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Eureka! It's the Four Sights.
If you have watched Little Buddha, starring Keenu Reeves (inset) of the Matrix and Speed fame, you would probably seen the four sights. That refers to the specific observations made by Prince Siddharta: an old man, a sick man, a corpse and an ascetic - that led the prince to give up his comfortable royal life. When Prince Siddharta was a baby, his father, King Suddhodana had called upon eight Brahmins to predict his future. The Brahmin Kondanna was confident that he would renounce the world and become a Buddha but the other seven declared that the prince would either be a Buddha or a great King. The sights of suffering would cause the prince to renounce his worldly life and seek the path to overcome suffering and therefore deprive him the opportunity to become king. King Suddhodana had therefore confined Prince Siddharta to his palace since birth. In one of his talks, the late Reverend Abhinyana had wondered aloud why it had to take the prince out of the palace to see the four sights. People fall sick and die all the while and if the king could hide the sick and the dead from the prince, surely he could not hide a sick Prince Siddharta from himself. The king himself would grow old, too and most probably, the prince, bright as he was, would notice unless it was true like the Hollywood movie, Little Buddha, suggested -the king used comestics.Prince Siddharta might have fallen sick himself, and people around him might have aged but most probably there is this need for this special moment of realisation. Some of us may have played with a toy duck while taking a bath in a bathtub and others may walk in the streets and something may have dropped on the head. Does anyone of us at any moment relate that to Archimede's Principle of Displacement or Isaac Newton's Law of Gravity? Does anyone go, Eureka!?
If you have watched Little Buddha, starring Keenu Reeves (inset) of the Matrix and Speed fame, you would probably seen the four sights. That refers to the specific observations made by Prince Siddharta: an old man, a sick man, a corpse and an ascetic - that led the prince to give up his comfortable royal life. When Prince Siddharta was a baby, his father, King Suddhodana had called upon eight Brahmins to predict his future. The Brahmin Kondanna was confident that he would renounce the world and become a Buddha but the other seven declared that the prince would either be a Buddha or a great King. The sights of suffering would cause the prince to renounce his worldly life and seek the path to overcome suffering and therefore deprive him the opportunity to become king. King Suddhodana had therefore confined Prince Siddharta to his palace since birth. In one of his talks, the late Reverend Abhinyana had wondered aloud why it had to take the prince out of the palace to see the four sights. People fall sick and die all the while and if the king could hide the sick and the dead from the prince, surely he could not hide a sick Prince Siddharta from himself. The king himself would grow old, too and most probably, the prince, bright as he was, would notice unless it was true like the Hollywood movie, Little Buddha, suggested -the king used comestics.Prince Siddharta might have fallen sick himself, and people around him might have aged but most probably there is this need for this special moment of realisation. Some of us may have played with a toy duck while taking a bath in a bathtub and others may walk in the streets and something may have dropped on the head. Does anyone of us at any moment relate that to Archimede's Principle of Displacement or Isaac Newton's Law of Gravity? Does anyone go, Eureka!?
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