1. EXPERIENCE OF LIFE THROUGH THE FOUR GATES

2. THE PRINCE LEAVES HOME AND CASTLE

3. AFTER SIX YEARS OF ASCETIC PRACTICES HE LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN

4. RECEIVING OFFERINGS OF BOWL OF MILK 

The prince in his youthful days was deeply troubled by what he had witnessed upon leaving from the different castle gates of West, East and South. He saw what men had to endure sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death... But when he left the last North gate he happened to come upon a holy man who sat in peace and utter calmness ... It was then that he decided to renounce his princely life and never return again to the castle life. He knew that he would through the merits of his practice, spring free his troubled mind from the five fetters of human being.

One night of full moon, he ordered Channa to bring his favorite horse, Kanthaka, and together left the castle for the mountains before the break of the day. Before reaching the mountain he bade Channa and Kanthaka farewell and alone went into the Himalaya mountains to seek for the Path of Truth. For six years the prince practiced all of the known austerities of his days to the extreme, often times subjecting himself to the precipice of near death. He found that he was nowhere closer to the Path of Truth and Emancipation and finally he decided to come down from the mountain and seek for other ways of deliverance.

He descended the mountain and begun his new life of bathing in the great river of Naranjara and after receiving some food in form of milk from Sujata, the wife of a neighboring land owner, he set steadfast steps toward the foot of Bodhi Tree. The five ascetics, who had accompanied the prince on his long journey of practice on orders from the authorities, decided to abandon the prince after coming to the conclusion that he had given up the practice of exertion for life of luxury.