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Author's Note

This story is intended to be both a partner to the novel ‘The Pilgrim Kamanita,’ written by Karl Gjellerup in 1906, and a tale that stands on its own. There is no need to have read the earlier book in order to make sense of this one, however, should you wish to go to the source from which many of the characters and scenes of this tale have sprung, an English version of it is to be found on this same web-site at www.abhayagiri.org/main/book/366/.

This book is being published here as a ‘serial novel,’ which is to say that it that it will appear one chapter at a time, on the first day of every month, over the next couple of years. The plan is that, after the entire twenty-six chapters of the story have been released, a pdf file of the complete book will be posted, and available for free download.

Finally, gentle reader, please note that the original author (Karl Gjellerup) switched freely between using Sanskrit (the language of the Northern Buddhist and Hindu scriptures) and Pali (the language of the Southern Buddhist scriptures) during the course of his tale. In our efforts to be true to his original style we have maintained this mixture of usage.

Amaro Bhikkhu
Abhayagiri Monastery
December 2008

* * * * * * * * * * * *

ovelorn, forlorn, Krishna dragged himself about in a melancholy daze for weeks, after Khina left for the northeast with her sister and new brother-in-law.

He had little interest in his studies – not even in the wrestling or sword-play he had formerly loved so much – he even lost the taste for food and drink. His mother drove herself to near distraction, trying to organize and have more delicious and rare treats prepared, arranging outings or buying Krishna new clothes of fine and colourful cloth. She had the music master find him the highest quality of inlaid vina, had Ajjuna Page 2 of 19

take him to the military manœuvres; everything left him still depressed and dead to the joys of the world. Not even any of the doctors she had had look at him had been able to help one iota.

By the time six moons had passed she saw that her son, the irrepressibly ebullient and sprightly boy who bounced back from all ills and misfortunes with renewed vigour, was still gloomy and morose. She was at her wit’s end to find some solution.

One evening, as the other boys were trooping home after their day’s classes and exercises, she encountered Ajjuna packing up his hefty bundle of weapons and props. She had been muttering to herself in a fit of pinched anxiety and, almost as a continuation of her own internal dialogue, she bluntly put the question to the teacher:

“You’re a man, you must have some experience of these things; how can I get my son to rise out of his gloom?”

“Well, Ma’am,” he replied as he stuffed the remaining quivers of arrows and arm-guards into his bag and drew himself upright. He stood a full head and shoulders, plus a bit more, above Savitri. “Since you ask, let’s put it like this, as it was a girl he lost that has dropped him into this funk, I’d say that the remedy’s likely to be found in about the same place.”

“What do you mean?” Savitri had been generally starry-eyed about her son in recent years and to date she had not properly appreciated that he could have fallen so deeply in love so young. Indeed that possibility had not fully registered as, to her, he was still her little Mudi in most of her thoughts.

“He’s down in the dumps because he and the girl Khina were all eyes for each other. Begging your pardon Ma’am if you weren’t aware of that, but I only know as his friends give him grief about it all the time.

“If you said to him you were going to find a replacement, that would Page 3 of 19

never work Ma’am – believe me – if you feel yourself in love with someone you swear it can only be them that you’ll adore forever. Again, excuse me Ma’am if I sound too coarse but I’ve been there too, when I was a lad like young Krishna, and you’d die a thousand deaths before you’d submit to accepting another in your true love’s place.”

He could see an interested and puzzled look upon Savitri’s face, and it was clear that her marriage to the great merchant Kamanita must have been one made out of a family arrangement, rather than out of love.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest you trick him, Ma’am, but if you just ‘happen’ to employ a few more young girls on your staff, and if you make sure that they have plenty of duties that bring them into his chambers; or if you have any suitable, unattached young women on the staff already, you could just choose to reassign their jobs about the place. If you make it clear that you have no objection to their getting friendly with the young master – you might even put in an encouragement that they do, come to think of it…” Ajjuna ventured, glancing at Savitri briefly out of the corner of his eye, not being quite certain if the lady of the manor would approve of this tactic, “I’ll predict – even though I’m no astrologer or soothsayer – that within a couple of months he’ll be right as rain.

