The Pilgrim Kamanita · Chapter
Buddha and Krishna explained
The Master speaks before a temple adorned with carvings of Krishna, contrasting the old path of heroic action and heavenly pleasure with the Buddha's teaching of overcoming desire to reach Nirvana.
What happens
The Master speaks before a temple adorned with carvings of Krishna, contrasting the old path of heroic action and heavenly pleasure with the Buddha's teaching of overcoming desire to reach Nirvana. Vasitthi listens, recalling her vow with Kamanita to meet in the Paradise of the West, but feels drawn instead to the Buddha's higher message of transcending suffering and transience. She reflects on the universality of suffering and the hope of salvation for all beings.
Themes in this chapter
Suffering and Detachment
The Buddha teaches that suffering follows life like a shadow, and Vasitthi learns to see her personal pain as part of the universal suffering, leading to detachment.
The Nature of Nirvana
The Master speaks of Nirvana as the end of suffering, an island beyond the sea of birth, experienced and seen by himself, not merely heard from others.
Illusion and Reality
The temple carvings come to life in the sunset, symbolizing the delusive world of forms, while the Buddha stands calm amid the restless, lifelike stone figures.
Characters to notice
- Vasitthi
Narrator and listener; recalls her vow with Kamanita but feels no desire for the old Paradise, embracing the Buddha's teaching on suffering and Nirvana.
- The Master
The Buddha, who speaks at the temple steps, contrasting the worship of Krishna with the path to Nirvana.
- Kamanita
Mentioned in Vasitthi's memory of their mutual vow to meet in the Paradise of the West.
- Krishna
The god whose heroic deeds are depicted on the temple and whose paradise is contrasted with the Buddha's Nirvana.
Key passages
“To be born is to die; all-destroying, oblivion’s breath holds sway; As in gardens of Earth, flowers in Paradise fade, and pass away.”
Everything that comes into existence must eventually cease; even heavenly pleasures are impermanent.
The Master's words on transience, which Vasitthi accepts without disappointment.
“I had no right to enduring happiness where all suffer.”
Vasitthi feels that personal happiness is unjustified in a world full of suffering.
Reflects her growing detachment and compassion.
“Oh, that all created beings were no longer obliged to suffer! that this holy man might so succeed in his work of salvation, that all—all—purified from sin and enlightened, might reach the end of all suffering.”
Vasitthi wishes for the universal liberation of all beings from suffering.
Shows her shift from personal sorrow to universal compassion.
“He spoke of that blessed place of peace, not as one speaks who relates to us what he has heard from others—from priests—and also not as a song maker who lets his fancy rove, but like one who communicates what he has himself experienced and seen.”
The Buddha describes Nirvana from his own direct experience, not from hearsay or imagination.
Emphasizes the Buddha's authority as an enlightened teacher.