From
the beginning, Communities of people everywhere throughout history,
independently of one another, have formulated virtues by which
everyone in that Community is required to live.
Nobody
has attempted to make a list of all the virtues defined by all
Communities. Probably, such a list would be endless, even without
duplicated virtues.
Some
virtues that have been found to occur in many Communities, are,
alphabetically, Compassion, Fairness, Honesty, Honour, Justice.
There
has never been an attempt in history, or fiction story-telling to
determine which virtue that occurs in more than one Community is the
most important of all.
This
fiction story is the first attempt. It is being offered because it
arises firmly out of a centuries-old traditional belief practised to
this day by an ancient venerable religion.
Buddhism
is a major religion in the world. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha is the
alleged name of the alleged founder.
The
first profound mystery of Buddhism is that nothing is known for
certain about Siddhartha Gautama Buddha himself.
It
is alleged Siddhartha Gautama Buddha was born approximately six
hundred years before Jesus. This guess is not helpful since Christian
scholars give an approximate alleged date as the birthdate of Jesus,
too.
All
three alleged names of the alleged founder of Buddhism are so
uncertain as to leave the alleged founder with no name at all.
Siddhartha
was not a name; it was a title conferred to many adherents of other
religions at the time, and it meant ‘One who has attained one’s
goal.’
The
same applies to the other two alleged names. Gautama meant ‘One
who has the most light.’ Buddha meant ‘One who brings
enlightenment.’
In
other words, nobody knows the real name of the alleged founder of
Buddhism; he is only known by three titles that, in his time and
before, were common titles in more than one current religion. The
meanings of these titles make it not possible that any child would
have been given any of them as names. Nobody knows what the alleged
founder’s adult name was before his teachings and his way of
life earned him the three titles: Siddhartha Gautama Buddha.
Contributing
most significantly to the uncertainties about his name is the fact
that in the time of the alleged founder of Buddhism, and long, long
before his time, there was no writing in his part of the world.
Writing
came to that part of the world hundreds of years after his death. In
other words, if, indeed, he had been a teacher of virtues, it cannot
be certain what virtues he taught.
Again,
in other words, this story about the founder of Buddhism has been
gleaned from the same highly apocryphal sources as everything else
has been written by everybody throughout history.
So
far, it is certain that the man who came to be known as the founder
of Buddhism was the very first person to teach fairness to oneself
and to others as the most important human virtue.
And
this teaching in his life was not in any way, by himself or by anyone
else, seen as a result of special enlightenment. In him and taught by
him, fairness was the first practical requirement for peaceful
everyday Community living. There was nothing spiritual in and about
its beginnings.
He
had been born into a wealthy family. He was one of seven children. He
was the seventh child; the only male.
In
his Community, men were allowed to marry as many wives as they could
afford.
In
his Community, the one-and-only purpose of marriage was to produce
sons. The firstborn birth of a daughter brought child-bearing
attempts to an end because of the fear a second daughter would be
produced.
And
so the father married the next wife as soon as the previous wife
produced a daughter. This happened six times. Siddhartha was the
second child of the sixth wife.
The
firstborn, a son, of the sixth wife had been stillborn; and so the
mother was allowed to try again. Had that firstborn stillborn been a
daughter, she and her husband would not have tried for a second
child. That the first had been a son, even though dead at birth, was
seen as a good sign; and so husband and sixth wife tried again.
Her
second child was a boy. This made her the most important wife of the
six. By ancient custom, she was allowed to try again after her son’s
birth, because she might produce a second son. However, she and her
husband decided to not take the risk. They feared the Gods of their
Community might see it as arrogance in mere mortal husband and sixth
wife to presume the Gods would favour them three times in succession.
And
so Siddhartha was forever his parents’ last child.
As
the only son he was the sole heir to the family’s considerable
farm wealth, by ancient tradition.
When
Siddhartha was about six years old he came to know about the
Community’s ancient tradition of the “Living Goddess”,
or, the “Kumari Devi.”
Religious
leaders would gather and select a young virgin girl about to have her
fifth birthday. She would be the Community’s Goddess to be
worshipped. The child would be housed in a palatial home. She would
be displayed to the Community only a few times a year. Everybody
prayed to her and lavished her with gifts and money. She remained
their supreme Goddess until her first menstruation.
At
that time, her divinity ended. The search began for the next Kumari
Devi.
The
previous Goddess would return to a life of an ordinary person. Since
she and her family were allowed to retain much of the huge amount of
material wealth she had acquired during her reign as the Community’s
supreme Goddess, her return to ordinary mortal living could have been
happily welcomed. It was not.
In
the belief of a Kumari Devi, came the belief that she had to be
celibate all her life, as a Goddess and forever afterwards as a mere
mortal. If she were to marry, her spouse would die during the
marriage ceremony.
Everybody
for centuries and centuries did not question anything about the
Kumari Devi worship. Everybody, that is, until Siddhartha at around
the age of six, came to know about the Kumari’s post-Goddess
fate.
It
disturbed Siddhartha that childlessness in ordinary mortals,
considered by the Community as a curse equal to demon-possession, was
forced upon a post Kumari Devi virgin. For years and years he dare
not let anyone know of his objection to the centuries-old Community
belief. In all those years his bottled-up disappointment increased at
the unfairness of a Kumari Devi’s post-Goddess fate.
At
sometime in its build-up in intensity within him, the issue of
unfairness spilled over into his daily duties as the wealthy owner of
a vast farm.
He
came to regard meat-eating as unfair to the animal about to be eaten
by other animals and humans.
Up
until that time, there were no restrictions on meat-eating, in his
Community nor in any Community in his part of the world. His farm was
the first on which the practice was discontinued.
In
time it grew in him that he had a responsibility to teach to others
his commitment to and belief in fairness to oneself and to others as
the primary ethical virtue. His considerable material wealth made it
easy for him to take up teaching.
Because
in his Community, as in all others everywhere in those times, a wife
was relegated to being only a privileged slave to her husband,
Siddhartha never married.
This
decision by a wealthy man deeply baffled everyone inasmuch as
marriage was believed to be the only way ordinary persons attained,
in the eyes of all the Gods, equality with the Gods; higher than
martyred mortal saints.
Because
Siddhartha had no sons to be his heirs, after his death, his estate
would be divided among his sisters’ sons.
He
believed it unfair that by Community laws his sisters could not
inherit any of their father’s wealth. He searched the laws and
customs. He found no other way.
He
invented a way. His considerable wealth gave him the courage to dare
to depart from hundreds of generations of tradition.
He
declared he had had a holy vision. He had to go on a pilgrimage to a
distant holy shrine. He divided his estate equally among his sisters,
and gave out that in obedience to the holy vision he had experienced
he would spend the rest of his life teaching fairness, while he made
his way to the distant shrine.
His
magnanimous fairness to sisters was so alien in those times, it had
a mighty effect in the phenomenal spread of Siddhartha’s
reputation as a holy teacher, even though he had never named any God
in his teaching, and never stipulated any religious ritual or prayer.
The
day came for him to set out for the shrine. Most of the Community
members came to bid him safe journey, and success.
Two
former Kumari Devis approached him and asked to join him in his
journey to the shrine he had seen in his vision.
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