“That’s Dr. Ajjuna’s advice, anyway, Ma’am, for what it’s worth.”



It took Savitri a little while to digest such an approach:–– He was after all just a little boy, really – but when she next looked long and hard at his brawny figure, draped with its mournful and hangdog expression and weighed down its with listless mooching manner, her protective maternal spirit kicked in and she decided she was prepared to try anything.

Over the following weeks she interviewed a few young women of Krishna’s age and, Page 4 of 19

making her choices on the basis of their physical beauty and charm rather than their domestic skills, within a month three of them were taken on: Nanda, Kokila, and Ummadanti.

Dr. Ajjuna’s prescription worked perfectly.

* * *

A couple of years after Kolita’s granddaughters and Bhijjaka had moved to the Koliyan territories, word came back that the estate at the foot of the great mountains was flourishing; Khina was now married as well and they could use more help with the development of the property. The particular request that reached Kolita from his son Raju was, now that they had built a grand new house up there, could the gardener Bhumija be spared? An added fillip was that Khamba had given birth to his first grandchild and it seemed that the new family was well settled there.

By the time this idea reached Savitri’s ear it seemed to have gained a lot momentum. No one seemed to care much how this change might bear on her life, nor to appreciate that she would be losing a first-rate gardener and such treasures were rare in the world, if the comments of the other wealthy families of Ujjeni were anything to go by.

Kolita was doing his best to mollify Madame’s displeasure, and to make a case for Bhumija’s transfer to the estate, but he was not doing a very good job of it.

“You see Ma’am, if Bhumija goes he’ll awfully be helpful, and the long term will happen that, with things well going, well the estate will be populous and sorts of all kinds of people will be able to be Ujjeni, come to, that is, dwellers. They’ll provide all the staff here you need… Ma’am…” Things always got a little tangled when the steward was flustered.

The mistress of the house was, nevertheless, very clear one one point:

“He does not go anywhere, Kolita, for any reason, until we have found a satisfactory replacement. No replacement. No move. Understand?!”

Kolita mumbled nervously.

“Do you understand?”
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“Yes Ma’am.”

“Then, so be it.” She had been suposedly been running this house for a dozen years now or more, and still people tended to overlook her. She was reciting this grievance to herself as she left Kolita in the upper chamber, where the affairs of the palace were all conducted, when she heard a loud noise coming across the courtyard below her.

THWHOOOM! THWHOOOM! THWHOOOM!

* * *

Savitri descended the staircase and crossed the long loggia that was below the room she had been in. She saw Kuvera and Krishna chatting with someone at the gate; they were all smiles and Kuvera was welcoming the visitor in.

Savitri had had a profoundly sinking feeling when she first heard the sound of the knocking on the gates but now, for some unknown reason, she felt at ease – yes – even happy and relaxed.

The man who had arrived was middle-aged and weather-worn, and his head had recently been shaved. There were some rough and scabby patches of skin around his scalp and on his hands, but he emanated a tangible aura of benevolence and reliability. She felt strangely pleased to see him, although exactly why, she couldn’t say.

“I heard that a new gardener might be needed here, Madame. So I thought I might offer my services.” He inclined his head with a gesture of deference. “Was the news I heard correct?”

“Well, yes,” Savitri responded, wondering if it had been some kind of precognitory intuition, that the fellow would be the answer to the gardener problem, that had made her so happy that he had come. “What a stroke of luck. Do you have much experience or qualifications?”

She examined his hands with the briefest of looks. A true worker would be thick-fingered and would bear the broken nails of labour. Charlatans always had slender fingers. This man’s hands were comfortingly leathery, muscular and calloused.

