Week 4 Reading Diary: The Life of Buddha, Part 1

("Departure of Prince Siddhartha", by Nivedita, via Wikipedia)

Source: Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922). The Life of Buddha.

I've had so many favorite moments in this week's reading already--I can't wait to read the next half, and find out what happens! But in the meantime, here are some parts that seemed to have particular potential for a story:

Asita's Prediction: Call me crazy, but I think this story would be a particularly good one to do a present-day retelling of, because of the potential parallels to be made between the problems in the world of the story and the problems of the contemporary. I thought when I first read this part that it would be really interesting to tell the story from Asita's point of view, because he is, after all, so heartbroken that he'll never live in a world where the Buddha has reached enlightenment--that's some serious character potentiality! There's also some mentions in the next section of the extreme prosperity that the kingdom reaps when Siddhartha is born, which got me thinking that it might be a good idea to throw some of the details from the other sections into the story, if I were to base the meat of my story off of this section.

The Encounters: These are really powerful scenes that would function really well in either a story about the past or a story about the present (or possibly a story about the future--science fiction Buddha! With cyborgs! What an idea...) I was thinking that there are several potential interesting POV characters: Siddhartha, the charioteer, the king, any of the men from the three encounters...all possibilities! The story could focus on all three of the encounters, or only on one (probably either the first or the last--and I'm leaning towards the last as the best).

The Great Truths: Either Siddhartha's encounter with the monk (from the monk's point of view? I think that Siddhartha has some really interesting character development all throughout this unit so far, and I'm really curious so see how a narrator who doesn't know how he's going to turn out in the future would see him...) or when he pleads with his father to let him become a hermit sound like good scenes to focus on here--it might even be interesting to throw in Gopa's dream beforehand, because these three events are really what starts to drive the story (and Siddhartha) forward in a more optimistic way.

Like I said, so many choices...already...