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In the far-off plains of northern India, Prince Siddartha sat on his gold gilt seat, wrapped in deep thought. Gone was the cheer. Gone, too, the exuberant spirit, restlessly searching for new avenues of adventure in his four seasonal palace gardens.

In these last few days, a brooding melancholy had laid siege on his lively outgoing personality and he lay sapped of energy. Not even the diverse pleasures of the palace where his sire held court and ruled the domain as king could entice him to yearn for more. The avenues of pleasure he had eagerly trod seemed not to have the same attraction as they had had before. They invariably brought him back to the same starting point, returning him sated and yet unsated. He realised the utter futility of pleasures enjoyed being transient and not everlasting.

He remembered—as told to him—what wise sages prophesied at his birth. They had all predicted he would become emperor of the world except, perhaps the wisest of them all, who had proclaimed ‘he would become not an emperor of mighty empires which will crumble and be made dust in time, but destined to become one who will marshal the minds of mankind and show them the path to liberation from this siege of sorrow’.

The Prince shrugs off the prophecies with a smile of disdain; and wonders if the rest of the day will be as monotonous as yesterday. He realises he had stayed too long within these palace walls for his own good.  A spell of fresh air would do him a world of good, and a sudden impulse sweeps him to send for his faithful charioteer, Channa. When he arrives, the Prince tells him to have the carriage the King uses to travel incognito. Channa is perplexed but doesn’t ask him why.

Siddartha soon arrives at the exit and mounts the horse-driven carriage. Channa steers it in the direction of the Prince’s summer retreat. ‘Not there today’, the Prince commands. ‘Then where to, my Prince,’ asks Channa. ‘Let’s adventure,’ bellows the Prince from his rear seat. ‘Let’s leave these city walls. Let us explore what lies yonder and imbibe the rustic charms of the countryside.’

Channa freezes and is aghast. Long years ago the King had informally made it known through his ministers to the palace guard to deter the Prince at all costs from leaving the city exits. He was not to be stopped but firmly dissuaded from leaving.

Ever since the revered wise sage had prophesied that the Prince was destined ‘to liberate mankind from sorrow’s siege, the king had been determined to deny the Prince of vividly seeing or experiencing sorrow in any of its ghastly forms. Hearing the sage prophesying such a destiny for the newborn heir to the throne, the paranoid king had muttered under his breath, ‘Religion is for the Brahmins. Let them use the monopoly they enjoy having sole access to God. But no son of mine is going to be a hermit, a beggar, parroting lines from the Rig Vedas in return for a measly bowl of alms. My son is a Kshastrian, a warrior, born of noble blood, born to be king, born to rule in the self-same manner of his ancestors, in the manner his caste dictates and Kshastrian honour demands’.

Little did the king know that the path of the Prince’s ancestors lay in the way where twenty-seven others had trod epochs before.

Channa tries his best to dissuade him. He asks, ‘Is it wise to expose yourself to the many unknown dangers that lurk in the wild countryside?’ The Prince is adamant. ‘If that be so, expose me to the same dangers that lurk in the countryside where the subjects live in the midst of alarms. Drive on Channa, drive on.’

This was a royal command given by the heir to the throne. Even the king could not punish one for disobeying such an order. That will be his defence, thinks Channa and drives on. They reach the city gates where breakfasting guards hardly afford them a second glance, more alert for incoming traffic than for those leaving the city gates. But not their head. His trained eye notices the carriage with the Prince inside. As per the secret standing orders, he discreetly dispatches a man on horseback to follow and report to him and king.

They speed through tracts of sparse vegetation, travel through dense forests when Channa suddenly brings the carriage to a shrieking halt. “What’s the problem,” inquires the Prince. “There’s an old man who suddenly started to cross the road,” replies Channa.

The Prince peers out of the carriage. He sees an old man, gaunt and bent crossing the road at a snail’s pace. He asks Channa, “Why is he crossing the road so blindly. Didn’t he see us coming?”

“He is an old man, my lord,” Channa replied. “And with age one loses one’s faculties. He can hardly see nor hear nor barely walk. This is the price of age which each one of us has to pay one day, the only inheritance that all beings born are heir to.”

Something in the sight of the old gaunt man, tottering with his crutch, and something in what Channa said strikes a deep cord in the Prince’s heart. Of course, he had seen old men before. His father too was old, the sages were old. So were the ministers. But he had never realised the significance of being old.

This was the first time he became aware that all life is subject to decay. That which I am, that old man once was; and that which he is, I too will one day be. That’s the iron law of nature. The vigour of majestic youth was to end in decrepit old age. And it surprised the Prince that until today he had never thought of it in that way.

