Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow.
At length, Kisa Gotami met a man who replied to her request : “I cannot give thee medicine for thy child, but I know a physician who can.” And the girl said: “Pray tell me, sir; who is it ?” And the man replied, “Go to Salyamuni, the Buddha.”
1. What was the cause for Kisa’s suffering?
2. What did she do after her only son died?
3. Pick out a phrase from the passage which means the same as ‘finally’.
1. Kisa suffered on account of the death of her only son.
2. She was not willing to accept the fact that her son had died. In her madness she carried the dead body of her son from house to house asking medicine which could cure her son.
3. At length.
Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
At twelve, he was sent away for schooling in the Hindu sacred scriptures and four years later he returned home to marry a princess. They had a son and lived for ten years as befitted royalty.
1. Who does ‘He’ here stand for?
2. What did he study for four years?
3. What does the phrase ‘As befitted royalty’ mean?
1. He stands for Siddhartha Gautama.
2. He studied the sacred Hindu scriptures for four years.
3. ‘As befitted royalty’ means that they lived as a king and queen should.
Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Enlightened after seven days, he renamed the tree the Bo Tree (Tree of Wisdom) and began to teach and to share his new understandings. At that point he became known as the Buddha (The Awakened or The Enlightened).
1. What enlightenment came over him?
2. Where did he sit down for meditation?
3. Give the meaning of the phrase ‘be awakened’.
1. He was enlightened about the true meaning of pain and suffering.
2. He sat under fig tree which he renamed as ‘Bo Tree’ for meditation.
3. The phrase means ‘become aware of’.
Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow:
At about age twenty-five, the Prince, heretofore shielded from the suffering of the world, while out hunting chanced upon a sick man, then an aged man, then a funeral procession, and finally a monk begging for alms.
1. Who does the prince refer to in the passage?
2. What did he see at this time of his life?
3. Give the meaning of the phrase ‘chanced upon’.
1. The prince refers to Siddhartha Gautama, who was a prince in one of the northern kingdoms.
2. At this time of his life, he happened to see pain and suffering in the world. He saw a sick man, then an aged man, then a funeral procession, and finally a monk begging for alms.
3. The phrase means ‘found unexpectedly.
Read the following passages carefully and answer the questions that follow.
These sights so moved him that he at once became a beggar and went out into the world to seek enlightenment concerning the sorrows he had witnessed. He wandered for seven years and finally sat down under a fig tree, where he vowed to stay until enlightenment came.
1. What were these sights?
2. How did these sights influence him?
3. Find a word from the passage which means the same as ‘illumination’.
1. These sights refer to the scenes of pain and suffering Buddha saw in his life. He saw a sick man, then an aged man, then a funeral procession, and finally a monk begging for alms.
2. He was really moved to see these sights and thus decided to give up his life of pleasures and became a beggar.
3. Enlightenment.
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