8

 

 

I followed the common roads to my parents’ house; Ama was the only person I could trust to tell me the truth of my brother’s role in the Sakyan raid. Beyond the jungle, the fields were a full-fledged green, cinnamon-colored cows grazing peacefully, white cattle egrets foraging in the lime-colored grass and flying overhead, the smell of hay and mint hovering in the sunshine. The beauty of the post-summer season only made my grief bleaker, like a burned-up forest, desiccated and charred black. I’d exhausted all my tears. My life had once again pared down to coming to terms with the soul. My year with Stick Women had revealed facets of the truth, but every facet reflected new depths of an ignorance I hadn’t known I’d possessed—and which she implied could be dispelled only by the Tathagata. There had to be some way, I told myself, to persuade him to take on women students.

On the way to Ama’s, I slept in fields and begged for scraps at kitchen doors of the big teak and sal wood houses of prosperous kinsmen, not revealing who I was. Although I spoke little and in low tones, I never denied I was a woman, but everyone presumed I was a man. I wasn’t surprised. I was far thinner than a year earlier, and I had knotty muscles in my calves and ropy muscles in my arms. My robes disguised what few curves I had left; my hair was twisted up in a beggar’s knot, my skin a deep mahogany from the sun, my face and hands scratched and dirty. For reasons of safety, I was glad my femininity was not recognized. But I assumed my father would know me.

I reached the house of my childhood around midday. The addition I’d seen under construction the year before was now complete, a rambling structure that seemed to enclose a courtyard, making me fear that my father now confined my mother in a woman’s compound not unlike Suddhodana’s. At least the area around the kitchen door, where I’d spent long seasons with Deepa and the holy men, remained the same, a patch of packed dirt in front of a door half-opened to the dark, busy kitchen. I approached slowly.

A middle-aged man in a brown paridhana was striding toward me through flickering shade of the nearby mango grove. With a mild shock, I recognized my father.

As always, the sight of Suppabuddha scrambled my emotions into a confused mix of fear, guilt, and anger, along with a kind of shamed love that I immediately swallowed. Respectfully, I put my hands together and bowed from the waist. “Father,” I said. “I’ve come to visit.”

My father peered into my eyes. “Young man, is that your new religion? That you address your elders as father? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“You don’t recognize me?” I was more incredulous than hurt. I’d spoken in my normal voice and he’d looked deeply into my face, and yet he saw only some anonymous beggar, not even female.

“Of course I recognize you. Like all men, you are a broken-off shard of the First Man, seeking out reunion with the eternal Soul,” he said. “But I have no time to converse with you today.” He nodded toward the kitchen door in the dismissive manner that he’d always had with holy seekers who struck him as lacking in power and influence. “Our servants will provide you with some repast.”

Now I did feel like a hurt child, as I had years ago when my father ignored me, even when I tried to talk to him about holy matters. I prepared to plead with him, to beg him to see through my dirt and pain and acknowledge his daughter, but something stopped me. Or someone. I felt the presence of Stick Woman inside me, dry and watchful. Perhaps my visit here should be a secret one.

“Thank you, good sir,” I said, straightening my spine while keeping my hands together. I waited for him to march off to wherever he was going, then I rapped on the kitchen door.

A young, sad-eyed woman appeared from the kitchen’s depths. She was a stranger, for my beloved Cook had been taken by the water-fever during my time in Suddhodana’s household. She looked me up and down. “I can give you some rice-pot scrapings,” she said. Unlike Cook, she was slender, her stained blue sari pulled tight around her flat belly. Her hair was pulled equally tight into a flawless bun, a contrast to her sad eyes. It struck me that her nature was sad but far from resigned.

“I thank you for your generosity,” I said, bowing to her. “But I would like to speak to the lady of the house.”

She took a step back. “My mistress only speaks to the seekers her husband has approved.”

This was something new. I was fearing more and more that my father had clamped down on his women. I had to wonder—was this taking place throughout the clan? And did my brother have anything to do with it? “Please,” I said in a low voice. “I have a message from her daughter.”

“Her daughters are visiting with their mother at this very moment,” the woman said. “As are her grandchildren.” She put her hand on the door, perhaps to close it in my face.

“Not those daughters,” I said. “The one who went forth to become a seeker.”

The woman’s eyes darted about fearfully, as if she expected to see the seeker-daughter flitting around in the mango trees as a spirit from the realm of the dead. “We are forbidden to speak of her,” she said.

My heart clenched. Had I been banished from my own family?

I reached into my robe and removed one of the packets Stick Woman had prepared for me. I held it out. “This is a particularly effective variety of turmeric,” I said. “If you mix it with soapy water, it will turn bright scarlet and awaken the holy fire in your nature, banishing sorrow. Otherwise, you can simply rub the powder on your face, and it will give your skin a golden glow.”

