Is this . . . an ocean?
All around the prince clear, blue light stretched as far as he could see. The light seemed to flow into his body like air into his lungs, swirling inside him.
He heard not a sound. The prince’s heart beat faster than he thought possible, and the fear made his breath as ragged and wild as a storm, yet he could not hear the hammering of his heart nor feel the rasping of his breath. He felt nothing.
Everything was wrapped in an eternal silence, as though he’d stepped into the land of the dead.
He moved out into the thin light. It shone through him from the right and left, the front and back, until he became transparent, shadowless.
What is that?
Far off, deep within the pale blue light, he saw a giant shadow.
“Maitreya . . .”
Now he could see the form of a single śramaña far off in the pale sea of light: the future savior, deep in eternal contemplation.
The prince ran without blinking, eyes fixed on that dark shape looming in the void.
So this is Maitreya! At last!
Abruptly Siddhārtha stopped, standing as though turned to stone. Errant thoughts boiled upward in his mind, somehow bursting with a roar in this soundless place.
Maitreya—
The being called Maitreya was seated right there in front of him. His right leg was tucked in above his left knee; he had put his right elbow on it and had leaned forward to rest his cheek upon his upturned hand. His eyes, half lidded, stared out at something beyond space and time. Insurmountable pain played across his brow. He wore a crown shaped like an upturned boat, its top so tall it seemed it could touch the glowing blue of the ceiling.
“Maitreya!”
The prince’s voice wavered wildly through the blue expanse. All that he knew of the being before him came flooding into his consciousness.
Maitreya. A Brahmin from the Deccan Plateau in southern India. Through his devotion, he had been reborn in Tuṣita, where he would remain in the Inner Court until the age of the last dharma, 5,670,000,000 years from now, when he would once again be sent to the world of Jambudvīpa, there to be born to a father, Subrahmana, and mother, Brahmavati, and attain Buddhahood in an orchard beneath a Dragon Flower Tree.
The world Maitreya would descend upon would be very different from the world of today. There would be no mountains or valleys, only a flat plain like a mirror. All land would be fertile, and there would be no want of food, nor any need for storage of grains. All men would enjoy a perfect balance of labor and rest. The cities would be lively; there would be no change in the seasons, no harsh summers nor any cold winters. As long life would be assured, all men’s thoughts would grow similar—there would be one language and no borders to restrain people from going wherever they wished. In that far-off time, men would live two hundred years, three hundred years, or longer, and be able to travel to the moon and among the stars as they wished.
This was the true promised land, the land of the gods for which mankind had been searching for an eternity. In time, they would call this Heaven. They would call it Paradise.
When Maitreya came down to the world of men, he would save the world by changing its very construction, its nature, so that it was in essence no different from the world of the gods. This was why people looked forward to Maitreya’s coming with such eagerness, even across such a long span of time—Maitreya was the promise of the Kingdom of Heaven. It was this one person who inspired the fervent belief that gave the Brahmin monks the power to capture people’s hearts. And yet the darker side of that faith, the fact that mankind would have to wait such an impossibly long time for its salvation, was also a reflection of the despair that lurked in the hearts of men.
All of that—the hope and despair, the yearning for a new world—was right here.
“Maitreya!” the prince shouted toward the massive form. “Maitreya!”
There was no answer.
Suddenly, the prince heard laughter in his ears. The sound made his chest quiver as though he were a bow of silver and an archer had drawn him to full; his mind echoed with the noise.
“What are you laughing about, Maitreya? I am Siddhārtha, Prince of the Kingdom of Śākya. I came here to see you, our future savior. I’ve come all the way to the very root of Tuṣita.”
Instantly, the laughter stopped. All was enveloped in deep silence again, a silence more frightening than death.
“Look upon Maitreya, my prince,” Asura’s voice whispered by his ear. The prince started but stood his ground, staring upward from Maitreya’s massive foot.
Suddenly, he felt as though he had made some terrible mistake, though what it was he could not be sure. He peered around him like a frightened child. Something was wrong. He looked back up at Maitreya, the hope gone from his eyes.
It was not a man, but a statue—a giant, silvery statue, marred here and there by ugly gouts of rust. The statue sat silent as a mountain by the edge of the sea of pale blue light.
