Two Accounts of Renunciation

The story most people know runs as follows. Prince Siddhārtha, sheltered from all suffering, one day ventures outside the palace and encounters four sights: an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic. Shaken to his core, he resolves to renounce the world. That very night, he steals one last glance at his sleeping wife Yaśodharā and newborn son Rāhula, mounts his horse Kanthaka, and, lifted by deities, passes silently over the city walls. At the bank of the Anomā River, he cuts off his hair and beard and enters homeless life.

The story is undeniably powerful. But when we turn to the early Buddhist texts (EBT), we encounter a striking fact: the Buddha's own description of his renunciation bears almost no resemblance to this familiar version.

In the Majjhima Nikāya, MN 85 (Bodhirājakumāra Sutta), the Buddha says:

"Later, while still young, a black-haired young man endowed with the blessing of youth, in the prime of life, though my mother and father wished otherwise and wept with tearful faces, I shaved off my hair and beard, put on the yellow robe, and went forth from the home life into homelessness."

Several features of this account stand out. He went forth while young. His parents opposed and wept. He shaved his head and donned robes in their presence. There is no mention of four outings, no midnight flight, no final gaze at his sleeping wife and child, not even a hint of secrecy or silence.

MN 26, MN 36, and MN 100 contain similar autobiographical accounts, likewise devoid of the four-signs narrative or any secret departure. What these early passages share is a consistent picture: renunciation as a public act, undertaken in the grieving presence of his family, not a dramatic midnight escape.

The Question of Ownership: Whose Four Signs?

Where, then, does the four-signs narrative come from?

The answer lies in the Dīgha Nikāya. In DN 14, the Mahāpadāna Sutta, the protagonist is not Gotama but Vipassī, the first of the seven past Buddhas. The sutta describes Vipassī's renunciation in elaborate detail: he goes on four chariot rides, encounters an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a renunciant, and thereupon resolves to leave home.

In other words, within the Pali Nikāyas, the only complete narrative of the four-signs belongs to Vipassī, not to Gotama. As scholars have long noted, the Mahāpadāna Sutta is the "root source" for the four-signs narrative in Buddhist biographical literature; later biographies consistently draw upon it as their model.

The transfer of this narrative from Vipassī to Gotama occurs in the commentarial tradition. The Nidānakathā, the introductory biography in the Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā, dating to roughly the fifth century CE, transplants Vipassī's four outings onto Prince Siddhārtha, explicitly citing the Mahāpadāna as its source. This Nidānakathā became the standard Theravāda biography of the Buddha, and its influence was so pervasive that the story originally belonging to a past Buddha effectively displaced the Buddha's own account of his renunciation in popular memory.

Stratification and Transformation: How to Understand the Difference

Two overly simplistic readings must be avoided.

The first dismisses the four-signs narrative as a mere "later fabrication." This ignores its doctrinal function: the contemplation of aging, illness, and death is a narrative expression of the First Noble Truth. Indeed, in AN 3.38, the Buddha himself recalls reflecting that he too is subject to aging, illness, and death, and that this reflection motivated his going forth. The four-signs narrative externalizes this inward reflection into dramatic encounter.

The second attempts to harmonize the two accounts by suggesting the four outings occurred first and the tearful departure later. But this lacks textual basis. The early autobiographical passages never mention "outings" as a prelude to renunciation; the four-signs narrative never includes "parents weeping at the departure." The two are structurally independent narrative units.

A more adequate approach recognizes the four-signs narrative as part of the "common career of all Buddhas" (the mahāpuruṣa paradigm). The Mahāpadāna Sutta's purpose is not to record Gotama's personal history but to establish a template: every Buddha's birth, renunciation, awakening, and teaching follow the same pattern. Vipassī is the first complete instantiation of this template. In later tradition, the narrative was "back-filled" onto Gotama because, according to the paradigm, Gotama's renunciation should have unfolded in the same way.

This back-filling took centuries to crystallize. Before the Nidānakathā, various sectarian Vinayas and Abhidharma works, Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, and others, had already begun attributing the four-signs to Gotama. By the time the Nidānakathā fixed this as the standard biography in the fifth century CE, the earlier, simpler account of a tearful parental farewell had effectively receded from public memory.

Silence and Eloquence: The Deeper Dynamic

The shift from "a public departure in the presence of weeping parents" to "a secret midnight flight" is not merely a change of detail. It is a fundamental reimagining of the Buddha's character.

In the early account, the Buddha's renunciation is a decisive but public act. He does not evade his parents' grief or conceal his intention. He shaves his head in their presence, with their tears as witness. This image is consistent with early Buddhism's emphasis on truthfulness and non-deception.

The midnight flight, by contrast, casts the Buddha as a solitary hero who transcends all worldly ties. He must leave "silently" because no words can resolve the claims of kinship; he must depart "secretly" because worldly entanglement itself is what must be transcended. This image aligns more closely with the mahāpuruṣa ideal and with later tendencies to divinize the Buddha as omniscient and omnipotent.

From the perspective of the Dharma, the earlier account is closer to the Buddha as awakener, a human being who, like any seeker, makes a difficult choice amid real constraints. From the perspective of the person, the later biography elevates the Buddha to a manifestation (nirmāṇakāya) whose every action conforms to a pre-existent cosmic pattern. His renunciation is no longer a personal choice but "the eternal law of all Buddhas."

Conclusion

The fissure in the Buddha's renunciation narrative is one of the most revealing textual phenomena in Buddhist biographical literature. It reminds us that the best-known story is not necessarily the earliest, and the most moving scene is not necessarily the protagonist's own memory.

The early texts preserve a simple autobiographical statement, "my parents wept, and I went forth", that was eventually overshadowed by a more dramatic narrative. This replacement was not arbitrary. It was shaped by the "common career of all Buddhas" paradigm and driven by the emerging bodhisattva ideal. When Vipassī's four outings were transferred to Gotama, historical memory yielded to paradigmatic expression, and individual experience submitted to universal law.

This process of stratification is not so much a "distortion" of the Buddha's life as an external manifestation of Buddhist tradition's evolving understanding of what "Buddha" means. Yet for the historian, maintaining the distinction between the two narratives remains essential. Only then can we honor the power of tradition without mistaking its construction for historical record.

References:

Primary Sources Discussed: MN 26, MN 36, MN 85, MN 100; DN 14 (Mahāpadāna Sutta); AN 3.38; Jātaka Aṭṭhakathā, Nidānakathā.

Key Terms: four signs (catunimitta); going forth (pabbajjā); common career of all Buddhas (sabba-buddhānaṃ dhammatā); Vipassī; Gotama; Nidānakathā; textual stratification.