Siddhartha's forgotten Wife - Buddha and Yashodhara - Dr. Anand Burdhan

"காதல் வந்து நுழைந்தால்

போதி மரக்கிளையில் ஊஞ்சல் கட்டி புத்தன் ஆடுவான்"

Buddha will swing under the Bodhi tree if he falls in love

- Na. Muthukumar, 'Pudichirukku' Song from Saamy Movie

"But it was not something Buddha did"

I know, you all are wondering that I'm writing after some three years and beginning with some quirky lyrics from a cinema song. Apparently, the idea to write this post struck my mind while listening to the song while driving back home after a lecture of Dr. Anand Burdhan on 'early historical sculptural art' at my workplace.

Although laziness was a primary reason, wandering from city to city and other useless things I was doing kept me away from writing detailed blogs. With the advent of attention and audience in Instagram was also a reason of me staying away from BlogSpot. In these three years, many good things have happened, I have learned and unlearned many lessons in my life. 

My job and the acquaintances are few among the good things that has happened. I have this privilege of attending the classes of the art appreciation course that's being coordinated by our division. There was this lecture on 'Early Historical Sculptural Art' by Dr. Anand Burdhan on 16th May, 2024. Dr. Burdhan is the deputy dean and assistant professor at the School of Heritage Research and Management at the Ambedkar University, Delhi. His expertise areas are museology, heritage studies and management, temple architecture and cosmology.I am yet to process the impact of Dr. Burdhan's lecture. 

I was mostly confined to only topics related to South Indian history and temple architecture. My brain complicated the process of grasping the historical information beyond the geographical area that I come from. But Dr. Burdhan’s lectures are one such enlightening experiences which leaves an imprint and the content of his subject stays in your mind.

Dr. Burdhan began with sculptural art of Mauryan age, then on to Sunga art and its important centres. Then came the Gandhara sculptural art. Dr. Anand Burdhan's impact is mainly because of two factors. One is his deep-rooted knowledge and the next is his style of delivering. His remarkable memory of citing the exact verses from various texts and of inscriptions are impeccable and leaves me speechless.

Buddha being worshipped by Indra & Brahma - Wikimedia Commons

Coming to the subject, Dr. Anand Burdhan was explaining about how only two gods from the Hindu pantheon is depicted in Buddhist sculptural art. Indra and Brahma were the two gods accompanied Buddha to this world when he was descending from the heavens of Indra after preaching. In few sculptures one can see Indra and Brahma depicted along Buddha, sometimes worshipping Buddha as well.

In the Buddhist text of Lalit Vistara, this incident from the life of Buddha has been described. Immediately after enlightenment, Buddha remembers none but his wife, Yashodhara. The very fraction of moment he starts to go and visit yashodhara. Lord Brahma then says to Indra to stop Buddha and remind him of his duties to preach the ignorant people. But Buddha persists to visit her. Yashodhara unlike Gauthama, couldn't throw away her responsibilities and also she was not yearning for a justification from Gauthama. Buddha, later conveys that he was wrong thinking that he was ignorant that Yashodhara might not leave him if he wanted to renunciate and abandon everything for enlightenment. Buddha goes to Yashodhara and she throws him a question 'Oh enlightened one! do you remember me?' To which Buddha responds saying, 'Yes, Indeed. I remember you. After enlightenment the first thought came to my mind was about you and here I am.'

A lot of thing happen beyond this conversation which leads to Yashodhara admiring Buddha's enlightenment. Yashodhara also expresses her wish to join the Sangraha after listening to the words of Buddha. She realizes that Gauthama have become enlightened and he was no more the same person who abandoned his wife, newborn child and the whole kingdom sneaked out in the night. 

While I browsed some other sources, came across the description of the same incident in different manner. But here I just wanted to share an excerpt from the lecture of Dr. Anand Burdhan. This post is a result of the impact of his lecture. Otherwise I don't have substantial knowledge about Buddhism and Buddha to an extent to comment about it. Thus, mistakes are possible and pardon me for the same.

 

Yours Eastgaterr