z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 02.indd MK SJ+YS 4 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 67
IN SEARCH OF NEW LIGHT
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To such a length in loathliness did he go that there became accumulated on his body the dirt and filth for years till it dropped off by itself.
He took up his abode in the awesome depths of the forest, depths so awesome that it was reputed that none but the senseless could venture without his hair standing on end.
When the cold season brought chill wintry nights, then it was that in the dark half of the months he dwelt by night in the open air and in the dark thicket by day.
But when there came the last broiling month of summer before the rains, he made his dwelling under the baking sun by day and in the stifling thicket by night.
In a charnel ground did he lay down with charred bones for pillow.
Thereafter Gautama lived on a single bean a day—on a single sesamum seed a day—or a single grain of rice a day.
When he was living on a single fruit a day, his body grew emaciated in the extreme.
If he sought to feel his belly, it was his backbone which he found in his grasp ; if he sought to feel his backbone he found himself grasping his belly, so closely did his belly cleave to his backbone and all because he ate so little.
§ 5. Abandonment of Asceticism
The austerities and mortification practised by Gautama were of the severest sort. They lasted for a long period of six years.
At the end of six years his body had become so weak that he was quite unable to move.
Yet he had seen no new light and was no nearer to the solution to the problem of misery in the world on which his mind was centred.
He reflected to himself : “This is not the way, even to passionlessness, nor to perfect knowledge, nor to liberation.
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