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Spoke In The Wheel: A Novel About The Buddha
This is a story of that story, of the buddha as seen by his admirers, among them an ordinary monk, one of the questioners, and an extraordinary king, who seemed to have all the answers. In unassuming but agile prose, amita kanekar takes us to the time of the buddha, then to that of ashoka, and back again. The wheel is in motion, we move from one to the other, spinning with the wheel, becoming one with change. About the author amita kanekar is a mumbai-based writer, kanekar teaches comparative mythology at the university of mumbai. She was born in goa in 1965. She is currently (2006) working on her second novel. She has lived in the us as a child, and also teaches architectural history.
468 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 4, 2015
Firstly let me say it was near impossible to find a copy of this book and i found it after many months of dedicated search..but it was worth it. 'A spoke in the wheel' belongs to the same genre of historical/mythological fiction as Amish's Shiva triology.Except that it is much better written, more complex and historically accurate than the shiva series. The story works at multiple timelines and levels --at the time of Buddha and then 300 years later at the time of Ashoka. However the story is really about transformations. The transformation of a philosophical and directionless prince to a wiser man who tells ppl to practice compassion and live in the present. And then the transformation of this wise man to a God whose disciples often believe in the same practices that he abhors. The transformation of a violent low born king who wants to attain immortality and finds the religion of peace his best vehicle to administer his empire. All this happens in the context of a rich background of an ancient India which is deeply caste ridden, plagued with evils and ills of sacrifices, an exploited class of untouchables and tribals...which is slowly being forced to change. Everyone is in shades of grey. The atheist monk (our kinda sorta hero)..who finds himself reviled for telling buddha's story. The old man who would leave his principles for the sake of peace in his land. There is an ancient love story/murder mystery thrown in as well. Ive to confess i felt a bit sorry for shuddhodhana, no better or worse than his peers, who wanted only a strong able Aryan heir..but lost his son, his grandson and finally his kingdom to the era. I wish the author had written more on suttas and yashodhara. All in all a fascinating read for those who enjoy history or philosophy. Im still mulling over some questions.
December 4, 2015
Having just finished Osamu Tezuka’s Graphic saga on Buddha’s life, I laid my hands on this one, and saw the fairy tale breaking, giving way to a forgotten and more life-like and believable telling of the times of the prince of Kapilavastu. An observer of things around him, trying to find their meanings and consequences, and looking for the meaning of life.
We get our protagonists in two persons : Siddharta himself, and an acolyte named Upali, who undergoes the pain of chronicling the life of and teachings of Buddha, often falling under grave situations for de-constructing the myth that dusted within the 300 years in between.
The tale spans two timelines of Buddhism : One of the Buddha, where it all started and other during the reign of Ashoka, where it spread its wings to reach new horizons. Its origins, beliefs, customs and rituals from which it emerged and to which it gave way to, the tidings and downfalls of empires and societies, the rituals, customs, sacrifices, false-pride and gluttony prevailing in those times, their similarities and differences are the main attraction of this novel, which shows how much research had gone between the lines of this 468 page novel.
The very views of Buddha, being changed according to turns of tide, by his own disciples to suit their own needs. Kings and monks be-lieing each other to have their own ends fulfilled, one aiming at immortality, the other at their individual definition of enlightenment.
Thrown in are the sidelined and ostrachized tribals and untouchables, greedy and helpful merchants, lovestory and murder-mysteries, plots and coups, loyalties and betrayals.
The characters feels life-like, perhaps due to vivid description and point of view which the author shows us through their eyes and voices. Even though the story of Buddha is shown as a writing of Upali within the story, it feels independent on its own. The chapters are long and yet you tell yourself to sit through its end to see where it leads to.
A must read for the people who want to know the time during Buddha. This is historical fiction at its best. The novel leaves you with bouts of questions of the lifestyle people lived then and of us who live now and their contrasts.