The woman stared down at the packet. “Perhaps I can hint to my mistress that a holy man wishes to speak to her briefly about an urgent family matter. But she will probably not be able to get away until after her meal.”

“I’ll be meditating in the mango grove,” I said, handing her the packet.

 

I sat down and arranged my robes around me. I thought in my emotional turmoil meditation would be impossible, yet as I sat observing my terrified breath, a strong current of realization swept me up from my fears. An outrageous plan was taking shape in my mind. I only hoped I wouldn’t have to follow it.

The sun had shifted toward the west when Ama arrived, standing over me. I had to stop myself from throwing my arms around her knees. “Ama,” I whispered. “Do you know me?”

She stared down at me. In spite of the dark crescents of grief under her eyes, her skin was still smooth over the elegant framework of her bones. “Yasi!” she finally said. “What’s happened to you?” Tears washed her cheeks, as she thrust her arms down to gather me up. After the deaths of her daughters, her movements had never regained the confident precision I remembered from my childhood. “Who did this to you?” she asked.

I held out my arms to stop her. “No, wait. Is there somewhere you can hide me?”

My mother’s fish-shaped eyes widened with terror. “My daughter, what have you done?”

“No, no,” I said, looking around and praying no one had seen me. “I’ve done nothing other than stay with the holy woman you recommended. But the Sakyans attacked us. Now I can’t risk making myself known here until I find out what’s happened since I’ve been gone.”

She showed no surprise at what I’d said about the tribe being attacked. “I can try to smuggle you into the women’s quarters,” she said.

I had to fight panic. Once inside the women’s quarters, I might never be able to leave. “Not there,” I said. “What about the cow shelter? If they find me, you can always say you were just trying to put me up.”

“Oh, Yasi, your father no longer allows me to consort with beggars.” Her eyes, once so steady, now shifted about in a kind of apprehension, the eyes of someone who no longer trusts in her gods to look after her, yet hasn’t given up on them completely. “When you’re dressed this way, I’m taking a risk just talking to you.”

I was beginning to see the hopelessness of it all. “I need to know what’s happening here. I can only beg you as your daughter to help me.”

My mother cast one last glance at the house. It stood silent, dozing in the sun, its occupants recovering from the main meal of the day. “We’ll go to the cow shelter.”

The shelter was a straw-roofed, clay-brick structure that housed a hundred cattle, who this time of year spent little time there, which meant, fortunately, the place smelled more of straw than cow dung. In the aisle between the stalls, we picked up a couple of milking benches and took them to the stall farthest from the door “I can’t stay here long,” Ama said in a low voice.

“First, tell me about my son. Is Rahula all right? Is he still a monk?”

“He’s fine, as far as I know. He’s with Siddhartha—a good place for him, considering.”

“Considering what? What’s going on here?” Although I feared I knew.

Ama flicked her gaze around the barn, as if fearing detection. “Before I say anything, I need to know the reason for your secrecy.”

I related what had happened in the hills, leaving out the sexual aspect of my relationship with Bahauk. Although I longed to confess to Ama about my love and receive the balm of her comfort, I didn’t dare risk her rejecting me for loving a tribesman. Not when she was in all likelihood the only person in my whole clan I could trust.

“You obviously know about the Sakyans’ attack,” I said. “So tell me who was in charge.”

She placed her fingers on the bridge of her nose, the pained gesture of a woman used to disillusion. “Who do you think?” she said.

She confirmed my worst fears. After I’d left, Suddhodana had undergone some kind of mental breakdown, begging his son to teach him how to awaken, not as a monk but as a layperson. Instructed by the Tathagata, he retreated into meditation for a half-year, and then, according to some people, he emerged fully illuminated. The next day he died, prompting these same people to wonder whether it was possible for laypersons to awaken and remain in their secular state.

“So I take it my brother is now in control, and his greed is responsible for cutting down the Gorge tribe’s trees.”

My mother nodded, averting her eyes.

With all my grief, I hadn’t felt any anger at the attack this entire time, but now it roared through my body as if flaming up through the floor from hell below. My improved ability to forgive had its limits. Jagdish had incited the massacre of a whole tribe, including Bahauk of the kindly brow and wide innocent smile— the man who had made me happy after the sorrow of being abandoned.

With the rage came a fantasy of taking a machete to my brother’s neck.

I know you, Mara, I prayed desperately. Be gone, god of death. Killing was never a solution to killing. “What else has Jagdish done?” I asked, as calmly as possible.

