Reading Notes- The Life of Buddha- Part B

This section of the reading was quite different from the first part (part A), I feel. The first part was very enchanting. The stories were told eloquently and decorated in such a way that you pictured dazzling scenes in your mind. While the imagery is still kept up in the second part, you can see that the glamorous details from the first part begin to dwindle down, which I did not realize was symbolically intentional until the end. We began with the life of Siddhartha, with a greatly decorated birth filled with lots of life and color. He moves into adolescence where he is decorated with the jewels of his prestigious family, but internally begins to recognize that it is not who he is. We move into the second part, where he is physically moving himself from his decorated lifestyle, in search of something more real. And finally, we have the very symbolic, but literally removal of the fancy clothing of his childhood; in exchange for clothing that represents the type of life he wants to live. At first it did not mean anything to me, but then as I started typing out my reading notes I was like wow, that was all cleverly placed there. Symbolism is a characteristic of writing that I have always had such respect for, as it is a very strategic and thought out process. It takes planning and skill to be able to introduce a theme without directly saying it, in hopes that the reader later comes to the realization.

Buddha and The Five

Bibliography: Andre Ferdinand Herold, The Life of Buddha (1922), The Life of Buddha