We get our protagonists in two persons : Siddharta himself, and an acolyte named Upali, who undergoes the pain of chronicling the life of and teachings of Buddha, often falling under grave situations for de-constructing the myth that dusted within the 300 years in between.
The tale spans two timelines of Buddhism : One of the Buddha, where it all started and other during the reign of Ashoka, where it spread its wings to reach new horizons. Its origins, beliefs, customs and rituals from which it emerged and to which it gave way to, the tidings and downfalls of empires and societies, the rituals, customs, sacrifices, false-pride and gluttony prevailing in those times, their similarities and differences are the main attraction of this novel, which shows how much research had gone between the lines of this 468 page novel.
The very views of Buddha, being changed according to turns of tide, by his own disciples to suit their own needs. Kings and monks be-lieing each other to have their own ends fulfilled, one aiming at immortality, the other at their individual definition of enlightenment.
Thrown in are the sidelined and ostrachized tribals and untouchables, greedy and helpful merchants, lovestory and murder-mysteries, plots and coups, loyalties and betrayals.
The characters feels life-like, perhaps due to vivid description and point of view which the author shows us through their eyes and voices. Even though the story of Buddha is shown as a writing of Upali within the story, it feels independent on its own. The chapters are long and yet you tell yourself to sit through its end to see where it leads to.
A must read for the people who want to know the time during Buddha. This is historical fiction at its best. The novel leaves you with bouts of questions of the lifestyle people lived then and of us who live now and their contrasts.
January 30, 2017
The book is Authors attempt to give an alternate and realistic underpinning to the story of how the Indian Prince Siddhartha became The Buddha. An interesting read till the end, the whole novel oscillates between two parallel stories, first, the story of Buddha, second, the story of a monk Upali living during the time of Emperor Ashoka , the emperor who after a brutal and devastating war has suddenly undertaken the path of Dhamma. The monk , who has his own reasons to hate the emperor, is commissioned by the him to document Buddha's life . So the story of Buddha is told as and when the monk completes section after section of the documentation.
The author has done a brilliant job in trying to make Buddha's story stunningly realistic. The portrayal of ancient India , caught deep in the web of superstition, rituals, sacrifices and casteism and how all this might have affected a sensitive, observant and rational prince, makes it a worth read for all historical fiction enthusiasts.
The author has done a brilliant job in trying to make Buddha's story stunningly realistic. The portrayal of ancient India , caught deep in the web of superstition, rituals, sacrifices and casteism and how all this might have affected a sensitive, observant and rational prince, makes it a worth read for all historical fiction enthusiasts.
January 13, 2011
Stephen Batchelor's talks on the life of Siddhattha Gotama sparked my curiosity and a wish to learn more about the life of the Buddha and other key figures of the Axial Age, and about the social, economic and political influences during those times. I began an exploration of biographical works such as "The Life of the Buddha" by Bhikku Nanamoli, "Gotama Buddha" by Hajime Nakamura, "Gautama Buddha" by Iqbal Singh and also dipped into historical novels (a favourite genre), notably, Amita Kanekar's "Spoke in the Wheel", about the life of the Buddha, and "Creation" by Gore Vidal in which he re-imagines the Axial Age and provides cameos of Zoroaster, Socrates, the Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu and Confucius.
Parallel to this, I also began reading Nanavira Thera's "Clearing the Path" (now available as an ebook and soon to be reprinted) and "Notes on Dhamma", mentioned by Stephen in "Confession of a Buddhist Atheist."
Curious about what motivated Vidal and Kanekar to write these historical novels, I tried contacting them. Amita Kanekar has very kindly given me permission to share this interview:
Q: What motivated you to write Spoke in the Wheel?
