The greatest teacher of them all...

The greatest teacher of them all...
There is much to learn, and we are yet to begin...

He cured her, and then, destroyed her

Inspired by the first verse of the Yammaka Vagga (The Twin Verses) of the Dhammapada - "Cakkhupalatthera Vatthu" - Suffering follows the evil-doer

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a place far far away, as all good stories say, near the very ancient kingdom of Kasi, along the might river Ganges, were the villages of Balapila and Syamala. While they were quite close to each other and to the mighty city of Benares, the capital city of the kingdom of Kasi, as the crow would fly, it was quite difficult to travel between these places. After all, humans did not perch on crows to fly a straight distance, did they? Humans are humans and they tend to remain humans, do they not?

The villages of Balapila and Syamala were about ten kilometers away from each other, but were on either bank of the Ganges. The Naga River flowed near the village of Balapila and met the Ganges as a tributary about four kilometers southwards. It was the Shanta River that flowed near the village of Syamala and met the Ganges as a tributary about fifteen kilometers eastwards of the Naga River. Both the villages were considered as the meeting point, sangam, of these tributaries of the Ganges. As a result, these villages also had important temples at the riverbanks.

This story took place in the rule of the very ancient King Brahmadatta. He ruled the kingdom of Kasi when the Most Enlightened One was born as a merchant and would often travel to the east and west with more than five hundred carts in his journeys. But that is another story and you can read about it in the Jatakamala. This was a time when the wilderness between the magnificent city of Benares and the nearby villages discouraged travelers from moving about on their own or with small caravans. Most travelers and merchants preferred to travel together and at other times, thought it wiser to move along with the larger caravans such as that of the Most Enlightened One, when he had been born a merchant in the rule of the King Brahmadatta.

Other caravans came to the great city of Benares from other kingdoms. Such a kingdom was Seri, and it was known that the merchants from the kingdom of Seri were not to be trusted in a bargain. It was also said the same of the people from the villages of the kingdom of Seri. In one such village, lived a very respected eye-physician called Vaidya Kittamutti. He was known to be able to diagnose any disease of the eye in an instant. It was said that he was blessed with these abilities from the muni Nagabhushana himself. Vaidya Kittamutti had lived for many years in the care of the muni Nagabhushana at the Munisangama Ashrama of the great muni Rangabhashya.

Before he had become a physician, a vaidya, Kittamutti was a trader of mud and oils for the very large oil producing mines of the King of Seri. Being of a very unscrupulous nature, he had very soon lost his job in the trade of mud and oils and traveled to the foothill plains of the Himalayas, where the two mighty rivers met, and had sought refuge in the Munisangama Ashrama of the great muni Rangabhashya. He had heard of very many different skills and schools of knowledge at the ashrama, and thought that this would be the right place and time to change his own skills.

The muni Nagabhushana had offered him a place to reside in at his own residence, with the many other students that he had within his gurukulam. Being of a very trusting nature, he had taken the vagrant mud and oil trader, Kittamutti, to his own heart, and had taught him the science of curing eye diseases and had enabled him to become a complete eye-physician. Kittamutti had lived in the gurukulam for more than ten years, serving the muni Nagabhushana and his family. Finally, the muni Nagabhushana had given his daughter in marriage to the vaidya Kittamutti. In his gratitude, Kittamutti had continued to live with the muni Nagabhushana and served him with more devotion and care for eight more years. In this manner, he managed to become a better person, more learned inspite of his earlier illiteracy of the sciences, and came to be well known.

Kittamutti left the Munisangama Ashrama and traveled back to the Kingdom of Seri. Very soon, he became well known in the use of his skills as an eye-physician. People came from very distant places in search of him to cure themselves of their anguish because of their eye diseases. The daughter of the muni Nagabhushana made all patients and their families feel at home and took care of them and fed them and nursed them while the Vaidya Kittamutti tended to their cure. It was in this cycle of care and motherly love and the couple’s untiring efforts to tend to the miseries of strangers whom Kittamutti took to be his own family, that they felt the need to be of more and more help to others.

