Pritachara was a girl born in a rich trader family that lived in a big mansion. The family was money crazy. All the male members remained engaged in the business of making money. They took little interest in whatever was happening in their house. Even when they were home their minds remained busy in mentally counting out the money.
Meanwhile the girl Pritachara grew into a beautiful young lady. Her mind was full of love dreams.
The family ignored her reality and kept its head buried in heaps of coins. Even the other women of the house were concerned only with the details of what their respective husbands were doing businesswise and how much money was being made. They also ignored the reality of Pritachara and her aspirations of natural kind.
The household had a young and healthy male servant. A love affair developed between the girl and him. It continued unchecked as no one cared about it or noticed it being too busy in money matters.
One day, the lovers eloped with ornaments and some cash. They went to another town and settled down.
The ex-servant husband was unimaginative and lazy. He didn’t start any business of his own. So, eventually they ran out of money. Husband had become idler, too lazy to do any job.
Their life became miserable. The two quarrelled all the time.
The young wife ran out of patience and she decided to return to her family instead of starving to death. She hoped that her parents would forgive her mistake.
Pritachara set out defying her husband. In the middle of her journey she experienced labour pain. She was in the family way. She gave birth to a son behind a bush, a little off the road. It had changed the situation.
She decided to return to her lover hoping that the sight of the child would make the husband realise his responsibility. He would surely find some gainful work, she hoped.
Pritachara was back with her husband. Two more years passed. Situation didn’t improve. The husband wouldn’t work hard. He just earned enough money to avoid starvation. The life was miserable.
Pritachara was fed up and had lost all hope. She again set out to go to her parents.
On their way, the weather changed. A storm blew and it started raining heavily. The mother and son sat under a tree huddled together to wait for the weather to clear up.
Pritachara again felt birth pangs. She was pregnant. Meanwhile, the husband also arrived there. He had come looking for his wife and the son when he found them missing.
When the husband saw his wife in labour pain he wanted to raise shelter with branches of the trees where she could deliver the child. He went off the road to do that while the wife groaned in pain.
He failed to return. The wife gave birth to another son under the tree. After giving birth to the baby she went looking for her husband in the morning.
She found him dead a little distance away bitten by a snake. She fell on her husband’s body and wept in grief. She had become a widow.
Now it was more important for her to reach to her parents for the sake of her children. But it was a daunting task because the river she had to cross was now in spate due to storm and overnight rain. And she had no time to lose.
She was too weak to carry both the children across at one time. So, she left her two year old son on the bank and started swimming for the other side with her infant son.
On the other side, she put down the infant on a grassy patch and swam back for her other son. When she was in midstream she saw an eagle swooping down at her infant.
She screamed and waved her hands frantically to scare away the eagle. It was a pathetic attempt. Her two year old son saw his mother flailing her hands. He thought that she was signalling him to swim to her. So, he jumped into the water.
Meanwhile the eagle flew away with the infant held in its clutches as the mother watched in horror. When she looked for her other son she saw him being carried away by the roaring currents of the river.
In a matter of six hours the woman had lost her sons and the husband.
The tragedy was too horrible for Pritachara to bear. She wept and cried herself into madness and tore her clothes.
She wandered around naked as a mad woman who cursed and abused everyone she came across. The people laughed and taunted at her to drive her into deeper madness.
That is how she had stumbled into Buddha meeting.
After learning her story Buddha said, ‘‘Daughter, you are not a mad woman as the people make you believe. You are only a sad woman who has failed to a adjust to the basic truths of life. One of the most fundamental truth is the death. It suddenly confronts you in most unsettling and cruel forms. That is when one’s spiritual strength is tested. The worldly desires, pleasures and relationships are illusions. If you take these illusions for realities you are in trouble. The more seriously you believe in them the deeper trouble you are in. Learn the reality of death.’’
Pritachara was admitted into the monastery to prepare herself to become nun. Buddha asked her to keep eyes open and learn lessons from nature.
One day, Pritachara was washing her feet. She put water on her feet and the wash-off water ran to some distance. She poured more water and the wash-off reached a farther point down. The more water she poured the farther it reached.
The life was like that. Some had short life span like her children. Some had longer span like that of her husband. And her water was still meandering along. Some day it will reach the dead end point.
She saw the oil lamp at night. The light got extinguished as soon as the oil ran out.
Life also was like that. The death comes when the allotted time runs out.
After learning these lessons, Pritachara became a Buddhist nun and in due course reached a very high position in the vihara hierarchy.
She became a living example of how the teachings of Buddha salvaged lost souls.
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