The Night the Prince Left the Royal City

The night wind howled through the wooden slats of the royal palace of Kapilavastu, carrying a cold that cut the skin, just like the depths of a midwinter night in the far north. The moon, veiled behind layers of leaves, left the vast courtyard drowning in thick, clinging darkness. Wind chimes trembled in short bursts, like the heartbeat of someone about to do what he had never once dared to imagine in his whole life.

Prince Siddhartha stood silent in the dark, his shadow falling in long patches across the stone floor. News had just reached him: Princess Yasodhara had given birth to a son. The very child his father, King Suddhodana, had once used as a condition to stop him from leaving home for the monastic life — "Only when you have a child of your own will I stop standing in your way." Now that promise had been fulfilled, yet the prince felt no joy. For years, ever since he was made to marry at sixteen and then lived purely, indifferent to matters of the flesh, his heart had been set on the renunciant's path. His father, fearing that his extraordinary wisdom would slip from the royal family's grasp, had bound him with every means he could think of. But tonight, after the child was born, there was no reason left to hold him back.

He stepped softly into his wife's chamber. On the bed, Yasodhara slept soundly, her hair spread loose across the pillow, her steady breath sending out warmth. Beside her, the newborn lay curled in a brocade blanket, its tiny wrinkled face still too new to see clearly. He stood there, his hands clenched together so tightly that the skin between his fingers cracked and bled. A soft sigh escaped his lips, but his eyes did not blink. Within him a struggle raged: love for wife and child beckoned, while his vow to free all sentient beings pressed him onward. He told himself, "If I stay, I am only a father, a husband within gilded halls. If I go, I may find the path that saves all beings." Then he turned away, without waking her, without holding his child one last time.

At the stables, he shook awake Channa, the groom, who was sleeping deeply. Channa sat up at once, rubbing his eyes, the whites bloodshot from lack of sleep. Looking at the prince in the darkness, he said groggily:

"But the night is so dark, the whole world shrouded in gloom. Where could Your Highness be going at this hour?"

The prince reached out and gripped his shoulder, his voice low but resolute:

"Precisely because it is dark, I must go — to find the light."

Channa shivered slightly, but having obeyed the prince since childhood, he simply nodded, took the bridle, and led out the finest of the white horses. The city gates were locked tight, the guards keeping careful watch. Yet when master and servant arrived on a single horse, the gate swung open on its own, as if pushed by some unseen hand. They passed through, the horse's hooves tapping a steady rhythm against the ground.

Reaching the Anoma River, the prince chose a shallow stretch and led the horse across the water. On the far bank, the lonely forest lay utterly silent, broken only by the ceaseless song of crickets. He stopped, took out a small knife, and cut off his Kshatriya topknot — the hair wound round and round, gathered into a coil atop the head, the mark of the noble warrior caste. The hair fell onto the carpet of dry leaves. Holding the still-warm locks, he handed them to Channa, then drew out the monastic robes he had hidden away and put them on:

"Take this hair and these robes back to the city. Tell my father not to grieve. I have gone forth into the homeless life. Do not search for me."

With trembling hands, Channa received them, tears suddenly streaming down his cheeks, his voice choked with sobs:

"Your Highness… how can you bear to leave everything behind? What am I to do?"

The prince only gazed at him quietly, then turned his back. That was the turning point: without glancing back even once, he walked into the deep forest, his silhouette vanishing behind the great trees. Channa stood frozen, clutching the hair and the yellow robes, weeping until the sky grew pale with dawn; only then did he gather the things, mount the horse, and race home. The next day, the royal city was shaken by the news: the prince had gone forth to practice.

Later, when King Suddhodana heard the news, he fell silent, then sent five men, including Kaundinya, to follow and attend his son. As for the prince, from that night on he became the ascetic Gotama, beginning six years of austerities before attaining Buddhahood. His whole life had turned on that one cold, windy night.

The Meaning of the Story

Leaving home for the monastic life was not an act of escape, but the courage of letting go of personal happiness in order to seek a path that could save all sentient beings. Once his promise to the world had been fulfilled, the prince departed in silence, showing that a will rising above ordinary emotion is the very beginning of liberation.

Adapted from a dharma talk by the Venerable Thích Chân Quang