In spite of the unquestioned passage of knowledge, ethics and attitude that the muni Nagabhushana provided to Kittamutti, and further in spite of the untiring love, labour and support that the daughter of the muni Nagabhushana gave to serving Kittamutti’s ever growing and ever demanding family of strangers, the inherent negativities and tendency to evil reactions never left him. On many occasions, he would bring together friends of a similar evil nature and would indulge in the intake of wine and other spirits that were denied to a vaidya who practiced such a fine art of precision such as the curing of eye diseases. At other times, Kittamutti would indulge in the wrongful behaviour of smoking prohibited drugs that would dull ones’ senses and cause long-term damage to the brain and the processes of thought that preceded action or reaction.

Once, in the eve of the Kartika month of the lunar year, came a caravan of 500 carts belonging to the merchant who would be born again as the Most Enlightened One. He came from the Kingdom of Kasi, and stayed awhile in the city where Kittamutti was known as an expert eye-physician. It was known that one of the cart drivers had not been able to see well of the road at night hours and therefore went to get treated at the hands of the Vaidya Kittamutti. The eye-physician examined the cart driver, and knew of the problem to be able to understand light and shadows as the night approached and gave to him an ointment that had been made by crushing several seeds of the Himalayan trees. At the very instant of the application, the cart driver had said that he felt he could see better of the light and shadows at night.

The cart driver told of this miracle to other cart drivers and merchants in the caravan of the merchant who would be born again as the Most Enlightened One. The merchants and cart drivers came to meet Kittamutti and appreciated the power of his curative abilities. They suggested that he could travel with them to the village of Balapila, on the sangam of the River Naga with the River Ganges. They told him that the village was an important trading post outside the ancient city of Benares and he would prosper and become well known. And thus, when the caravan left the kingdom of Seri, Kittamutti and his wife traveled along with them with their own oxen-cart, having sold away all his property and house and went to the village of Balapila and settled there.

The village of Balapila was a prosperous trading junction on the West to East road network that came out of the great city of Benares, alongside the mighty river Ganges. Very soon, the fame of the eye-physician traveled to many distant places in the Kingdom of Kasi and neighboring kingdoms. Patients came to the village of Balapila with their ailments and were taken care by the daughter of muni Nagabhushana as she did at the Kingdom of Seri. The vaidya Kittamutti knew that his wife struggled enormously in her work to serve the patients and as also to take care of their house.

The fame and prosperity of Kittamutti also brought many long forgotten relatives and distant family who came to the village of Balapila and stayed at their house and the daughter of the muni Nagabhushana slaved for them and took care of them. Kittamutti loved his wife, and also liked himself to the attitude of the most generous, the ancient King of Anga, who was known to have torn off his own ear-rings and the armour that he was born with, when asked for, just before he was to proceed to war. Kittamutti like to be generous to his family but wanted to be able to help his wife and give her some help in the household works. He was always on the search for some suitable help, such as one who would stay in the house and be of support to his wife.

As if in answer to his wishes, came one day, a woman, Kausi, with her three children, from the village of Syamala, from across the river Ganges. She was a very poor woman, and had lost the father of her three children, when he had deserted them. The shock of the disappearance of the father had caused her to cry inconsolably, and had resulted in the gradual loss of her eyesight. A youngish man, Dineshakaara, who was her neighbour at the village of Syamala, had encouraged her to visit Balapila and meet the eye-physician, Vaidya Kittamutti, and seek a cure.

Of late, the poor woman, Kausi, had felt that the young man, Dineshakaara, was beginning to feel affectionate to her and her three children, and it may be possible in the future for her to be married to him and look forward to a secure future. As a result, she agreed with his suggestion, and traveled with her three children to the village of Balapila, in search of the eye-physician. She had had no money with her, jewellery or any other valuables. Dineshakaara had argued that it would be better to travel to Balapila and explore the possibility of a cure rather than to wait for poverty to disappear. She had agreed once again, and was now waiting outside the door of the vaidya Kittamutti, to seek his blessings and cure for her eyes.

Kittamutti came out of his house and saw the woman, Kausi and her three children awaiting him. She begged the vaidya to cure her, and to give her back the wonderful world that she knew of before she had lost her eyesight. In her eagerness, she volunteered to the vaidya Kittamutti that she would work as a slave in his household and would be of help to his wife, of her whom she had heard that she was the daughter of the great muni Nagabhushana. The woman, Kausi, said that she and her three children had no house of her own in the village of Balapila and that she would have no hesitation in staying at the house of the vaidya himself.

