And again: “The bones left by a single person in the course of his past lives would form a pile so huge that were all the mountains to be gathered up and piled in a heap, that heap of mountains would appear as nothing beside it.” And again: “The head of every person has been cut off so many times in the course of his past lives, either as a human being or as an animal, as to cause him to shed blood more abundant than all the water contained in the four great oceans.” Nothing more terrible than this can be imagined. Yet for many centuries it has been a common belief in India. Wise men taught that there was a way of escape, a way of salvation. If a person wished to avoid repeated lives of suffering and misery, he must leave home and family and friends, become a monk, and devote himself to fasting, bodily torture, and meditation. * * * * * The Buddhist Scriptures tell us that when Gotama was twenty-nine years old, he saw for the first time an Old Man, a Sick Man, a Dead Man, and a Monk. The thought that in the course of his past lives he had endured old age, sickness, and death, times without number, terrified him, and he resolved to become a monk. Leaving home and wife and son, he devoted himself for six years to fasting, bodily torture, and meditation. Finally he became convinced that fasting and bodily torture were not the way of salvation, and abandoned the struggle. One night he had a wonderful experience. First he saw the entire course of his past lives. Next he saw the fate after death of all living beings. Finally he came to understand the cause of human suffering and the cure for it. Thus it was that he became Buddha, the Awakened, the Enlightened. He saw that the cause of rebirth and suffering was craving for worldly pleasures and life and riches. He saw that if this craving were uprooted, rebirth and suffering would come to an end. He saw that this craving could be uprooted by right belief, right living, and meditation. * * * * * For forty-five years the Buddha journeyed from place to place, preaching and teaching. He founded an order of monks and nuns, and won many converts. He lived to be eighty years old. Missionaries carried his teachings from India to Ceylon and Burma and China and Tibet and Japan. In a few hundred years the religion of the Buddha had spread over the whole of Asia. Hundreds of millions of human beings have accepted his teachings.