The Sermon at Benares Class 10: Summary and Question Answers

The Sermon at Benares Class 10 tells how Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha and how he helped a grieving mother, Kisa Gotami, understand loss. This guide gives you the summary in order, the main ideas and images, the themes, and eight board-style question answers.

Summary: From Prince to Buddha

In the textbook's traditional account, Siddhartha Gautama lives a sheltered royal life. He is schooled, marries and is kept away from suffering.

At the age of twenty-five, while out hunting, he sees four sights that change his life: a sick man, an aged man, a funeral procession, and a monk begging for alms. Deeply moved, he gives up his royal life to understand the sorrows of the world.

He wanders for seven years. Then he sits under a peepal tree and vows to stay there until he gains true spiritual knowledge. After seven days he is enlightened. He renames the tree the Bodhi Tree, the Tree of Wisdom, and becomes known as the Buddha, which means the Awakened or the Enlightened.

Summary: The Sermon and Kisa Gotami

The Buddha gives his first sermon at Benares, described as the most holy of the dipping places on the River Ganges. A sermon is a religious or moral talk meant to guide people. His subject is suffering that is inscrutable, meaning hard to understand or explain.

The sermon includes the story of Kisa Gotami. Her only son has died. Overwhelmed by grief, she goes from neighbour to neighbour asking for medicine, but no one can bring him back. A man sends her to the Buddha.

When she asks the Buddha for medicine, he gives her a task. She must bring a handful of mustard seed, but only from a house where no one has lost a child, husband, parent or friend.

Kisa Gotami goes from house to house. People are willing to give her the seed. But when she asks whether anyone in the family has died, the answer is always the same: the living are few, but the dead are many. She cannot find a single home untouched by death.

Summary: What Kisa Gotami Learns

She sits beside the road and watches the city lights flicker and go out. She sees that human lives, too, flicker up and are put out. Her loss is not the only loss in the world. Her thinking moves from her own sorrow to a sorrow that everyone shares. She calls her earlier focus on her own grief selfish, but that is her own reflection, not a judgment we should pass on anyone who is grieving.

The Buddha teaches that the life of mortals is troubled, brief and combined with pain, and that those who are born cannot avoid dying. He compares mortals to ripe fruit that may fall and to earthen vessels that eventually break. These images make an abstract truth easy to picture. They do not mean a loved person matters no more than an object.

He also teaches that lamenting cannot bring back the dead. He uses the image of an arrow: lamentation, complaint and grief are like an arrow that wounds the sufferer, and drawing it out is a movement towards relief and peace of mind. This does not mean tears are wrong or that sadness makes a person weak. It points towards understanding and acceptance, which can take time and support.

Themes and Style

• Death is universal: Every household has known loss.
• Grief and acceptance: Constant lamenting cannot reverse death; understanding brings peace.
• Teaching through experience: The Buddha does not just tell Kisa Gotami the truth; he lets her discover it herself.
• Compassion: Seeing others' suffering can help a grieving person feel less alone.

The prose uses an old-fashioned, formal style that suits a religious teaching:

Important Question Answers

1. What four sights led Siddhartha to leave his royal life? A sick man, an aged man, a funeral procession and a monk begging for alms. They showed him the reality of suffering and death.

2. How did Siddhartha become the Buddha? After wandering for seven years, he sat under a peepal tree and vowed to stay until he was enlightened. After seven days he attained enlightenment, renamed the tree the Bodhi Tree, and became known as the Buddha, the Awakened.

3. Why is Benares important in this chapter? It is described as the most holy of the dipping places on the Ganges, and it is where the Buddha gave his first sermon after enlightenment.

4. What condition did the Buddha place on the mustard seed? It had to come from a house where no one had ever lost a child, husband, parent or friend.

5. Why could Kisa Gotami not get the mustard seed? Every family she asked had lost someone. Everywhere the answer was that the living are few, but the dead are many.

6. What do the flickering lights teach Kisa Gotami? Watching them go out, she understands that human lives also flicker and end. She sees her grief as part of a shared human experience.

7. How does the Buddha describe the life of mortals? As troubled, brief and combined with pain. Those who are born cannot avoid dying, just as ripe fruit may fall and earthen vessels break.

8. Does the sermon mean people must never cry? No. It teaches that lamenting cannot reverse death and points towards acceptance and peace. Feeling sad and seeking support do not make anyone weak or selfish.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Do not write that the Buddha refused to help Kisa Gotami. His task was his way of helping her understand.
• Do not say she failed to find mustard seed. People offered seed; she could not find a house untouched by death.
• Do not say the Buddha wandered for seven days. He wandered for seven years; enlightenment came after seven days under the tree.

The chapter also includes W. B. Yeats's poem For Anne Gregory. To revise this lesson with practice questions, study this chapter with Joy.