This was too tempting for the vaidya Kittamutti. He had been in search of someone to help his wife with the management of the household chores and all the other associated work of taking care of his extended family and relatives who had discovered him anew. He knew of this particular eye problem and knew that he could cure the lady in an instant. And it would work out in his benefit, for if the lady regained her eyesight immediately, she would be able to begin work with his wife in his household. Once again, he asked the woman, Kausi, if she would work for him in his house, if he would cure her and help her regain her eyesight. She agreed very firmly, and seemed all that more determined to keep her promise to work as a slave in his household.

The vaidya Kittamutti applied a particular eye-ointment that he had, and knew that the woman, Kausi, would regain her eyesight at the very instant. Immediately upon application of the ointment, the woman, Kausi, felt the betterment and wonderingly looked around at the world that she was able to see once again. She also saw her children and immediately felt dismayed that she had given her promise to be a slave in the household of the vaidya Kittamutti. Such a life of drudgery and bondage would deny her ability to take care of her children and to lead the life of a family person with the young man, Dineshakaara in the village of Syamala.

She decided that she would try to deceive the vaidya Kittamutti. She turned around and swayed as if in pain, and declared to the vaidya that she was not able to see properly as yet, and she was in terrible pain, and that she would go with her children to the nearby temple, and return later, when the agony would have subsided. The vaidya Kittamutti was surprised. He knew the powers of his medicines. After all, he had learnt at the great Munisangama Ashrama, and he had learnt from the Muni Nagabhushana, and he had seen the immediate cure that the other patients had exhibited. He realized that the woman, Kausi, was lying, and she wanted to escape from her promise to work as a slave in his household and be of help to his wife.

He requested her to wait, and asked her not to worry, and to take another ointment to cure her eyesight properly. And this time, he decided, he would have his revenge at her betrayal. He wanted to punish her for her change of mind and for declaring that his medicine had not helped her. He took out a different ointment this time, and applied it on the eyes of the woman, Kausi. Immediately, the woman screamed in pain, for the ointment was not a cure but was of a medication that caused piercing pain and harm to her eyes, and caused her to go permanently blind this time. The woman shouted out in pain, and realized that she had lost her eyes forever, and that it was due to her betrayal of the word that was given by her.

The woman, Kausi, took her three children, and ran away from the Vaidya Kittamutti. One of the cart drivers of the caravan of the merchant who would be born much later as the Most Enlightened One saw of the entire incident. He was of a curious and studious approach, and that evening, when he met the merchant at Benares, upon return from Balapila, he narrated what he had seen happen. He informed the merchant that he had seen a very poverty-stricken blind woman with her three children and had seen the two faces of betrayal and revenge in very unfortunate terms.

The merchant, who would be born much later as the Most Enlightened One, explained to the cart driver that it was in the mind that evil and goodness are born, and it is in the mind that the attitude is corrupted. He said that it was in the evil inherent in the vaidya Kittamutti, because of his dulled senses due to excessive intake of wine and smoking of drugs that the learned physician could not hold himself back from taking revenge. If he had taken care of himself by staying away from wine and drugs, he would have known to treat the woman with benevolence rather than treat her as an opportunity to enslave her.

It was in the mind of the woman, Kausi, that she felt it necessary to agree to be a slave to the vaidya Kittamutti, and it was in the bondage of her thoughts within her mind to regain her eyesight, that she did not notice the responsibility of her three children that she should not have allowed escape. Again, it was in the mind of the woman that was born the idea that she could betray the eye-physician who had conducted the miracle of helping her regain her eyesight in a very brief instant without having to undergo other medical treatments.

It is the mind that causes action that begets reaction, much like the wheels of the ox-cart that always follows the oxen, and does not allow anyone to escape the consequences of their actions. The vaidya Kittamuni, his wife, the daughter of the muni Nagabhushana, the woman, Kausi, and the muni Nagabhushana himself, had all thought out within their mind, and rationalized that their actions were correct and that they could perhaps escape the consequences of their action. This is not possible, and one should be careful of the thoughts that are mind-made and that beget action and reaction that cannot escape each other. So said, the merchant, who would be reborn much later, as the Most Enlightened One.

4 comments:

  1. Great story. Looks like a good beginning.

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  2. Enjoyed it. Difficult to understand at some spots.

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