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By Vivekanand Jha*When humanity has forsaken Buddh!
When humanity has forsaken Buddh to embrace Yuddh
When humanity is standing at the crossroads of history,
With the sounding of war bugles everywhere,
The feast of frenzy appears to have seized mankind in its dystopian grip,
The prospect of an impending Third World War is the only visible truth indeed!
When the voice of nationalism is at its highest decibel,
Subsuming the voice of humanity to its bosom!
Where the death of soldiers is equated with flies,
The highly celebrated martyrdom once,
It is now reduced to dying for no noble cause!
The deceased soldiers lie buried in some distant corner of the battlefield,
Their tormented souls are still struggling to come to terms with their wanton deaths!
Many of whom had their families to cherish,
Yet, all lain buried quietly in their graves!
Amidst the ever-escalating cacophony of war enmeshing the whole world,
With the naked tandav of death and destruction, increasingly subsuming the entire world,
With jingoism and belligerence ruling the roost,
The humanity purportedly was torn asunder!
With hopelessness and dystopia afflicting humanity,
The voice of sanity appeared to be lost amidst the bugles of war!
The blood-curdling cries rent the air,
And the most reassuring voice arose, which soothed the whole world:
‘India gave to the world Buddh, not Yuddh‘, as a panacea for evils!
Millennia ago, in the sacred land of Kapilvastu, a prince, Siddhartha, was born to Suddhodhana, the king!
The boy, who was prophesied to be an emperor or a mighty saint by a saint descending from the Himalaya,
Injected dread in King Suddhodhana,
The latter seeks to place all hurdles to inhibit the path of Sanyasa for the prince!
Try as Suddhodhana might, the providential decree he could hardly defy!
Prince Siddhartha’s face-to-face experience with human sufferings sent him reeling into introspection!
That night was vicious and dark,
Siddhartha had the last glimpse of Yasodhara and Rahula alike!
Leaving them asleep, he embarked on a journey into an unknown track!
With almost six years gone by,
Siddhartha stood bemused and bewildered!
With the destination still appearing far out of sight,
The fact of squandering over six years in futile, recoiled to bite him with full might!
Oh, leaving his newly born son Rahul and his wife Yasodhara behind,
When they needed him the most, they tormented him in black and white!
The night was turbulent and prolonged,
Siddhartha sat determined and resolved!
Either the enlightenment will come, or this life will be gladly dissolved!
The deadly night when the inexorable sight of lightning and rain,
pelting the earth without any respite!
Siddhartha reached the stage of enlightenment,
Where the cause of human sufferings lay bared at his sight!
Thus rose Buddha from his erstwhile avatar of Siddhartha,
The panacea for all evils, he now knew, was desire!
Desire is the cause of all misery,
Which he felt, fettered humanity to the repeated cycle of birth and death!
Human birth, Buddha felt, is to be dedicated towards seeking liberation from the cycle of birth and death!
Thus, the glorious life of Buddha only revolved around his eightfold noble path to Nirvana!
Human, Tathagata felt, should aspire for a singular motto: the path towards Nirvana,
For the life wasted in search of inanities, had no recompense!
The Yuddh, an expression of ego, seldom leads men anywhere!
It only guarantees death and destruction, setting humanity on the path of perdition!
Humanity today only stares at the path of self-assured mutual destruction!
With India too having abandoned Buddh in favour of Yuddh,
The path of human salvation, as envisaged by Tathagata Buddha,
Unfortunately has no takers in this increasingly mobilised world, baying for each other’s blood!
Thus, it is incumbent on India to proclaim in its resounding voice:
‘The World should return to Buddh, not Yuddh,
for the greater good of humanity;
In Buddh ( peace and non-violence) lies the human salvation,
Whereas Yuddh, which means war, will lead the world towards self-annihilation!
*Vivekanand Jha is the author of the book Buddh Not Yuddh.
