Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

7The Kingdom of the LawA J A H N S U C I T T OHomage to the Buddha. “Homage to all the Buddhas, the great sageswho have arisen in the world.” Thus ran one of my much-repeatedmantras: the recitation of the names and virtues of the twenty-eightBuddhas of whom Gotama was the most recent. This chant was supposedto have a protective influence. At least reciting it while fingeringthe twenty-eight-bead mala did cast a benevolent mood around themixed bag of mental states and sensory impingement coming my way.We were leaving Uttar Pradesh and entering Bihar. At the time of theBuddha the Gandak River was also a boundary—to the west lay therepublic of the Mallas, a vassal state of the powerful kingdom of Kosala;to the east were the federation of republics known as the Vajjian confederacy.Shortly after the Buddha’s death, the whole region wasconquered by Ajatasattu, who subsumed it into his kingdom of Magadha,the heart of what under Ashoka in the third century B.C.E. came tobe the first and greatest Indian empire.I had woken up cold in the dark with my legs aching from the hardground. Orion had gone and my mind was full of mud. In that fuddleand gloom we lost something most every morning—candles, items ofclothing, whatever. India took them all in exchange for the mud and grit1 1 5