapilavastu. Kosala was always looking for a chance to conquer Kapilavastu. According to various sources, Kapilavastu was conquered and annihilated, and all the relatives of Sakyamuni and all the people living in the castle were killed. I think Sakyamuni led an unhappy life.
In the first place Sakyamuni’s mother, Queen Maha Maya, died a week or 10 days after his birth. It is not known why she died. His father married his mother’s younger sister, Maha Prajapati, who was a very good lady and brought him up without any trouble.
Sakyamuni was brought up by his father, King Suddhodana, with great care because he was the successor to his father as the king of the Sakya nation. But it is said he did not have a strong nature. He is supposed to have been a little withdrawn and quite thoughtful.
An episode states that the country of the Sakya tribe was a rural country where they produced a lot of rice. In a traditional festival of planting rice seeds they prayed for a good crop of rice. Many of them used oxen to plow fields for rice. While the child Sakyamuni was watching the festival, he noticed that when the fields were plowed, a worm was thrown out of the soil, and a little bird picked it up; an eagle attacked the little bird flying up in the sky with the worm in its mouth, killed it with its sharp bills and flew away with it. Sakyamuni did not find the scenes interesting nor did he want to see a more gruesome attack. Instead he felt it sad that the world of birds and animals was hard to live in.
Another episode tells us that he went out of the castle into a city and encountered a diseased man, an old man, a decaying corpse and a funeral. Deeply depressed by these sights, he came to think it was inevitable that he, too, would get older and die. He wondered what he could do to solve this problem.
It has been said since olden times that there are four types of suffering, birth, old age, illness, and death. It is absolutely impossible for us to free ourselves from these sufferings. Agonizing over these matters, he encountered an ascetic. Of course there were no Buddhist teachings in those days, but there were ascetics of Brahmanism, Hinduism and the others. The ascetic looked to him vivid and calm. Sakyamuni thought he was good, and wondered if he had no sufferings and how he dissolved problems if any. Sakyamuni sought to overcome the sufferings by living the life of an ascetic. In other words, I suppose he was born and destined to be a priest.
As for myself, I think I am rather unsuitable for a priest, aren’t I? Buddhism in Japan says “sekembo” and “shussekembo.” “Sekembo” means our real life, that is, our real world where there are ordinary men and women, and money circulating round, and delicious and tasteless food, and quarrels without cease, and so on.
The world of priests is “shussekembo,” which means a world to escape from our ordinary world. As I rather prefer “sekembo,” I tend to enter into the chaotic world. But I am sure Sakyamuni’s tendency is to escape from this confused world.
(Trans. by Rev. Kanshu Naito)
（to be continued)