My mother looked at me tentatively, as if to gauge how much I could take. She sighed. “Pajapati is a virtual prisoner; the women’s quarters there are more guarded than ever before. The varnas are strictly enforced—I’m glad Rahula no longer lives in that household.”

So was I. But the women would suffer more, servant women most of all. I thought of Vasa, my young servant and friend. “And what of Vasa?” I asked. “By now, I hope she’s married.”

Ama fingered a fold of her green sari.

I felt a flare of fear. “What is it? Has my brother killed her?”

Ama kept her eyes on her lap. “No, he took advantage of the education you gave her and passed her off as a princess. He married her to the Kosalan king.”

“What?” My mother might as well have told me that elephants could balance on their ears. As I’ve said, the Sakyans despised the Kosalan people as low-borns. But for our clan to deceive their king was sheer folly; the Kosalan army, with fifty thousand men and over a thousand horses and elephants, could dispatch the Sakyan warriors in a single day. “Has my brother lost his mind?”

My mother stared out at the dust-choked sunbeams, looking older, the white threads in her hair visible in the cow shelter’s ocher light. “He did it to spite your husband, whom he hates for defying what your brother sees as the holy order of the universe—not to mention that Siddhartha dishonored our family by abandoning you. King Pasenadi has become a lay follower of your husband, inviting him to stay and teach at his palace. So Jagdish figures that if Pasenadi finds out, he’ll either have to denounce the Tathagata and his belief in varna equality or put up with a lower-caste wife.”

“Or destroy the Sakyans in revenge! Tell me, did my brother ever think of that?”

My mother grasped her elbows, huddling into herself. “The King believes in peace.”

“The King, perhaps, but if other Kosalans find out…” My rage at my brother rose again. “If I were a man, I would…” I stopped. I, too, believed in peace.

Ama sighed. “Your brother has his reasons, Yasi. He truly believes in the sacred social order and condemns your husband for encouraging people to give up the world. The Tathagata has gone so far as to say he’s ‘against the stream,’ not only of society, but of ordinary religion and life itself.”

“You would defend Jagdish! He’s a thief and a murderer who indulges his personal grievances above all, and he’s put our whole clan in danger.”

“He’s my son,” she said, her voice thick with held-back tears. “Think of Rahula. Wouldn’t you at least try to see his point of view?”

“I suppose,” I said, temporarily off balance until I made myself remember what Jagdish had done. “But Jagdish is no longer my brother.” I stood up, realizing that the plan I feared to implement was all I had left. “Ama, I can no longer live as a member of this family. I’m joining the Tathagata’s Sangha.”

“You know he doesn’t accept women! That hasn’t changed, dearest, and I don’t think it ever will. Pajapati longs to join, but the Tathagata has refused even her.”

“I’m not joining as a woman. I’m joining as a monk.”

My mother sprang to her feet, her eyes dry with horror. “You’re disguising yourself as a man? You’re every bit as mad as Jagdish.”

“I’m not disguising myself as anything, although I’ll shave my head to indicate that I’ve sacrificed my sexual nature, something all monks do in any case.” I had the fleeting thought: perhaps Stick Woman was right. Saving the world required sacrifice. I only wished I were surer about the nature of the world I was saving.

Ama remained distraught. “Yasi, he’ll recognize you. Let alone your years of intimacy, it’s said he has psychic powers.”

“Of course he’ll recognize me. But he can choose to see me as other than my feminine self. After all, he has preached that the soul is a fluid, with no permanent essence. Perhaps he’ll see me with the eyes of Dharma, knowing I have a role to play in his life.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I’ll live as a solitary wanderer,” I said, not wanting to think that far ahead. “Ama, please give me your blessing. I’m doing this for all women—but especially for the women in this clan who, if the Kosalans end up attacking, will be enslaved if not killed. Once in the Sangha, I’ll try to persuade the Tathagata and the other monks that women deserve the chance for awakening. Then you, Pajapati, and all our clanswomen will have the option of escape.”

My mother reached out and stroked my cheek. “My beautiful daughter. Does it have to be this way with you?”

“I fear that it does.”

She took an unsteady breath. “Well, in that case, what would you have me do?”

“If anyone asks, say that your daughter Yasodhara vanished in the hills.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then studied me in that motherly way she once did to check that my shift was spotless and my hair neatly braided. “You’ll need a life story. I recently heard of a remote Sakyan village where almost everyone died of the water-fever. You can say you come from that village as a seeker, and there will be no one from that place to challenge you.” She stood up, brushing off her sari. “You’ll also need a name, one that no one will associate with you.”

“I’ll take the name Ananda—bliss,” I said. Then I added, “Ama, where can I shave my head?”