This common simple truism had been staring him in the face all his life but he had not recognised it. He had been blind to the obvious truth, viewing the world merely on the surface.

The Prince was still pondering on the significance of this omen when they came to a small village. It was market day and the street was full of people. Suddenly there was a commotion and the crowd rushed to one side of the street, gathering around a man who had fallen to the ground and was frothing saliva and who seemed to be undergoing a fit of spasms.

“What is it Channa?” the Prince asked. “Why is that man on the ground shaking and spouting vomit? What made him suddenly take ill? He looks a virile youth, and even looks younger than I. What made him suddenly collapse?”

“Ah, therein lies the mystery of life, my Lord,” answers Channa. “For it is not only old age that gradually strikes one down but the bloom and all the promise of youth can be felled in mid-flight without warning.”

THE FINAL LEAP: Four omens that steeled Siddartha’s resolve to renounce worldly life

This was, indeed, an alarming revelation. The Prince stares at his own handsome physique and realises that it can be felled by one swift blow. Suddenly he becomes aware that with the swords of uncertain fates overhead arrayed, all life danced on a razor blade.

The chariot turns the corner and comes to a clearing. The Prince sees a group of people walking in front of them, with some of the women wailing. “Channa, what is this?” he inquires. “And why are those women crying?”

“It’s a funeral procession, my Lord. They have lost a loved one. Maybe a father, a mother, a husband or a wife, or even a small child. They are on their way to the cemetery to bury their dead. They grieve, for they will never see their loved one again in this life.”

“But can death strike at any age?” the Prince asks perturbed. “Death is no respecter of age or position,” Channa replied. “As they say, ‘king and crown tumble down, there’s no armour against fate’. If I may beg your pardon, my Lord, your mother was in the best of health and adorned with the vitality of youth and graced with beauty when illness struck her down.”

The thought alarms the Prince. He had taken for granted that youth would last for a long time. But the sight of the old man had changed that, and he realises, all life grows old. But the second omen is more frightful. And the third, death, is even worse. It makes the Prince fear the inscrutable forces of fate and he feels humbled before its awesome power.

The Prince has seen enough. “Channa,” he says, “I have seen enough for a day. Take me away from here. Take me to the palace. No wait. Before I return home I wish to go to a place of quite. Take me to the Royal Garden of Lumbini so I can rest and ponder on the meanings of the omens I have seen today.”

Here, in nature’s bosom, he contemplates the mind-blowing events he had witnessed today. Not that he had not seen old age, sickness or death before. But the trilogy of all life so vividly enacted before him makes him deeply aware of what the fates hold for all beings born on earth.

Even his own body, so strong and virile now, will fall prey to ageing and drain him of his strength and leave him as it had left the old man crossing the road. Or leave him suddenly struck down as it had left the young man helplessly grasping for breath on the roadside. And finally, there will be death to make him dust, hardly enough to fill a measly urn. That would be the sum of his existence on earth. Inveigling sorrow which life did mar, he knew no moat nor fort could bar. That was why all life was tinged with sorrow. In the newborn infant’s cry, he hears its dying wail.

This was the ultimate reality.

But was there no way out? Had Brahma created us all and damned us all to such a meaningless existence for his own amusement? And, worse, repeat the same futile existence in birth after birth forever? There had to be a way out from this insane cycle of sorrow. He determined to find the way.

Then out of the corner of his eye he espies what appears to be a vision. It is a man of noble countenance, with shaven head, carrying a begging bowl. He disappears into the adjoining woodlands.

The Prince calls out for Channa and asks him, “Channa, did you see that man who disappeared into the forest now?”

“I did,” Channa answers. “He is a searcher who has given up the world and donned the ascetic garb to find the ultimate truth. You find many like them these days.”

The omens he had seen throughout the day had depressed him. But now the sudden manifestation of the ascetic uplifts him. And he realises this is the fourth omen: The way out of sorrow.

This last omen steels his resolve to trod the path of the homeless wanderer to find the way to break free from sorrow’s iron grasp, to find the way to free mankind from sorrow’s siege. He is about to rise when a royal messenger arrives on horseback with a note from the king. It says, the palace is overjoyed at the birth of his son and heir and awaits his arrival soonest.

Though faintly heartened that succession to the throne has been secured, he is aghast to realise that he has sired sorrow. The news hastens his search. He will leave the palace tonight, leave behind his wife and newborn son and leave his sire, the king, leave the kingdom and head to the unknown forest and forever renounce the world; and carrying with naught but a beggar’s bowl, embark on an unknown path, on an unknown journey, in an unknown quest to find an unknown sublime treasure.