Amita: The idea of doing something like this was born in the discussions of political activists in the late 1990s. A lot of mass political and economic struggles in Mumbai (Bombay) and other parts of India spluttered to a halt in the 1990s as the country liberalised, privatised and globalised its economy. It was a depressing and frustrating situation that raised questions in some of us about the slow and limited success of social and political struggles in contemporary India. Also about the many really talented, inspiring and soon-to-be-forgotten lives which had been spent in these efforts .Around the same time, there was this growing consciousness that had developed through our work that India is still a caste civilisation first and foremost, which was the reason for the limited success of class-based struggles. So an interest in the origins and evolution of caste society was born, along with the attempts to end or reform caste.
So I thought it would interesting to write about the attempts to change Indian society, and what they had achieved, and where and why they had faltered or failed, and the earliest one I knew of was the Buddha.
I hadn't decided on a novel at first, that happened after I discovered that I couldn't do a scholarly study without reading the primary sources myself, which I couldn't since I didn't know the languages (Sanskrit, Pali). So I had to rely on secondary sources. And then I discovered the conflicting views about his enlightenment, and although I had my own opinion, I couldn't substantiate it sufficiently, so decided to go ahead as a novel.
Q: As the author of a piece of historical fiction, what was your intention?
Amita: I started off as above with the idea of remembering Indian social reformers and how they had lived and worked and what they had achieved. Since I knew that Indian historians had already done a good exploration of these things, another objective appeared pretty early, which was of popularising history, making history accessible. This was also important as I came up against the myths that surround the Buddha, and so it also became an exercise in demythification, in showing the difference between myth and history. Otherwise it's almost as if a genuine historical understanding, with all its possibilities and limitations and richness, is only for the scholars who belong to the educated elite, while the common people have to be satisfied with myths and half-truths.
I don't know whether people outside India will remember or know this, but the 1990s was also the time of the growth of right-wing Hindutva politics in India, and the issue around which they built their mass base was the Babri Masjid, a 500-year-old mosque, which they contended was built over the site of the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, and therefore deserved to demolished. The whole terrible and fascist movement they generated, which included a lot of violence and the loss of a few thousand lives, if you add up all the riots that were instigated around the issue, also saw a lot of discussions on history -- its importance, the possibility of really knowing, the relationship between education and politics (with a lot of highly educated people on the side of the fascist forces), and the multiple versions of history that were being taught and understood across India (not the most educated or even literate of countries).
Anyway, this was also one of the things made me wonder whether there was some need for a popularisation of some of the important developments in Indian history -- I wondered whether such a novel could be a small step in the challenging of caste as well as religious discrimination, of spreading democratic ideas. I am still not sure of this, about whether it does make any difference, or whether I am just preaching to the converted.
Q: You've spoken about your interpretation of the Buddha's message as one of "commonsensical living -- which means compassionate, intelligent and egalitarian living, against violence and discrimination, and as lightly as possible." What sources did you use in writing the book and how did you reach the conclusion that this could have been Buddha's message?
Amita: This is a difficult question to answer as I read a lot of people during the research for this book, but did not keep a very good record of my sources. So I am not absolutely sure about my sources for the different aspects of this understanding. What I do know is that nobody actually said all of this in so many words, but many pointed in that direction. Many of them would speak of the limitations of the Buddha's message -- his Middle Way, which many (especially left-wing) historians felt did not challenge the existing political and social inequalities enough -- while speaking of the radical and positive effects of his movement and his Sangha (which were also, one must remember, a part of the many radical movements of the time). They spoke about the growth of free minds and questioning, of education, of more tolerance and cosmopolitanism and urbanity, of agriculture and other useful skills, also about how all these also helped the big kings of the time. It was clearly an exciting time that was full of change and challenges. So it made me wonder whether some (the more conservative parts, perhaps) of the texts might not have developed in later (and more conservative times); also because there was clearly some contradiction in them, with some saying that the Sangha would not admit low people and others saying that low people were welcomed. D D Kosambi also speaks about how the later Sangha -- or at least the big Universities, like Nalanda -- was more of an intellectual organisation that lived off kingly grants of village revenue. I finally decided that this was how I would interpret the texts, that the more socially radical parts were the original ones, and the conservative ones are later.
