Creation (35 page)

The scent of flowers and herbs varied from section to section of the gardens. Because the countryside between the Ganges and Rajagriha is entirely flat, Prince Jeta had broken the monotony of the view by building a number of small hills and miniature mountains. The artificial hills were covered with banks of flowers and low trees, while the miniature mountains were made to look like the gray Himalayas. The effect was singularly beautiful.

The interior of the pavilion was dim and, as promised, cool because sprays of water periodically cooled the air by dampening the green shrubbery outside the windows. Eventually a member of my embassy was able to work out the hydraulic principle on which this system was based and, for a time, it was used in the new palace gardens at Babylon. But like all innovations in that city, the system Was soon abandoned. Anything later than the modernist Nebuchadnezzar is considered slightly impious. The Babylonians are easily the most conservative people on earth.

Prince Jeta was neither young nor old; his skin was paler than that of the average Magadhan, and there was that curious fold over each eye which is a characteristic of the Himalayan mountain people as well as the Cathayans. For an Indian noble in summertime, the movements of his slender body were surprisingly brisk—no doubt the result of being kept cool by running water, shade trees, magical revolving fans.

Prince Jeta greeted us formally. He then told me how delighted he was that I was marrying his granddaughter, who was, everyone agreed, as light-footed as a gazelle, as fertile as fresh lettuce, and so on. I was pleased that he did not pretend to know the child.

Ceremonies out of the way, we were given a light but delicious meal. “I do not eat meat,” he said. “But of course you may, if you choose.”

“No.” I was relieved. On a hot summer day, the combination of meat with ghee made me as dull as any overfed Brahman. I asked my host if he refrained from eating meat on religious grounds.

Prince Jeta made a delicate, self-deprecating gesture. “I would like to be truly enlightened. But I am not. I do observe the vows as much as possible, but what is possible for me is never much. I am a long way from nirvana.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “the Wise Lord will find your present intentions the equal to deeds, and he will allow you to cross the bridge of redemption to paradise.” I cannot think why I should have been so tactless as to have got onto the subject of religion in the house of a man close to the Buddha. Although I had been taught that ours is the only true religion in the world and that it must be brought to all men whether they—or their demons—like it or not, I was also a courtier and, most important, an ambassador. Darius had said, very firmly, that I was not to denounce other gods or inflict the Wise Lord upon foreigners.

But Prince Jeta chose to deal most amiably with my crudeness. “Indeed it would be gracious of your Wise Lord to assist one so unworthy to pass across his bridge to—uh, paradise.” In general, the conception of paradise as the world of the fathers is vague to Indo-Aryans, while it is entirely ignored by those, in particular, who have replaced their Vedic gods with the concept of a long chain of deaths and rebirths that will end either through personal enlightenment or because one of the world’s cycles of creation has stopped—in order to start again.

I let drop the subject of the Wise Lord. So, I was sorry to note, did Prince Jeta. He spoke of the Buddha. “You will meet him when you visit us in Koshala, and I shall be heartbroken if we are denied the enormous—how shall I say?—radiance of your presence in Shravasti, not only as emissary of the Great King but, best of all, as grandson of Zoroaster.” Like all Indians, Prince Jeta could weave flower garlands with words. Like all Persian courtiers, so can I. But after our meal we let the flowers wither and got to actual subjects.

“We shall walk,” said Prince Jeta, taking my arm. Then he led me to an artificial lake, which had been so artfully planted around with reeds and lotuses that one could easily mistake the whole invention for an unusually successful work of nature. Due to some trick of perspective, the lake seemed enormously broad and deep, and bounded at the far end by a mountain range.

At the edge of the water Prince Jeta removed his upper garment. “Do you swim?” he asked.

“That is one of the first things taught us,” I said.

Actually, I have never learned to swim properly. But I was able to keep up with Prince Jeta as he paddled decorously across the shallow lake to the miniature mountain range. Bright-colored fish darted between our legs while fiery flamingoes watched us from the water’s edge. There was a feeling of paradise in that place that day.