“I’ve been tending living and growing things since way back, Ma’am, and have planted and nurtured in more different Page 6 of 19

places and climates that you could shake a stick at. But you shouldn’t take my word for it. If you give me a month’s trial and you take a look to see what’s grown and what’s died, we can let that decide it for you. How does that sound Ma’am?”

“That sounds very good…”

Krishna was standing at his mother’s side – he was now nearly a head taller than her and had a finger breadth or two over the visitor as well. He couldn’t believe that his mother and Kuvera were being so civil when it was obvious to him who had come to call. When he heard that Dusaka was planning to stick around, for at least a month, he was happier than he had felt in a long while; he realized he was grinning from ear to ear.

As Dusaka hoisted his small bag onto his shoulder more securely, and a scruffy little dog darted in from the street to settle by his feet, he looked at Savitri and then Kuvera warmly in the eye and said:

“The disreputable monk who visited nine years ago bears absolutely no resemblance to the man trying out as your new gardener, does he?”

“Oh no,” the lady of the manor and the gatekeeper replied in unison, “it’s hard to remember exactly what he looked like but you seem completely different.” Dusaka smiled with true fondness and sincerity, “And the dog doesn’t appear the same either – wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh yes,” they spoke again with a single voice, “it definitely looks like a very different dog, although it’s hard to remember exactly what they both looked like, it was so long ago that they came here.”

* * *

“What did you do to them? What have you done to all of them, come to think of it?” asked Krishna.

“Do? Me?...”

“Come on! Why am I the only one who recognizes you?”

“Oh, that…” Dusaka feigned surprise…”in the trade we call that ‘assisted memory loss’; on this occasion Page 7 of 19

mixed in with a large dose of ‘all-is-right-with-the-world-ness,’ otherwise known as loving-kindness.

“The first bit is just a way of tweaking people’s perceptions – you can make yourself invisible to others in a very similar way – and it’s in a good cause, don’t you think?”

They were walking around the back of the palace now to the yard behind the kitchen where the gardener Bhumija lived and where all the tools for the grounds were kept – rakes and clippers, saws, axes and suchlike.

“The other part is just the natural friendliness of the heart – warmth of feeling, wishing someone well – if you turn it up strong it helps people to feel at ease. Everyone loves to be loved, eh?” Dusaka laid his walking-staff down and settled himself on a low platform under a broad neem tree that spread its shade over the yard at this time of day.

His dog Tingri climbed up beside him and laid her head in his lap. He scratched her disheveled thatch and smiled at Krishna.

“You lost your earrings as well. I couldn’t figure out how you got them into your earlobes as they looked like they were solid rings of bone. After you were gone that was on my mind almost as much as everything else – ‘How did they get in there?’ – and now they’re gone again.”

“They come and go, like everything,” the ragged monk responded, and that was all the explanation Krishna was going to get.

“So…” his visitor asked, “how’s life?”

This simplest of questions opened a flood-gate of memories and stories, tales of the highs and lows, of his friends and romances, his studies and various escapades. For a long while Dusaka sat in silence, as it all poured out in an enthusiastic torrent from his young friend’s lips. When he reached the end of the recital, and had brought the monk up to date on all the different doings and achievements, the air hung still and warm between them.

“And are you happy?” Page 8 of 19

Again, it was the simplest of questions but it had the opposite effect of the previous one. Krishna went very silent as he asked this of himself. It was something he wondered if he had ever really looked at before.

“In a way I am,” he began, “I’ve got everything I could ask for: a rich family that I’m part of; a palace to live in; I’ve been educated in all the arts and sciences, the crafts of battle; I even have a steady girlfriend, Nanda, one of the maids, who my mother turns a blind eye to but… no, I’m not very happy. If I really look. I have all the things that people say equal happiness but… The formula doesn’t seem to be working.

