Devdutt Pattanaik: The end of the Buddha's clan

IllustrationDevdutt PattanaikThe Buddha and his followers used to always eat one meal in the house of a layman King Pasenadi of Kosala asked the Buddha how a monk chose a house to eat at The Buddha replied that it will be a house that one trusts The king then asked what house does one trust And the Buddha replied family To make himself trustworthy Prasenadi felt he had to become a member of the Buddhas family and so he approached the Sakya clan and asked them for a bride They were reluctant but he was persistent So he was tricked into accepting a girl named Vasabhakkhattiya whose father Mahanama was Sakyan but the mother was a slave girlThe story goes that Mahanama ate from the same plate as his low daughter but before he could swallow the food a messenger called him out of the dining hall so he could secretly spit out the food Pasendadi was thus fooled The son born of this union was named VidudabhaVidudabha was never allowed to visit his maternal grandparents When he finally did he learnt the truth of his low origins for he saw servants washing the seat he sat on with milk and water to purify it When he told his father this King Prasenadi disowned him and his mother instead The family was later reunited thanks to the Buddhas interventionBut Vidudabha took a vow to destroy the Sakya clan And raised an army after his fathers death Each time he reached Kapilavastu he found the Buddha sitting outside the city under a tree that offered little shade The Buddha explained that his familys love kept him cool Realising how much the Buddha loved his family Vibudabha turned around with his familyThis happened three times But the fourth time the Buddha did not intervene He said his family in their last life had poisoned a river and so had to pay for post misdeeds Karma had ripened and he could do nothing about it And so the Sakya slaughter took place Everyone was killed except those who entered the battlefield and symbolically rejected violence by holding blades of grass or reeds between their teeth Everyone was killed man woman child The Buddha did not stop the slaughter While returning home Vidudabha and his soldiers slept on a dry riverbed Ants came at night and carried those who were sinless to the riverbank The rest including Vidudabha were drowned in a flash flood and their bodies were swept away by the raging river into the seaThis story from the Bhaddasala Jatakas is very similar to the story of the death of the Yadava clan decades after the war at Kurukshetra between Pandavas and Kauravas It is the result of Gandharis cursing Krishna and the result of Krishnas son Sambas prank that gets him and the clan cursed A civil war takes place amongst the Yadavas Here too blades of grass and reeds play a role mdash but they take lives dont save them Here too the sea plays a role it is the witness to the massacre not a watery grave Like the Buddha Krishna does not intervene and in some stories participates in the slaughter submitting to the ripening of karmaThe author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times Reach him at devdutt devduttcomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates