From Long Ago and Many Lands

In order to answer the soldier’s question, Kassapa told this story.

In olden times a certain musician, carrying his trumpet under his arm, stopped to rest on a bench in the market place of a small village. He laid his trumpet down on the ground beside him. Nobody else seemed to be anywhere around, for all the villagers were at home having supper.

Being lonely, the musician picked up his trumpet and began to play. He blew it three times, and then set it on the ground again beside him.

When the villagers heard the trumpet blowing, they were puzzled, for none of them had ever seen or heard a trumpet before. They said to one another:

“What is it that is making that charming and delightful sound?”

They rushed out of their houses and gathered in the market place. There they found the musician. They asked him :

“Sir, what was it that made that charming and delightful sound?”

“Friends, it was this trumpet that you see lying on the ground here beside me that made that sound.”

One of the villagers then picked up the strange instrument which had been called a trumpet. He looked it all over. He put it down on the ground again so that it stood up on its large round end. He called to it:

“Speak, O Trumpet! Speak, O Trumpet!” But the trumpet did not make a sound. Another villager turned the trumpet over and put it down on its side. He also called:

“Speak, O Trumpet! Speak, O Trumpet!” But the trumpet did not make a sound. Another man put the trumpet down on its other side and spoke to it. Another shook it this way and that way and called. The crowd began calling too:

“Speak, O Trumpet! Speak, O Trumpet!”

But no! The trumpet did not make a sound! The trumpeter smiled and thought to himself:

“How foolish these villagers are! How can they hope to hear the sound of the trumpet by trying other ways to play it than the right way?”

Finally, with the villagers watching him, the musician picked up the trumpet and again blew it three times. After this he walked off with the trumpet under his arm, and disappeared down the path.

The villagers were left to think things through for themselves. Everyone began talking at once. Finally, they agreed on the right answer to their puzzling. This is the way one of the men explained it:

“When the trumpet was connected with a person who blew his breath into it, it made a sound! But when the trumpet was not connected with a person and no breath was blown into it, then the trumpet made no sound at all.”

Kassapa then turned to the soldier and said:

“It is precisely so with us and our bodies. When the body is not connected with Life then it can not walk forward or walk backward. It can not stand or sit or lie down. Then, too, it can not see things with its eyes, or smell things with its nose, or taste flavors with its tongue, or touch things with its hands. Then it can not understand with its mind. We say the person is dead.