“I guess I feel trapped; trapped in people’s expectations and in obligations, I’m the only son, owner of a big estate. I’m ‘the gifted Krishna’ almost a legend, a great match for a fine bride… it goes on… but all this has been put upon me. My wishes are gratified but there’s a price I pay – I feel like I’m being duped or drugged – even my girlfriend, Nanda, jumped right in after Kokila and I had a big falling out, and before her I fell for Umma, but it turns out they’ve all been hired just to distract me. Govinda heard it from Ajjuna one night when he was in his cups.

“And all the education and the sports – it’s worthy stuff but it feels strangely like a baited hook. The bait’s delicious – even though she has been shoved at me, Nanda and I really have a lot of fun together – but it’s all so false. It’s like I’m in a game but I don’t know the rules. Or I’m being lulled to sleep, hypnotized like a snake that does the will of its charmer.

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t complain. I have everything so much better than so many people in Ujjeni. It’s just, I wish I had a better perspective. If I could just Page 9 of 19

know the game, and the rules that it’s being played by.”

“I might be able to help you there.” Dusaka looked down at Tingri and tickled her head and, when she rolled over, her chest and stomach which she responded to with little whimpers of ecstasy.

“You can!”

“Don’t sound so surprised. What do you think I’ve come back here for? I am a good gardener but I’m not here just because I needed a job. Eh, Tingri – what are we here for?” The last words rolled off his tongue richer in the delicately accented manner that flavoured his speech, as if it was closer to the language that he and his dog usually conversed in. He continued, “I will never lie to you but you must be careful what you ask and you must remember that memory is unreliable.

“The wrong question, or one that assumes certain qualities to be real but which don’t exist in truth, these could bring you confusing or misleading answers, and not because I, or whoever is responding, consciously wishes to deceive you. Do you understand?

“This very principle is what has kept your father spinning on the wheel of birth and death, even though he has met the Buddha of this age face to face. And he will continue spinning, if I’m not much mistaken, for a few billion years yet to come.”

“Billion years!” Krishna was amazed.

“A few, yes. What’s the problem with that?” asked Dusaka.

“But, that’s an incredibly long time.”

“Long! Ha, you jest, my young friend. Suppose there were a mountain three leagues long, three leagues wide and three leagues high – one solid mass of rock. And at the end of each hundred year period that passed, someone would come along and stroke that mountain once with piece of fine Benares cloth. That mountain would be worn completely away before an æon had passed – so long is an æon, Krishna. And we have wandered from birth to death, to birth again through many hundreds of thousands of Page 10 of 19

such æons.

“If there were four accomplished meditators, women and men each with a life span of a hundred years, and each day they each recollected a hundred thousand æons. By the time their lives had ended, there would still be æons unrecollected.

“The heap of bones one person leaves behind
With the passing of a single æon
Would form a heap as high as a mountain:
So said the Great Sage.
This is declared to be as massive
As the tall Vepulla Mountain
Standing north of Vulture Peak
In the Magadhan mountain range.”

Krishna took all this in as best he could but his mind was more than somewhat boggled by it all.

“What did you mean about asking the wrong questions? And that thing about assuming qualities to be real? What did that mean?”

“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true; real becomes not not-real when the unreal’s real. Got that?!”

* * *
The long pleasant afternoons of the cold season soon became a memory, but these had been the times Krishna was most free to pepper the new gardener with his unrelenting questions. Even as the day’s heat grew to oppressive levels and it was hard to find a cool spot anywhere, the inquisitive teen would dog his master’s footsteps, even more faithfully than Tingri sometimes, and frequently he kept up the barrage while Dusaka lay on his side in some shady corner to rest through the worst of the burn.

He often asked about his family, his sisters and their mothers, about the whereabouts of his father, about the purpose of life and how it all worked, what was religion for and how did everything start in the first place… and on and on.

During the roasting stillness of one mid-afternoon, realizing he would get no rest again, Dusaka heaved himself up into a sitting position and folded his gammy leg under him.

