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It was a sight never
witnessed before by the prince: a sunken face, a toothless mouth,
all the limbs emaciated, the whole body bent and walking with
extreme difficulty. The innocent prince asked who that creature was.
Chenna, the charioteer, replied that he was a human being who had
become old. To further enquiries of Siddhartha, Chenna informed that
the old man was of fine shape in his young age and that every human
being had to become like him after the youthful days are past. The
perturbed prince returned to the palace, deeply engrossed in anxious
thoughts.
King Shuddhodana,
in order to cheer up his spirits, again ordered for his son's
procession in the capital, but on subsequent rounds, Siddhartha came
across a sick man and a corpse being carried to the funeral ground.
Again it was Chenna, the charioteer, who explained that human beings
were prone to illness and that death inevitably awaited man at the
end. As luck would have it, on his final round, Siddhartha saw a
person, his face beaming with job and tranquility, and heard from
Chenna that he was an ascetic who had triumphed over the worldly
temptations, fears and sorrows and attained the highest bliss of
life.
And that clinched
the thoughts of the young prince. He was then hardly twenty-nine. In
that full bloom of youth, in the midnight of a full-moon day, he
bade good-bye to his dear parents, his beloved wife Yashodhara and
sweet little child Rahul and all the royal pleasures and luxuries,
and departed to the forest to seek for himself answers for the
riddles of human misery.
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