Friday, February 26, 2016

The story of Sujata and Lord Buddha

In Bihar, there is a village named as Sujata Garh. It is nearby to Bodhgaya. There is a banyan tree near Sujata garh where a temple has been constructed later.  Sujata temple as well as Sujata Garh – both nearby each other and is across river Niranjana known as Falgu in Gaya.
Earlier this village was known as Senani but now it is known as Bakraur village. Now-a-days devotees from all over the world visit this banyan tree to offer prayer to the tree and a flag. Flag is known as panchsheel. During fourth week of meditation five colors emanated from the body of Lord Buddha and flag represent those five colors.

Since ages nearby villagers having faith and they worship this tree specially during Vat Savitri day or marriage function. Sujata was the daughter of village-head. She also used to pray near this banyan tree in those days and had a wish to have a child. If fulfilled, she will offer milk-rice to banyan tree. During that time 'Gautam Siddhartha' in search of knowledge visited this very place and started meditation under this tree.











In both pictures, I am showing the place where Sujata was living at that time. It was later converted into a monetary by the great Emperor of Magadh Empire Ashoka.





Soon Sujata's wish was fulfilled and she becomes mother. One day she sent one of her maid – Panna to sweep the area around banyan tree as she has to visit to offer milk-rice. When Panna visited, she saw a young man with weak body meditating under the banyan tree. She went back and narrated this to Sujata. Sujata immediately prepared milk-rice and visited banyan tree while having a thought that the man must be God of banyan tree. She offered milk-rice to Gautam Siddhartha by saying – Banyan God please accept milk-rice as offering. Gautam Siddhartha opened his eyes and was surprised. He said: I am not banyan God. I am a simple human being in search of knowledge wandering here and there. Sujata said: Your body is so weak you should accept milk-rice as offering.  Again Gautam Siddhartha without accepting milk-rice went into meditation. At this time Sujata along with her friends sang a song:

"Hey veena ke vadak, veena ke taar ko itna mat kaso ki taar toot jaye...
aur itna bhi dheela na karo ki usse aawaz hi na nikle.."

That means one should not give too much pain to himself nor enjoy too much relaxation. One should always follow middle path.















Picture-4: Above Picture is at the place where this whole incident took place. Now above replica in the forms of statues has been kept on the same place. A temple has also been constructed.

This song was understood by Gautam Siddhartha. He accepted a short break in meditation that was making his body weak and accepted milk-rice. Gautam's five followers who were with him from Rajgrih (also known as Rajgir) was watching this. They immediately left Gautam Siddhartha while thinking him as a hypocrite. Gautam Siddhartha tried to stop them but they were adamant to leave. This made Gautam Siddhartha to say: Will alone continue the journey in search of knowledge and will follow middle path. To test whether his search will end with positive results or not he throw the utensil given by Sujata into Niranjana river to watch whether it flows opposite direction of river flow or not. And it did. That means the search will end with positive results and he continues his journey till he was enlightened under Peepul tree at Bodhgaya.

12 comments:

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Unknown said...

Who is sujarta father?

Sachidanand said...

Sujata was the eldest daughter of the chief herdsman Nanda.

Ravindra Singh said...

gautam budh is most popular in word. thanks for written Interesting Facts About Mahatma Buddha

Sneha sharma said...

Very informative..๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘Œ๐Ÿ‘Œ

rajan perunna said...

In fact I am writing a book in Malayalam about The Budha. Certainly the information given in your post is very useful for me. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Is this Nanda same as rulers of Nanda Dynasty. Mahapadam nanda and others?

vanshika said...

really great post! but can i please get the source of information for the song sujata sang? cant find it anywhere on the internet

Sachidanand said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sachidanand said...

Hi Rajan, thank you for expressing that my contents are useful in writing your book. Happy to know that you are from Kerala. I completed my Graduation from Kerala itself.

Sachidanand said...

The Nanda i have mentioned is just a village leader, not the one from Patliputra history.

Sachidanand said...

Hi Vanshika,
Everything is not available on internet. Sometimes you need to go to the place around and talk to locals who are actually interested in history. I am from neighborhood of Bodhgaya and it's there in the folksong. Old people from villages know and can share a lot of info which have shared by ancestors...and it goes like that. From generations to generations.