“So, how far back do you want to go? To try to conceive, to figure out, the Ultimate Beginning, that will guarantee that Page 11 of 19

your head will split into seven pieces or, at best, you’ll go crazy.”
“Maybe not that far back,” Krishna smiled at the image of his own dark features bursting out in seven different directions with a perplexed expression still etched on the various bits of face. “But, how did we get here?”

“We? Here? Get? You’ll have to narrow it down.”

“Alright, how about just people? How did people come to be in this world, in Jambudipa, in Avanti. Where did we come from? How did we get here… And what are we supposed to do with our lives?”

Dusaka wagged his roughly-shaven head from side to side and muttered something in an odd language to his dog, who then sneezed and made some noises that sounded extremely like canine laughter. Dusaka chuckled too. “Let’s just take the first couple of those for now, eh?

“Let me tell you a story, although it’s more than just a story – d’you know what I mean?”

Laying his walking staff across his body so it ran from his left shoulder and over his right thigh, Dusaka let his eyes half close while his voice shifted to a different register.

“Generations four score hundred
Have followed since that time;
The folks were dark, not dark as you –
Echoes of the past come through.

The people walked and freely talked,
In dust they drew their marks,
All lived in but a single land
Sea-girt almost all round.

This cluster of the first of broods
Of what we call humankind,
Appearing in this world of ours,
In this æon at this time,

All thrived and grew but they were few,
Some lives were calm, some yearning
For eighty thousand turns of Sun
They shared, they fought, some learning.
_________

Things always change; the earth grew cold.
The rains were sparse and few,
The kinfolk died, they all grew scared,
No gods came to their aid.

The continent on which all lived
Joined by a spit of land
The greater Page 12 of 19

part of earth’s dry ground
Yet all who crossed there died.

The only hope that yet remained
Was called The Gate of Grief
For those who’d tried to cross before
Had left none to return.

The clan of humankind had shrunk
To a few thousand souls
The land had dried, there was no green
The choice was: cross or death.

Now, at that time the sea had dropped
Below where it lies now
So word among the people was:
By wading and by raft,

By bloated goatskin filled with air
The brave could reach the shore.
The lush, fair hills that rested there
A mere three leagues away –

Not one day’s walk for the full-grown
Were it a well-worn track –
But now the salt-thick waters brewed
And surged round sharpened reefs,

The rocks were rough beneath the feet
The currents treacherous
The islands barren of all life
The tides ruled by the gods.

For all it was quite simple:
If we don’t go, we’re killed.
So they waited for the season
When hope might be fulfilled.
___________

It is the way of every tribe
That dwells quite isolate,
With generations hundredfold
Line after line dies out.

‘Tis strange to tell, but truly so,
There’s an ancestral drift;
So of this resilient clan
That’s ridden all these years –
Eleven times ten thousand laps
Around life-giving sun –

All who then lived upon that shore
Sprang from a primal womb.
There was truly but one mother
For every wight that walked.

She could not know what we know now:
He life was plain, she birthed,
She cried, she laughed, she loved, she killed;
All unremarkable…

Yet from her daughters and her sons
Our life-line coils its fall –
Your sister Amba, it was she,
The mother to us all.
___________

Cascades of karma down through time
Bring her to birth once more
Upon the shore by Gate of Grief
A new-born, bright eyed girl.

The moon is dark, the tides are Page 13 of 19

low
The cold is at its worst
Propitiations have been made
Now is the time to cross.

The baby girl’s close family
Is torn by dreadful doubt:
The father has a wounded foot,
And fever that grows hot.

The elder brother’s not yet ten
Although a willing lad,
Another sister, who is three
Walks well but is still small.

Should they all stay and wait until
The man’s lame foot is healed?
Or should some go while time is ripe
The rest to follow on?

The scouts have come and returned now,
“The way is free and clear
For everyone who’s hale and strong
And not made faint by fear.”

