English Language & Literature — CBSE Class 10 board question

Buddha changes Kisa Gotami's understanding through a practical lesson rather than direct teaching.

Initially, Kisa Gotami is overwhelmed by personal grief and blindly seeks medicine to revive her dead son, unable to accept his death. Buddha sends her to collect mustard-seed from a house untouched by death.

As she goes from house to house, she discovers that every family has suffered loss — "the living are few, but the dead are many." This universal truth strikes her deeply.

She then realises: "How selfish am I in my grief! Death is common to all." Buddha made her experience this truth herself instead of preaching it — shifting her from self-absorbed grief to an understanding that death is inevitable for all mortals, and peace lies in surrendering selfishness, not in lamentation.

Source: The Sermon at Benares, Chapter 8

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• Examiners expect you to trace the shift in Kisa Gotami's perspective: from personal grief → universal truth about death.
• Key points to cover: (1) her initial state of grief, (2) Buddha's method — the mustard-seed task, (3) what she discovers house to house, (4) her final realisation about selfishness and the universality of death.
• Quote directly from the text where possible — "the living are few, but the dead are many" and "How selfish am I in my grief" — examiners reward textual evidence.
• Do not drift into describing Buddha's sermon at length; focus on how the method changed her understanding.