Never again
could he be happy until he should have found a solution to the
riddle of existence. He decided to find it far away from all
those whom he loved. Softly he went into the room where
Yasodhara was sleeping with her baby. Then he called for
his faithful Channa and told him to follow.
Together the two men went into the darkness of the night,
one to find rest for his soul, the other to be a faithful servant
unto a beloved master.
The people of India among whom Siddhartha wandered for
many years were just then in a state of change. Their ancestors,
the native Indians, had been conquered without great difficulty
by the war-like Aryans (our distant cousins) and thereafter
the Aryans had been the rulers and masters of tens of
millions of docile little brown men. To maintain themselves in
the seat of the mighty, they had divided the population into
different classes and gradually a system of ``caste'' of the most
rigid sort had been enforced upon the natives. The descendants
of the Indo-European conquerors belonged to the highest
``caste,'' the class of warriors and nobles. Next came the caste
of the priests. Below these followed the peasants and the
business men. The ancient natives, however, who were called
Pariahs, formed a class of despised and miserable slaves and
never could hope to be anything else.
Even the religion of the people was a matter of caste.
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