Father’s asweat but his intent
Is firm and he speaks forth,
“I cannot go, my legs are frail,
I would be swept away.

But you are strong and so’s our son,
Leave me, I will come soon.”
“What of our daughter, Precious Charm?
She can not go with me.

Our boy, Bright Light, has not the strength
To bear her all the way.
If you will stay then she should be
Left with you in your care.”

They pondered this as they chewed on
Their last dried strips of buck.
The children nestled at their side
Are scared by what they hear.

The tribal leaders all declare
It is the hour to go.
A long and tear-dewed, silent look –
The choice has now been made.

The copper-coloured three-year-old
Howls out her little heart
As, babe on back and with Bright Light
Her mother now sets forth.

The man, Straight Arrow, tries to rise;
With all his will he holds
The small girl’s hand as all her grief
Crashes against the Gate.

‘Twas Tamba who was left behind
And you and Amba crossed,
And from her loins, in years that came
All races would emerge.

For that small band that crossed those days
While yet the seas were low
Became the bearers of the seed
That spread around the world.

Twelve lines survived in the Page 14 of 19

great land
That was our place of birth
But only one escaped from there
The one that Amba bore.

Before she crossed she had no name
“New baby” had sufficed
But as the party came to land
“New Dawn” was given her.

The fever sprung from Arrow’s foot
Grew worse, he writhed, inflamed,
Elders and cousins on the shore
Took care of Precious Charm.

The moon grew large, the season turned,
Straight Arrow soon succumbed.
The salt-sea rose; no more could cross,
They’d wait it out and see –

Perhaps the turn of years would bring
Low water once again
But tide had turned, the chance had passed
There was severance of the twain,.
______________

As upon a raft that drifts
The children of New Dawn
Struggled to sustain the kin
On their peninsular.

A full ten thousand summers passed
And winter chills so cold
Yet they survived there nonetheless
Combing the fertile shores.

They inched their way, numbers still small
Along the warm sea-coasts
And, at last, to Jambudip
Where crisis fell once more.

A mount of fire in the south-east
Poured ash onto the world
All creatures choked, the plants fell ill
It was a deadly blow.

But death brings life within its wake
And from the ashes rose
A burst of growth before unseen –
The peopling of the Earth.

The hills and vales of Jambudip
Rang with ten thousand cries,
The seed spread north and west and south
The gods too, were surprised.

So here in rich Ujjeni, as
In all the lands of Earth
There dwell the bold descendants of
The mother of all birth.

≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡

Notes and References:

Chapter 14

1. Page 183 — duties that bring them into his chambers… Another instance of this type of method is recounted in the novel ‘Raj’ by Gita Mehta. For example, on p. 188: “‘But each time the boys returned to Sirpur, I told the younger concubines to remind them of their own customs…’ The Dowager Page 15 of 19

Maharani’s voice described how she had sent girl after girl from the harem to seduce the awkward schoolboys during their holidays, hoping to recapture her grandson’s souls from Britain through their loins.”

2. Page 184 — Nanda, Kokila, and Ummadanti… Ummadantī is a character in Jat. §527. In that story the Bodhisattva becomes infatuated by her; in a later life, in the time of the Buddha, she became the geat arahant Uppalavannā and the man who is her husband, Ahipāraka, in Jat. §527 is born as Sāriputta, the Buddha’s chief disciple. Kokilā and Nandā are princesses mentioned in Jat § 542.

3. Page 186 — The disreputable monk… bears absolutely no resemblance to… your new gardener… This is an extrapolation of an ability the Buddha possessed and used on rare occasions, e.g. when Queen Mallikā had died, King Pasenadi went to ask the Buddha where she had been reborn but: ‘The Teacher so contrived that he should not remember the reason why he had come to him.” ‘Buddhist Legends, Vol. II’ p. 341.
Obi Wan Kenobi, in Star Wars, also employs a similar ability when his group is challenged by some guards. He utters the famous line: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” and they are all allowed to pass.

