Hi Everyone!! This article will share Class 10 The Sermon at Benares Important Questions & Answers.
In my previous posts, I have shared The Sermon at Benares Textbook Questions & Answers and Amanda Textbook Questions & Answers so, make sure to check these posts as well. You can also go through Class 10 The Sermon at Benares Character Sketch.
Class 10 The Sermon at Benares Important Questions & Answers
Question 1: What made Gautama Buddha seek enlightenment?
Answer: The sights of a sick man, an aged man, a funeral procession, and finally a monk begging for alms so moved Gautama that he at once went out into the world to seek enlightenment concerning the sorrows he had witnessed.
Question 2: Write a note on Gautama Buddha’s early life.
Answer: Gautama Buddha (563 B.C. – 483 B.C.) began life as a prince named Siddhartha Gautama, in northern India. 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 Siddhartha lived a royal life for ten years with his family. At about the age of twenty-five, he came out of this shielded life when he went out on a hunting expedition.
Question 3: What was the effect of the sufferings of the world on Buddha?
Answer: Buddha felt very upset after coming across the sufferings of the world. Leaving all the comforts of his palace, he became an ascetic and went out into the world to experience the pangs of sufferings and to seek enlightenment.
Question 4: When and where did Siddhartha get enlightenment?
Answer: After wandering for seven years, Siddhartha finally sat down under a peepal tree, where he vowed to stay until he got enlightenment. He got enlightened after seven days.
Question 5: Why was Gautama known as the Buddha?
Answer: After wandering for seven years, Siddhartha finally sat down under a peepal tree, where he vowed to stay until he got enlightenment. He got enlightened after seven days and he renamed the tree the Bodhi Tree (Tree of Wisdom) and began to teach and to share his new understandings. At that point he became to be known as the Buddha (the Awakened or the Enlightened).
Question 6: Why was Kisa Gotami grief-stricken? What did she ask her neighbours to give her?
Answer: Kisa Gotami was grief-stricken because her only son was died and she was not able to reconcile to this loss. She caaried her dead son all about her neighbourhood and asked everyone to give her some medicine that could bring her dead son back to life.
Class 10 The Sermon at Benares Important Questions & Answers
Question 7: Who sent Kisa Gotami to Sakyamuni and why?
Answer: Kisa Gotami was going from one person to other in her neighbourhood asking forsome medicine that could bring her dead son back to life. In this process, she came across a man who though was not able to help her but was confident that Sakyamuni, the Buddha would be able to find some solution. So, he sent her to Sakyamuni.
Question 8: What did Buddha ask Kisa to bring and why?
Answer: Buddha asked Kisa Gotami to bring a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no near and dear one had ever died. He did so because he wanted to make Kisa realise that death is inevitable and one should not be selfish in one’s sorrow.
Question 9: What did Kisa Gotami learn about the fate of men?
Answer: From her futile venture regarding the mustard seeds, Kisa Gotami learnt that death is common to all and anyone who dies cannot be brought back to life. She learnt that world is afflicted with death and decay and therefore, wise don’t grieve. In order to obtain peace of mind, one will have to draw out the arrow of complaint, grief and lamentation.
Question 10: How did Buddha teach Kisa the truth of life?
Answer: Buddha asked Kisa Gotami to bring a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no one had lost a dear one to death. He wanted to make Kisa learn the inevitability of death from her own experience. Buddha knew that Kisa would learn this through her experience and not through his words.
Question 11: What is the meaning of the phrase ‘living are few, but dead are many’?
Answer: When Kisa Gotami went to get a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no one had lost a dear one to death, she found that each family had more of their members among dead than among the living. There was no family who has not suffered pangs of death.
Question 12: What did Buddha say about the mortals?
Answer: Buddha said that the life of mortals in this world is troubled and brief and combined with pain. There is not any means by which those that have been born can avoid dying. As ripe fruits are early in danger of falling, so mortals when born are always in danger of death. As all earthen vessels made by the potter end in being broken, so is the life of mortals. Both young and adult, both those who are fools and those who are wise, all fall into the power of death; all are subject to death.
Class 10 The Sermon at Benares Important Questions & Answers
Question 13: Explain the phrase – ‘the world is afflicted with death and decay’.
Answer: This means that the world is affected by pain, disease, suffering and death which are a source of grief.
Question 14: According to Buddha, why do the wise not grief?
Answer: The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world. They know that one by one all mortals are carried off by death like an ox that is led to the slaughter so, they reconcile themselves to death.
Question 15: What are terms of the world?
Answer: The terms of the world are that death is inevitable and common to all. Whosoever is born is bound to die and the sooner one learns to reconcile to it, the better.
Question 16: How does weeping and grieving affect an individual?
Answer: From weeping and grieving, one would not obtain peace of mind. Rather, his pain will be the greater and his body will suffer. He will make himself sick and pale, yet the dead are not saved by his lamentation.
Question 17: How can one obtain peace of mind?
Answer: In order to obtain peace of mind, one will have to draw out the arrow of complaint, grief and lamentation. Such a person would become composed, would overcome all sorrow and be blessed.
Question 18: What message did Buddha’s first sermon at Benares give?
Answer: Buddha’s first sermon at Benares reflects the Buddha’s wisdom about one inscrutable kind of suffering. It taught the world that death is inevitable and surrendering all selfishness can lead one to the path of immortality. It also taught that in order to obtain peace of mind, one will have to draw out the arrow of complaint, grief and lamentation. Such a person would become composed, would overcome all sorrow and be blessed.
Question 19: Why has the suffering (death) been referred to as ‘inscrutable’?
Answer: The suffering (death) has been referred to as ‘inscrutable’ because nobody knows about the mysteries of death and every being that has come to this world has to die.
So, these were Class 10 The Sermon at Benares Important Questions & Answers.