The king that ruled the ancient Indian Kingdom of Magadha during the 5th century B.C.
That is the name recorded in the Buddhist scriptures, his Indian name is Ajātaśatru.
According to legend, before his birth, it was foretold that King Ajase would bring about disaster to his father, King Bimbisara, in the future. Afraid of their own son, the king and queen attempted to have the child born atop a high place to kill him, but he came into this world safe and sound.
After Ajase reached adulthood, one day, he came across a pupil of the Buddha, Devadatta, an ambitious young man who planned to use Ajase's power to take over the Buddha's following by telling Ajase of his cursed destiny and tempting him to take control of the kingdom. Ajase, resentful of his fate, imprisoned his father, the king.
Having imprisoned his mother as well, he became king, but after a life of confinement, his father lost his life. Tormented by guilt over his father's death, Ajase was afflicted with illness.
At that time, it was his mother who devotedly nursed the suffering King Ajase. Realizing his mistake, King Ajase later converted to Buddhism and, as a good king, devoted himself to the subsequent development of Magadha.
Today, in psychology, there is a term called the Ajātase complex, which is derived from this anecdote, that manifests as anxiety, hostility, and fear that children feel when they catch a glimpse of their mother's repulsiveness as a human being.
[This complex comes from a different version of this anecdote which had Ajase's mother kill a hermit, as she was told that her child was to be the hermit's reincarnation and she was unable to wait, but the hermit told her that his reincarnation was going to curse his father and bring about calamity, so she also tried to abort him, but failed. Once the adult Ajase learned of that, he wished to kill his mother only to be stopped by a minister, after that, he suffered from guilt and fell violently ill. His mother nursed him, but it didn't seem to do anything, so she went to the Buddha for help, and after he healed her inner conflict, she was able to nurse him to health and he went on to become a great ruler.]
No comments:
Post a Comment