4. Page 187 — otherwise known as loving-kindness… This quality, and the cultivation of it through meditation (mettā-bhavānā in Pali), are considered to be of great importance in Buddhist practice.

5. Page 187 — you can make yourself invisible… As the Buddha did with Yasa, the merchant’s son: “Suppose I use my supernormal power so that while the merchant is sitting here he will not see Yasa.” MV 1.7, as recounted in ‘The Life of the Buddha’ by Bhikkhu Ñānamoli, p. 49.

6. Page 189 — I will never lie to you… This is also a very significant element in Buddhist practice. Throughout his incalculable number of lives as a Bodhisattva, even though he killed and stole, seduced other’s wives etc., the one moral precept the Bodhisattva never transgressed was that against Page 16 of 19

telling a deliberate lie. As it says in Jat. §431 “In certain cases a Bodhisatta may destroy life, take what is not given, commit adultery, drink strong drink but he may not tell a lie; attended by deception, that violates the reality of things.” Also in Jat. § 422, when, in the First Age of the universe, the being who later became Devadatta, lies for the first time; no one knows what ‘lie’ means; they ask “Is it blue or yellow or some other colour?”
The Buddha also emphasises this principle in some early advice he gave to his seven-year-old son, the novice Rahula: “Therefore Rahula you should train thus: ‘I will not utter a falsehood, even as a joke.’ at M 61.1-7

7. Page 189 — these could bring you confusing or misleading answers … As occurs most significantly in ‘The Pilgrim Kāmanīta,’ on p. 167; see also notes for this passage on p. 418 of that book.

8. Page 189 — Suppose there were a mountain three leagues long… This famous simile comes from S 15.5. Three leagues ≈ one yojana ≈ nine miles.

9. Page 189 — before an æon has passed… The word ‘æon’ here means ‘a Mahākalpa,’ the time needed for a world system to arise, develop and perish; in traditional Buddhist cosmology this lasts for four ‘incalculable periods’ or asankheyya kappas. See also A 3.114.
The OED describes a kalpa as ‘the period between the beginning and the end of the world considered as the day of Brahma (4,320 million human years)’ – coincidentally, this is roughly the age of Planet Earth.

10. Page 190 — If there were four accomplished meditators… This comes from S15.7, based on Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation.

11. Page 190 — The heap of bones one person leaves behind … This comes from S 15.10, again, based on Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation.

12. Page 190 — Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true… From ‘The Story of the Stone, Vol I’ p. 44. The Chinese of this cryptic statement, when transliterated, is:
Page 17 of 19

Jia zuo zhen shi zhen yi jia
Wu wei you chu you huan wu
This puns and produces the names of the two principal families of ‘The Story of the Stone’: the Jia (imaginary) family & the Zhen (real) family.

13. Page 191 — To try to conceive…the Ultimate Beginning As the Buddha says at S 15.1-4, “no first beginning is describable.” This issue is one of The Four Imponderables (‘acinteyya’ in Pali), the other three are: a) The complete workings of karma, b) All aspects of meditative absorption, or jhāna, & c) The range of the mind of a fully enlightened Buddha. These are described at A 4.77. The dangers of too much ‘loka-cinta’ or pondering about the origins of the world and ‘Who created the sun and moon? The great earth? The ocean? Who begot beings? The mountains? Mangoes, palms and coconuts’ are also described at S 56.41
How it might be that the head would be split into seven pieces on such an occasion is recounted, for example, at M 35.14.
A parallel dialogue on this, from Milton’s unique perspective, is to be found in ‘Paradise Lost’ in Bk VII; the passage runs from ll 86-97, where Adam asks: “How first began this Heav’n…” to ll 635-6: “… thy request think now fulfill’d, that ask’d how first this World and face of things began.”

