Bride of the Buddha by Barbara McHugh PhD

Author:Barbara McHugh, PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
Published: 2020-11-21T19:57:23+00:00

That same day, after receiving instructions from Mogallana, I arrived at the city’s charnel ground just before sunset, carrying only a water gourd and a sharp stick to discourage dogs and jackals. The corpse area was far larger than the one outside my village, occupying a vast trampled plateau. The evening was mild, with just enough breeze so that as I climbed the stone steps to the top, wafts of decay assailed me, each more revolting than the last. Every breath transported me to that first charnel ground, where the smell of death was a warning to flee from its presence. I readied myself to be terrified.

Instead, my righteous rage, which I was always sure I had banished forever until it came back again, heated up in my heart. Why was my former husband subjecting me to this filth? What good would it do to spend the night wading through corpses and staring into their rotted-out eyes? I already knew death too well, and the gore of strangers’ bodies would certainly affect me far less than the image of Deepa’s lifeless form chewed up and digested by dogs.

By now I’d reached the top of the steps overlooking the plateau, bruise-purple under the still pale sky, black hills looming in the distance. This charnel ground was better planned than the one in my village, and after walking briefly over suspicious-looking dust, I came upon a neat row of naked corpses—ten men, women, and children lying on their backs an arm’s length apart, mouths agape, ants flowing over faces and bellies. These bodies had been laid out recently, perhaps this very day. Beyond them, the rows were progressively more disorganized, flung about by dogs and wolves, noses pecked out by vultures. A black rat slithered out from under the body of a huge fat woman lying on her back, her bloated breasts and stomach half-devoured and looking like they’d exploded. I shuddered with revulsion, but the hideousness of the scene did nothing but amplify my anger about spending the night.

Where would I sleep? The stench crawled down my gullet and sank into my lungs. I had half a mind to march back to the palace grounds, where the Tathagata was lounging around with kings and nobles, and tell him exactly what I thought of his disgusting so-called test. He knew I wouldn’t be terrorized by ghosts. And as for the god of death, hadn’t I already met Mara and known him as a part of myself? Even now I knew my rage to be Mara within, but I didn’t care. The injustice was real, that I had to spend the night in this putrid squalor for no reason, after having suffered so much from death already.

If I couldn’t find a place to lie down where the odor wouldn’t overwhelm me, I wouldn’t stay. I looked out over the plateau. Beyond the corpse rows were scattered bones, and at the field’s far end, the rotted bones had been raked into piles, the grass around them scummed with bone dust.

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