When we were within a few feet of the artificial cliff, Prince Jeta said, “Now hold your nose and dive under the mountain.” In an instant, like a sea gull after a fish, he was gone.

Since I did not know how to dive, I carefully ducked my head underwater and kicked my feet. I assumed that I would, presently, drown. But then, for the first time ever, I opened my eyes underwater and I was entranced by the bright fish, the swaying green ferns, the chains of lotuses on their way to the surface. Just as I was almost entirely out of breath, I saw the entrance to a cave. With a great kick I propelled myself into the cave and shot to the surface.

Prince Jeta helped me out of the water. Divans, tables, chairs were placed here and there on the fine white sand. Except that the sand was not white but blue. Everything in the cave glowed with an intense blue light as if beneath the water a fire were burning. This natural effect was the result of several small openings at the level of the lake. Although light and air were able to circulate in the cavern, no one could look in. “Or overhear us,” said my host, settling onto a divan. “This is the only place in Magadha where Varshakara cannot listen to us.”

“You built this cavern?”

“The mountain, too. And the lake. And the park. I was young then, of course. I had taken no vows. I was still attached to every pleasurable thing in this world, and that sort of attachment is the cause of pain, isn’t it?”

“But, surely, there is often more joy than pain. Look at your own marvelous creation—”

“—which I shall have to pay for when I make my next appearance, as a pariah dog.” Prince Jeta’s manner was so serene that I could not tell if he was serious or not, always a sign of the highest breeding.

But Prince Jeta could be direct. “I understand that you have made a treaty with my cousin Bimbisara.”

“We are making a treaty, yes. Iron for Persia. Gold for Magadha. The price has not been decided. I may have to go back to Susa before I can give the Great King’s final word.”

“I see. When do you come to Koshala?”

“I have no idea.”

“I am here not only to help preside at your marriage to my granddaughter but to invite you, on behalf of King Pasenadi, to attend his court as soon as possible.”

After a diplomatic interval, I responded to the urgency of my host. “You believe that there will be war?”

“Yes. Soon. Troops are being moved up to the river.”

“To invade the federation?”

“Yes ...” Prince Jeta’s eyes looked as blue as the under-mountain pool. Actually, in a normal light, the prince’s eyes were what I came to think of as Himalayan-gray, a color or shade that one sees only in natives of that high part of the world.

“What will Koshala do?”

“What will Persia do?”

I was not prepared for a bluntness that more than equaled my own. “It is a thousand miles from Taxila to Magadha.”

“We have heard that the Great King’s armies travel fast.”

“Then you must know that the Great King’s army is occupied in the west by the Greeks who—” But I did not think it necessary to explain the Greeks to a man as civilized as Prince Jeta. If he had needed to know about them, he would have known; as it turned out, he knew nothing of Europe.

“Another contingent is on the northern frontier,” I said, “fighting the tribes.”

“Our cousins.” Prince Jeta smiled.

“Thirty or forty generations ago. But whatever our ancient connection, they are now the common enemy.”

“Yes, of course. But surely the Great King keeps an army in his satrapy along the Indus River.”

“Only for defense. He would never send it to Magadha.”

“You are certain?”

“The Great King has controlled the Indus valley for less than a generation. Without a Persian garrison ...”

“I understand.” The prince sighed. “I had hoped ...” He made a gesture with one hand that was both delicate and intricate. But I had not yet learned the language of hands, as the Indians call it. Their subtlest points are often made not with words but gestures, a form of communication that derives from prehistoric dances.

“You find my son-in-law sympathetic?”

“Oh, yes. He seems most elegant and ... sentimental.”

“He is certainly sentimental. He once wept for a week when his pet bird died.”

“But the chamberlain does not weep!” Now, I thought, I shall test whether or not the Magadhan secret service had penetrated Prince Jeta’s grotto.

“No. He is a hard man. He dreams of annexing Varanasi. He dreams of the breakup of Koshala.”

“Is that only a dream?”

“Pasenadi is a holy man. He does not care for this world. He himself is an arhat. That means he is close to enlightenment, to the ultimate dissolution of the self.”

