THE BUDDHA'S AWAKENING 13rode out of the city, accompanied by his charioteer. After traveling a fair dis-
tance, Siddhartha dismounted, sent his charioteer back to Suddhodana with
his ornaments and a message, then cut off his hair and exchanged clothes with
a passing hunter.
The core of this episode, the Great Renunciation, is the conflict between
the household and the renunciate ways of life: Far from encouraging his son,
Suddhodana had done everything in his power to prevent him from becoming
a renunciate. At each crucial juncture, Siddhartha recognized his familial duty
and expressed strong affection toward his father. Asvagho~a puts into the Bod-
hisattva's mouth a speech justifying departure for the homeless life as fidelity
to an even higher dharma (duty or norm). Yet even in the society that spawned
it, the renunciate life was a controversial ideal.
1.3.3 The Bodhisattva's Studies and Austerities
(Strong EB, sec. 1."3)The new mendicant, then 29 years old, went first to an ascetic teacher named
Ar"aqa Kalama, who taught a form of meditation leading to the "attainment of
the state of nothingness:' Gautama practiced the method and quickly attained
the goal. Kalama then set him up as his equal and co-teacher, but Gautama--
concluding that this teaching did not lead to ultimate Awakening and
nirval).a-left in search of a better teaching. He then studied under another as-
cetic leader, Udraka Ramaputra, who taught the way to a higher state, the
"attainment of neither perception nor non-perception." Gautama mastered
this state and was proclaimed a teacher, but abandoned the method because it
was inadequate for attaining his goal of "disenchantment, dispassion, cessa-
tion, tranquillity, superknowledge, Awakening, and nirval).a" (M.39). These
seven quasi synonyms taken together reveal the main features of the goal that
Gautama was seeking, and that his teachers thought they had found: pacifica-
tion of mental turbulence, perfect direct knowledge, and attainment of the
unconditioned state (see Section 1.4.3). Unlike the Upani~adic seers, they
were not looking for contemplative identification of the soul and the world
spirit, nor were they trying to starve out impurities through abstinence, as
were the Jains. Instead, they were hoping to use meditative absorption in
formless states to awaken to nirvatta, a term that literally means the extinguish-
ing of a fire (see Section 2.3.2), but that in India was used figuratively at the
time by a number of sects to denote the highest happiness, freedom, and peace.
Leaving Udraka Ramaputra and the path of formless absorptions, the Bod-
hisattva then went eastward to Uruvela near Bodhgaya, where he found a
pleasant spot and settled down to try the path of austerities. He practiced hold-
ing his breath in order to induce trances and was not deterred by the resulting
violent headaches. Fasting, he came as close as he could to eating nothing at
all, becoming utterly emaciated. He was joined in his strivings by five ascetics
and continued in this painful course until the sixth year after the Great Re-
nunciation. Then, seeing that this severe mortification had not led him to lib-
erating knowledge, ;md having exhausted the various forms of ascetic practice