with clear-ponds and exquisite flower-scented bowers, and the palaces were filled with beautiful women young and healthy to keep Siddhartha entertained (Mitchell 20). Having been given the best of everything, Siddhartha still had not found true happiness in worldly pleasures. In an attempt to counteract the result of Siddhartha’s unhappiness, King Suddhodana, as Paul Carus suggests, sent to all his kinsfolk, commanding them to bring their daughters that the prince might select one of them to be his wife (14-15). But the kinsfolk replied, “Siddhartha is untrained at manly arts. What could he do if war were to break out, could he protect his wife? We will not send our daughters (Mitchell 21).” Siddhartha, discontent with the reply, asked King Suddhodana to invite the kinsfolk test the prince’s strength, physically and mentally. In the test, Siddhartha proved himself manly in all the exercises, both body and mind, and that no youth or man rivaled the young prince, sixteen at this point in time. Siddhartha’s show of physical and mental prowess led to his choosing of a wife. Siddhartha chose Yasodhara, Siddhartha’s cousin, the daughter of the King of Koli (Carus 14). After bewedding Yasodhara, Siddhartha and Yasodhara lived together for about thirteen years. At twenty-nine years old, Siddhartha and Yasodhara produced a son, but Siddhartha still longed to give peace to the world. The child of Siddhartha and Yasodhara was named Rahula, but Siddhartha never his son ( Carus 14-15).After twenty-nine years of being sheltered from suffering, sickness, and death, Siddhartha wanted to journey out into the world. King Suddhodana was told by the Brahmins that if and when Siddhartha ventured away from the sheltered walls of the palaces and gardens, that the prince would see the world of suffering through the four sights (Mitchell 19). The four sights as told by Huston Smith says:One day, even though Sidd...