“Well, my prince? This is a statue of Maitreya. A statue of the great being who will come down to the world of men in 5,670,000,000 years to save us all.” Asura spoke in a singsong voice, mocking the prince’s faith.
The prince turned, slowly, as though he had suddenly aged another twenty or thirty years, and looked at her. “Where did Maitreya go?”
Asura shook her head. Her necklace gave a little death rattle across the slender, girlish lines of her neck.
“Where did Maitreya go?” the prince muttered, pressing his hand to his head. He had a splitting headache; cold sweat dripped down his back and chest.
“To tell the truth,” Asura said suddenly, “no one knows what the statue represents. The Brahmins gave it the name Maitreya. My prince, it was the men who came to play here in Tuṣita who made up that story about a god who would come to save them in the far future.”
“That is too cruel. Everyone believes in the coming of Maitreya. It cannot be a lie . . .” he said, his voice trailing off into a hoarse whisper.
“My prince, look again upon the statue. This giant statue was built to an exact likeness.”
“An exact likeness? So there truly is a Maitreya, then?”
Asura shrugged her shoulders and stepped in front of the prince, staring deep into his eyes. The breath that passed her ruby lips carried with it a fragrance of flowers, and it brought him back to his senses. “Asura! Which is it?”
“Have you understood, my prince? Do you know whose statue that is? Not even Brahmā, ruler of this world, does. The great god after whom that statue was modeled was a resident from another world who visited this region and claimed it for his own. This world is to be ruled from without, you see. Five billion six hundred seventy million years from now, he will once again appear in this world and determine the fate of all who remain here. That is what they call Maitreya.”
“What of salvation? What of salvation in the time of the last dharma?” The prince shook with rage. It was too cruel. The truth was the exact opposite of everything for which mankind was waiting.
“Let us go, my prince. We can stare at the statue all we like, but no salvation will come of it. Do not worry. You can be like Brahmā and still believe if you want to. It’s all right. This god will visit Jambudvīpa, your world, at the appointed hour. He will be born to a mother, Brahmavati, and a father, Subrahmana. That is all true. But what will Maitreya do in your world when he comes?
“Brahmā did not listen to my warnings. I doubt you will accept the reality of the situation either. The sutra that the Brahmin like to read about Maitreya and Tuṣita tells a compelling story. One always likes to hear about paradise. What would you give to secure that paradise, I wonder? Your wisdom? Your life? Your heart? There is still time. Plenty of time to think, my prince.”
Asura’s voice grew increasingly distant and faint.
The dry, barren sea of sand spread beneath a dark sky. The scattered remnants of life and the fragmented ruins of buildings visible in all directions were ample proof that nothing lived here anymore.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Prince Siddhārtha?”
Asura stood, the flickering aurora at her back.
“There’s one more thing I wish to ask you.”
Asura stared intently into the night. “I think I can guess.”
The prince looked around and saw a giant, fiery orange sphere rising massively toward the top of the sky. Its brilliance scorched the night, vaporizing a vast expanse of sand below. A wave of heat and radiation moved across the plain like a tsunami, leaving nothing in its wake.
“You want to ask why I still fight with Brahmā, my prince?”
Strangely shaped ships cut silently across the arc of night, appearing from the darkness of one horizon, vanishing into the darkness of the other.
“My prince, as the Brahmin tell it, I was spurred to invade this Tuṣita by past karma and have been fighting Śakra’s armies for some four hundred million years. Past karma, my prince. Have you thought about what that might mean? How did this past karma come about in the first place?”
Brilliant flashes of light erupted from the horizon where the strange ships had disappeared. Siddhārtha had no idea what form Asura’s armies might take, but he imagined that the armada of ships in the sky might well be part of them.
“We will meet another day, my prince. You should go. The Brahmins will be worried.”
Siddhārtha thought he should say some word of farewell to the beautiful girl, but no words came to mind. And he felt certain that Asura was right—they would meet again, some day far in the future.
The prince put his hands together and bowed to Asura, then silently turned and began to walk away. After he had gone a short distance, he turned to look back and found that she, the flickering aurora, and the brilliant lights that cut across the sky were all gone without a trace.
An icy wind blew from the empty dark.
Was it all an illusion?
The prince stared long into the darkness, trying to see beyond it. The image of that girl who could not possibly be Asura, and yet who was Asura beyond a shadow of a doubt, was forever burned like a brand into his heart.