The critical writers (which helped me move in this direction) included Iqbal Singh (Gautama Buddha), Debiprasad Chattopadyaya (Lokayata; Indian Philosophy: a popular introduction; Science and Society in Ancient India), D D Kosambi (all his writings), Romila Thapar (all her writings), B. R. Ambedkar (writings about the Buddha and Buddhism). There were also of course a host of other historians who provided information about general and specific issues of the times. The specific book by B. R. Ambedkar was 'The Buddha and his Dhamma'.
Parallel to this, I also began reading Nanavira Thera's "Clearing the Path" (now available as an ebook and soon to be reprinted) and "Notes on Dhamma", mentioned by Stephen in "Confession of a Buddhist Atheist."
Curious about what motivated Vidal and Kanekar to write these historical novels, I tried contacting them. Amita Kanekar has very kindly given me permission to share this interview:
Q: What motivated you to write Spoke in the Wheel?
Amita: The idea of doing something like this was born in the discussions of political activists in the late 1990s. A lot of mass political and economic struggles in Mumbai (Bombay) and other parts of India spluttered to a halt in the 1990s as the country liberalised, privatised and globalised its economy. It was a depressing and frustrating situation that raised questions in some of us about the slow and limited success of social and political struggles in contemporary India. Also about the many really talented, inspiring and soon-to-be-forgotten lives which had been spent in these efforts .Around the same time, there was this growing consciousness that had developed through our work that India is still a caste civilisation first and foremost, which was the reason for the limited success of class-based struggles. So an interest in the origins and evolution of caste society was born, along with the attempts to end or reform caste.
So I thought it would interesting to write about the attempts to change Indian society, and what they had achieved, and where and why they had faltered or failed, and the earliest one I knew of was the Buddha.
I hadn't decided on a novel at first, that happened after I discovered that I couldn't do a scholarly study without reading the primary sources myself, which I couldn't since I didn't know the languages (Sanskrit, Pali). So I had to rely on secondary sources. And then I discovered the conflicting views about his enlightenment, and although I had my own opinion, I couldn't substantiate it sufficiently, so decided to go ahead as a novel.
Q: As the author of a piece of historical fiction, what was your intention?
Amita: I started off as above with the idea of remembering Indian social reformers and how they had lived and worked and what they had achieved. Since I knew that Indian historians had already done a good exploration of these things, another objective appeared pretty early, which was of popularising history, making history accessible. This was also important as I came up against the myths that surround the Buddha, and so it also became an exercise in demythification, in showing the difference between myth and history. Otherwise it's almost as if a genuine historical understanding, with all its possibilities and limitations and richness, is only for the scholars who belong to the educated elite, while the common people have to be satisfied with myths and half-truths.
I don't know whether people outside India will remember or know this, but the 1990s was also the time of the growth of right-wing Hindutva politics in India, and the issue around which they built their mass base was the Babri Masjid, a 500-year-old mosque, which they contended was built over the site of the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, and therefore deserved to demolished. The whole terrible and fascist movement they generated, which included a lot of violence and the loss of a few thousand lives, if you add up all the riots that were instigated around the issue, also saw a lot of discussions on history -- its importance, the possibility of really knowing, the relationship between education and politics (with a lot of highly educated people on the side of the fascist forces), and the multiple versions of history that were being taught and understood across India (not the most educated or even literate of countries).
Anyway, this was also one of the things made me wonder whether there was some need for a popularisation of some of the important developments in Indian history -- I wondered whether such a novel could be a small step in the challenging of caste as well as religious discrimination, of spreading democratic ideas. I am still not sure of this, about whether it does make any difference, or whether I am just preaching to the converted.
Q: You've spoken about your interpretation of the Buddha's message as one of "commonsensical living -- which means compassionate, intelligent and egalitarian living, against violence and discrimination, and as lightly as possible." What sources did you use in writing the book and how did you reach the conclusion that this could have been Buddha's message?
