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However, the story goes, one
day Siddhartha left the palace unbeknown to the guards and saw
the real life experiences of others' suffering - the sickness,
aging and death, from which his cossetted royal life had protected
him. Overcome with this puzzle of life, he set out from the palace
to find the answers to the questions of why one suffers, why
one gets sick, why one eventually dies.
In his search, he tried
all kinds of practices of his time, including ascetic austerity,
even fasting for six years, and yet he still found no answer. |
he King found the
Prince a beautiful wife with whom the Prince subsequently had
a son. All the guards at the palace, and especially the Prince's
driver, were under strict instruction by the King that wherever
his son went, he should always encounter beautiful and happy
situations.