14. Page 191 — Generations four score hundred… The genealogical structure alluded to in these verses is based on such studies as ‘Out of Eden,’ by Stephen Oppenheimer, the documentary ‘The Real Eve,’ and ‘The Journey of Man’ by Spencer Wells; the basic thesis of these is: ‘[T]here was a single common ancestor or ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ for all African female lines and then, much later, came a subsidiary ‘Out-of Africa Eve’ line whose genetic daughters peopled the rest of the world.’ (‘Out of Eden,’ p. 46).
This story of the origins of Homo sapiens begins 190,000 years ago, with Mitochondrial Eve who was by then one of a very small pocket of human survivors: ‘The genetic heritage of modern humans may Page 18 of 19

be derived from a core of 2,000-10,000 Africans who lived around 190,000 years ago.’ (‘Out of Eden,’ p. 46).
The African exodus across The Gate of Grief is reckoned at approximately 81,000 BCE — it involved only one of the thirteen genetic lines extant in East Africa at that time (‘Out of Eden,’ p. 62); the fateful ‘Out-of Africa Eve’ was part of this exodus. ‘In fact all the world’s non-Africans could have descended from a founding population of only 50 people.’ (‘Human,’ p 31, Ronald Winston & Don E Wilson eds., Smithsonian Institution/DK Publishing.)

15. Page 191 — In dust they drew their marks … As in ‘The Journey of Man,’ p. 84.

16. Page 192 — all who crossed there died... The first attempts to leave Africa by modern humans, 90-120,000 ago, ended with all dying – they exited by the northern corridor of Egypt/Syria. See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 54.

17. Page 192 — The Gate of Grief… Also known as ‘Bab al Mandab’ this strait is now fifteen miles wide and 450 feet deep. During the periods of glaciation, such as existed 83,000 years ago, it was only seven miles wide. See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 67.

18. Page 192 — The land had dried, there was no green… “Increasing aridity of the Eastern African coast… wetter monsoon conditions on the southern Yemen coast.” See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 78

19. Page 193 — But now the salt-thick waters brewed… The salinity increased as the sea levels lowered. See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 9.

20. Page 193 — surged round sharpened reefs… The name ‘The Gate of Grief’ comes from its numerous reefs. See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 67.

21. Page 193 — an ancestral drift… This principle is explained in ‘Out of Eden,’ pp. 64-66.

22. Page 193 — Eleven times ten thousand laps… Dūsaka is placing these events at around 81,000 years before his retelling, i.e. roughly 110,000 years after Mitochondrial Eve.

23. Page 194 — The cold is Page 19 of 19

at its worst… Owing to these conditions there was a dramatic lowering of the sea levels at 83-81,000 BCE. The waters fell to something like 250 feet below current levels and this ‘sea lowstand’ was never repeated. See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 80.

24. Page 195 — Their last dried strips of buck… This kind of dried meat, known as ‘biltong,’ is still very popular in Africa.

25. Page 196 — Combing the fertile shores… As Stephen Oppenheimer puts it, the survivors of the exodus succeeded in ‘eating their way down to Indonesia in 10,000 years.’ See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 77.

26. Page 197 — A mount of fire in the south-east… The eruption of Mount Toba in Sumatra took place 72,000 years before Dusaka’s account. It had a dramatic effect on most forms of life, especially those in the direct path of its ash-cloud, which covered the whole of India.

27. Page 197 — A burst of growth before unseen… ‘[I]n India, ‘Rohani’ [the origin of the burst of new lines] makes even that fecundity [of the earlier Nasreen line] look like family planning.” See ‘Out of Eden,’ p. 183.

28. Page 197 — The seed spread north and west and south… “‘Rohani’ being mother to most Westerners including Europe, not to mention two far-eastern daughters with very large families… the expansion can be dated to 73,000 years ago.” See ‘Out of Eden,’ pp. 182-3.

29. Page 197 — The mother of all birth... “Thence be call’d the Mother of the human Race.” Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. IV, l. 475.