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in it. But remember it does not express his experience. His experience has changed even his gestures. They have a grace now.
You will be surprised to see the statues in India of Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, and twenty-three Jaina masters. None of them has beards or moustache. Strange! It is not possible that they were not having moustache and beard. Once in a while there is somebody who does not grow, is missing in some hormones. But so many people, and particularly the enlightened one, missing in some hormones! And all without exception.
The truth is something else. They all had moustaches. They all had beard. But after their enlightenment, their whole being became so graceful and so feminine. To give expression to that gracefulness, the sculptor has found a symbol. That is just symbolic. He has removed the moustache and the beard. They are all young. They all became old. Buddha died when he was eighty-two but all the statues show him nearabout, at the most, thirty-five.
And the same is the case with Mahavira. He has died at eighty. But the statues are all young, again it is symbolic. The body became old but the spirit remained young. Now how to express it in marble? The youthfulness became almost their very being. The body became sick, the body became old, the body died. But what they had experienced is still alive, is still young, is still part of existence.
But around these people, and it was natural, the way the Buddha walked, the way he talked, the language he used, the food he ate, the clothes he wore, everything became to the lovers something to be followed. As if by following it, you can become a buddha!
That's how traditions are created, religions are created. Then for thousands of years people are doing the same. Still the Buddhist monks learn the language Pali that Buddha used. Now it is a dead language. Nobody uses it. But Buddhist scriptures are in Pali, and Buddhist scholars like it to read it in the original. It has some flavor of Buddha himself. But no language can carry the flavor. Because he used only a certain kind of clothes, the Buddhist monk has been using the same clothes. He used to have a beggar's bowl.
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