Amita: This is a difficult question to answer as I read a lot of people during the research for this book, but did not keep a very good record of my sources. So I am not absolutely sure about my sources for the different aspects of this understanding. What I do know is that nobody actually said all of this in so many words, but many pointed in that direction. Many of them would speak of the limitations of the Buddha's message -- his Middle Way, which many (especially left-wing) historians felt did not challenge the existing political and social inequalities enough -- while speaking of the radical and positive effects of his movement and his Sangha (which were also, one must remember, a part of the many radical movements of the time). They spoke about the growth of free minds and questioning, of education, of more tolerance and cosmopolitanism and urbanity, of agriculture and other useful skills, also about how all these also helped the big kings of the time. It was clearly an exciting time that was full of change and challenges. So it made me wonder whether some (the more conservative parts, perhaps) of the texts might not have developed in later (and more conservative times); also because there was clearly some contradiction in them, with some saying that the Sangha would not admit low people and others saying that low people were welcomed. D D Kosambi also speaks about how the later Sangha -- or at least the big Universities, like Nalanda -- was more of an intellectual organisation that lived off kingly grants of village revenue. I finally decided that this was how I would interpret the texts, that the more socially radical parts were the original ones, and the conservative ones are later.
The critical writers (which helped me move in this direction) included Iqbal Singh (Gautama Buddha), Debiprasad Chattopadyaya (Lokayata; Indian Philosophy: a popular introduction; Science and Society in Ancient India), D D Kosambi (all his writings), Romila Thapar (all her writings), B. R. Ambedkar (writings about the Buddha and Buddhism). There were also of course a host of other historians who provided information about general and specific issues of the times. The specific book by B. R. Ambedkar was 'The Buddha and his Dhamma'.
May 17, 2021
Beautifully written book. Very profound. Gives a deep and new insight about the life of Buddha. Amazing style of writing keeps the reading interesting and with curiosity. It speaks of several social structures present during the time of Buddha and hundreds of years later. An excellent read. Pity I never rate any book 5. Kudos to the author.
June 27, 2024
A fantastic book! Highly recommend....
June 16, 2014
'A novel about the Buddha' is the way the book is described. Let's start from that. It's probably to dispel any ambiguity about the book's historical authenticity - it is a work of historical fiction. But such is the force of the narrative that it really becomes easy to believe that this version is probably the correct one! It is also the most novel way of presenting the Buddha that I have read.
The book has two parallel narratives. One traverses the path of the Buddha's life, and the other is set almost three hundred after his death, with a monk named Upali serving as the protagonist.
Upali's relatively ordinary life (despite his own history in Kalinga) is made extraordinary when the emperor Ashoka, hailed as the Beloved of the Gods, learns about Upali's work on the Buddha's life and teachings and officially commissions him to write it as part of a larger plan to put down a single version for immediate propagation and posterity as well. Upali is hardly Ashoka's supporter as he believes that no amount of Dhamma preaching by the emperor could wipe out the evils of Kalinga, and also that the emperor's motivation for espousing Dhamma is more a political move than an inner transformation.
Upali's version of the Buddha is an ordinary man who became extraordinary because of his enlightenment. But Upali still felt that Buddha had died unhappy mostly because of the Sangha he created and its manifestation of his message, and he could not be really considered a God, a stance that made a lot of his fellow monks unhappy. In fact, Upali tears down the mythology around the Buddha piece by piece from his birth to his attaining enlightenment, portraying him as someone filled with self-doubt and quite an under-performer in all facets to boot!