“Is that the reason his kingdom is also close to dissolution, if not enlightenment?”

Prince Jeta shrugged. “Why should kingdoms differ from human beings? They are born. They grow. They die.”

“Then why do you care if Koshala now imitates the body of a man three months dead?”

“Oh, I care. I care. Because of the sangha.”

Sangha is the word for the order or community of Buddhists. But the word and the concept predate the Buddha by centuries or millennia. In the republics, the sangha is the council of all the heads of family. In some republics, each member of the council or assembly is called raja or king, a nice avoidance of the monarchial principle: if everyone is a king, no one is. In those days no one man ruled in any of the republics.

Since the Buddha himself was the son of a council member in the republic of the Shakyas, he is often referred to as the son of a king. But his father was simply one of a thousand kings who met to administer the republic. But whereas a republican sangha is ruled by half its membership plus one, the sangha of the Buddhists can make no decision without a unanimous vote. Once the Buddha himself was snuffed out, this rule was to cause a good deal of trouble for the order.

“You fear King Bimbisara?”

“No. He is our friend.”

“Varshakara?”

Absently or deliberately, Prince Jeta drew a star in the soft white—no, blue—sand. “He is a typical royal chamberlain. For him, the order—any order—is dangerous.”

“Republican?”

“Exactly. And since Bimbisara is old and Varshakara is young, it is wise to anticipate the worst.” Prince Jeta laughed. “You see why I am a flawed Buddhist? I must concern myself with politics when I ought to be observing the vows.”

“Which vows do you
not
observe?” I was most literal in those days. Also, the thousand and one religions of India had me in a state of perfect confusion. Indians appear to accept everything, which is the same as accepting nothing. Whenever I lit the sacred fire in a sunless place, a few curious Brahmans would attend me. They were always polite, and they would ask interested questions. But they never came back a second time. I cannot think how my grandfather would have gone about converting them.

“I am too much of the world,” said Prince Jeta. He tossed a pebble into the blue shining pool at our feet. A moment later, what looked to be a school of porpoises swam toward us. But when the porpoises surfaced, they proved to be young girls. Each carried a musical instrument wrapped in water-resistant skins.

“I thought you might enjoy some music. I designed both the mountain and the grotto so that I could hear music at its best. I’m afraid that I don’t practice all of the sixty-four arts, but I do know music, the only art that I find closest to—” Wisely, he did not choose to compare to anything what he himself believed to be incomparable.

I cannot say that I enjoyed the concert as much as I did the blue-water light which made all things as incorporeal as a haoma-dream.

I wonder now if all this had been deliberately planned. I do know that many of the things that Prince Jeta proceeded to tell me about the Buddha have remained in my memory. Could the light and the music in some way have combined to induce the sort of vision that we obtain from a sacred haoma or even devils’ soma? Only Prince Jeta could know the answer, and he has long since exchanged the body that sat beside me for—what? A minor Indian deity, at the very least, with, one hopes, a mere two arms, and a near-eternity of bliss before the final nothing.

As the music played, Prince Jeta described the Buddha’s four noble truths. “The first truth is that all life is suffering. If you don’t get what you want, you suffer. If you get what you want, you suffer. Between getting and not getting, human life is like a sputtering fire. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, Prince Jeta.” I always say yes, in order to learn more. A proper eel-wriggler like Protagoras or Socrates would want to know just what is meant by suffering. By getting. By not getting. If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing. I find this a waste of time. In a blue cavern beneath an artificial mountain, I am willing to accept, if only for the moment, the idea that existence is a sputtering fire. “We like to delight in the five senses. Certainly, we try to avoid pain or suffering. How is this done? Through the senses, which add fuel to the fire, and make it blaze. So the second truth is that a desire for pleasure or, worse, a desire for permanence in a creation where all is flux, can only make the fire more intense, which means that when the fire drops, as it must, the pain and the sorrow are all the greater. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, Prince Jeta.”

“Then it is plain that suffering will never cease as long as the fire is fed. So do you agree that to avoid suffering, one must cease to add fuel to the fire?”