ater tradition). The legends of later growth here begin
to thicken, telling how, when the future Buddha heard of the birth of
his son, he simply said 'a new bond has been forged to hold me to the
world'; and how his mind was first awakened to appreciation of sorrow
by seeing loathy examples of age, sickness, and death presented to him
as he drove abroad. Despite his father's tears and protests
Siddh[=a]rtha, or as one may call him now by his patronymic, the man
Gautama, left his home and family, gave up all possessions, and
devoted himself to self-mortification and Yoga discipline of
concentration of thought, following in this the model set by all
previous ascetics. He says himself, according to tradition, that it
was a practical pessimism which drove him to take this step. He was
not pleased with life, and the pleasures of society had no charm for
him. When he saw the old man, the sick man, the dead man, he became
disgusted to think that he too would be subject to age, sickness, and
death: "I felt disgust at old age; all pleasure then forsook me." In
becoming an ascetic Gautama simply endeavored to discover some means
by which he might avoid a recurrence of life, of which the
disagreeable side in his estimation outweighed the joy. He too had
already answered negatively the question Is life worth living?

We must pause here to point out that this oldest and simplest account
of Gautama's resolve shows two things. It makes clear that Gautama at
first had no plan for the universal salvation of his race. He was
alert to 'save his own soul,' nothing more. We shall show presently
that this is confirmed by subsequent events in his career. The next
point is that this narration in itself is a complete refutation of the
opinion of those scholars who believe that the doctrine of _karma_ and
reincarnation arose first in Buddhism, and that the Upanishads that
preach this doctrine are not of the pre-Buddhistic period. The last
part of this statement of opinion is, of course, not touched by the
story of Gautama's renunciation, but the first assumption wrecks on
it. Why should Gautama have so given himself to Yoga discipline? Did
he expect to escape age, sickness, death, in this life by that means?
No. The assumption from the beginning is the belief in the doctrine of
reincarnation. It was in order to free himself from future returns of
these ills that Gautama renounced his home. But nothing whatever is
said of his discovering or inven