But the people of Kapilavastu were greatly delighted at the birth of the young heir, their rajah’s only grandson.  Gautama’s return became an ovation, and he entered the town amid a general celebration of the happy event.  Amid the singers was a young girl, his cousin, whose song contained the words, “Happy the father, happy the mother, happy the wife of such a son and husband.”  In the word “Happy” there was a double meaning:  it meant also “freed” from the chains of sin and of existence, saved.  In gratitude to one who at such a time reminded him of his higher duties, Gautama took off his necklace of pearls and sent it to her.  She imagined that she had won the love of young Siddhartha, but he took no further notice of her.

That night the dancing girls came, but he paid them no attention, and gradually fell into an uneasy slumber.  At midnight he awoke, and sent Channa for his horse.  While waiting for the steed Gautama gently opened the door of the room where Yasodhara was sleeping, surrounded by flowers, with one hand on the head of her child.  After one loving, fond glance he tore himself away.  Accompanied only by Channa he left his home and wealth and power, his wife and only child behind him, to become a penniless wanderer.  This was the Great Renunciation.

There follows a story of a vision.  Mara, the great tempter, the spirit of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop.  He promises him a universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up his enterprise.  The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him from that right way.

All night Gautama rode, and at the dawn, when beyond the confines of his father’s domain, dismounts.  He cuts off his long hair with his sword, and sends back all his ornaments and his horse by the faithful charioteer.

Seven days he spends alone beneath the shade of a mango grove, and then fares onward to Rajogriha, the capital of Magadha.  This town was the seat of Bimbasara, one of the most powerful princes in the eastern valley of the Ganges.  In the hillside caves near at hand were several hermits.  To one of these Brahman teachers, Alara, Gautama attached himself, and later to another named Udraka.  From these he learned all that Hindu philosophy could teach.

Still unsatisfied, Gautama next retired to the jungle of Uruvela, on the most northerly spur of the Viadhya range of mountains, near the present temple of Buddha Gaya.  Here for six years he gave himself up to the severest penance until he was wasted away to a shadow by fasting and self-mortification.  Such self-control spread his fame “like the sound of a great bell hung in the skies.”  But the more he fasted and denied himself, the more he felt himself a prey to a mental torture worse than any bodily suffering.

At last one day when walking slowly up and down, lost in thought, through extreme weakness he staggered and fell to the ground.  His disciples thought he was dead, but he recovered.  Despairing of further profit from such rigorous penance, he began to take regular food and gave up his self-mortification.  At this his disciples forsook him and went away to Benares.  In their opinion mental conquest lay only through bodily suppression.