Outside the _eastern_ gate he first comes across a decrepit grey-head (111 W. L., 6 after the _seventh_ angle); afterwards, on his drive from the _southern_ gate, he meets a sick one in death-struggle (113 W. L., angle 8, 1); and when he finds himself outside the _western_ entrance a corpse shows him the end of life (115 W. L., angle _nine_, 1), and finally, outside the _northern_ gate, a mendicant friar or _bhikshu_ teaches him as how to gain the victory over life and death, and find peace by ruling all carnal desires (117 W. L., angle _nine_, 2). On the sixty-first sculpture (121 W. L., 1 after the _western_ staircase) he discusses his resolution with his disappointed father. The sleeping watchmen or servants refer to the night which passes on discussing the subject. On the two following sculptures (123 and 125 W. L., 2 and 3 after the staircase) he communicates his resolution to his wife (or wives), and his meditating posture, but also the larger disc of light crowning the higher seat upon which, among sleeping women and servants, he is watching the last night, all this speaks of the holy task of life which raises him for ever above his family. The following scene (127 W. L., 1 after the _first_ angle) tells us, how, in spite of closed doors and sleeping gate-keepers, he succeeds in leaving house and home to begin abroad the life of a poor wanderer seated on the noble sun-horse Kanthaka. The lotus-cushion carrying him again, just as it happened when he descended to earth, and which, on the next sculptures (129 W. L., 1 after the _second_ corner) also carries Kanthaka through the air, speaks once more of his heavenly sending. Then come the leave-takings from his servant Tyhanda (131 W. L., _second_ angle, 2), and the taking off his princely garb (133 W. L., _second_ angle, 3), his hair-dress and weapons (135 W. L., _second_ angle 4 and following ones), and shabbily clothed in a hunter’s skirt—his first cowl turned yellow by long usage—he begins the life of the thinking ascetic whose sanctifying power we see continually indicated by the lotus-cushion and the disc of light. Mâra, the wicked spirit of darkness, vainly tries to check him by offering him the dominion over the four parts of the world (the East, South, West, and North)[36]. Far from his native town Siddhârta already began his new life which henceforth gave him claim to the name of the _wise Shâkya_ (Shâkya-muni)[37]. The following sculptures show us the penitent clothed as _Buddha_ with the _urna_ and the _tiara_, the ring of hair on his forehead, and the knot of hair on his crest, with the lotus-cushion and disc of the sun worshipped by princes and inferior people, by priests and laymen, men, women and celestials. On the _seventy-second_ sculpture (141 W. L., angle _three_, 1) we see him ask for being instructed by the wise brahmin Alara who is unable to teach his wiser superior[38]. The _Shâkya_’s superiority appears from his Buddha posture and his lotus-throne.