Many things appealed to me in this book, but I will restrict myself to a couple of examples. The first is the crisp narrative and the characters. I wondered about the kind of characters and the author's motive in including them, and it was towards the end that it hit me - many of the characters are manifestations of our search - all of them find their own ways of making their peace with the world, which is I believe is the Buddha's message - the middle path that acknowledges the world as a sorrowful place but understands its transience. The second is the universal and timeless nature of the human condition the author brings out. At an individual level, the questions that were raised in Siddhartha's mind remain pertinent now, even more so. At a societal level, the way we treat fellow human beings has actually hardly changed. At a nation level, Magadh's assimilation of territories and people, with scant regard to their nuanced differences in culture, values and beliefs and then the stamping down of laws is not different from what happens in contemporary times.
I have always wondered when and how the Buddha's way became a religion, and how the movement got political tones. This book offers a superbly articulated perspective on it. A must read if you're into history and/or philosophy.
The book has two parallel narratives. One traverses the path of the Buddha's life, and the other is set almost three hundred after his death, with a monk named Upali serving as the protagonist.
Upali's relatively ordinary life (despite his own history in Kalinga) is made extraordinary when the emperor Ashoka, hailed as the Beloved of the Gods, learns about Upali's work on the Buddha's life and teachings and officially commissions him to write it as part of a larger plan to put down a single version for immediate propagation and posterity as well. Upali is hardly Ashoka's supporter as he believes that no amount of Dhamma preaching by the emperor could wipe out the evils of Kalinga, and also that the emperor's motivation for espousing Dhamma is more a political move than an inner transformation.
Upali's version of the Buddha is an ordinary man who became extraordinary because of his enlightenment. But Upali still felt that Buddha had died unhappy mostly because of the Sangha he created and its manifestation of his message, and he could not be really considered a God, a stance that made a lot of his fellow monks unhappy. In fact, Upali tears down the mythology around the Buddha piece by piece from his birth to his attaining enlightenment, portraying him as someone filled with self-doubt and quite an under-performer in all facets to boot!
Many things appealed to me in this book, but I will restrict myself to a couple of examples. The first is the crisp narrative and the characters. I wondered about the kind of characters and the author's motive in including them, and it was towards the end that it hit me - many of the characters are manifestations of our search - all of them find their own ways of making their peace with the world, which is I believe is the Buddha's message - the middle path that acknowledges the world as a sorrowful place but understands its transience. The second is the universal and timeless nature of the human condition the author brings out. At an individual level, the questions that were raised in Siddhartha's mind remain pertinent now, even more so. At a societal level, the way we treat fellow human beings has actually hardly changed. At a nation level, Magadh's assimilation of territories and people, with scant regard to their nuanced differences in culture, values and beliefs and then the stamping down of laws is not different from what happens in contemporary times.
I have always wondered when and how the Buddha's way became a religion, and how the movement got political tones. This book offers a superbly articulated perspective on it. A must read if you're into history and/or philosophy.
May 23, 2015
An alternate retelling of the life of the Buddha. Upali -a monk, gets entrusted by Emperor Ashok to chronicle the life of the Buddha and he sets about this task by firmly placing Siddharth in the realm of the mortals.
With a structure of two alternate narrations (one of the life of Buddha and the other of Upali), the book was interesting in parts. Imagining life in the republics of Magadha, Kosala and the Sakyas were pretty fascinating and kept me engaged. The conflicting perceptions of Ashoka by his own subjects specially in light of his ruthless destruction of Kalinga and the resulting eccentric and evangelic zeal with which he went about propagating the message of the Buddha like a messiah were well handled.
With a structure of two alternate narrations (one of the life of Buddha and the other of Upali), the book was interesting in parts. Imagining life in the republics of Magadha, Kosala and the Sakyas were pretty fascinating and kept me engaged. The conflicting perceptions of Ashoka by his own subjects specially in light of his ruthless destruction of Kalinga and the resulting eccentric and evangelic zeal with which he went about propagating the message of the Buddha like a messiah were well handled.
April 4, 2012
Intertwining of narratives was quite good but in places the pace was sluggish, failing to hold my interest. But on the whole, it may be read for throwing an entirely different light on our idea of the Buddha's enlightenment.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews