Sacred Energy

The Buddha left his wife and newborn son at midnight, riding out from the palace to seek an end to suffering

The traditional account frames this moment as a genuine ethical crisis, not an easy exit — Prince Siddhartha leaves specifically at night and specifically without saying goodbye, because a farewell might have changed his mind.

The story of the Great Renunciation, elaborated in later texts like Ashvaghosha's Buddhacarita and in Pali canon commentarial literature, describes Siddhartha Gautama leaving the palace of his father, King Suddhodana, at midnight on his horse Kanthaka, accompanied only by his charioteer Channa. He had, by this account, just become a father — his son Rahula, whose name is sometimes glossed as meaning fetter or bond, was newborn — and the texts are candid that this departure meant leaving his wife Yasodhara and infant son without a farewell. The tradition does not soften this as painless; later commentary treats the leaving itself as the first real renunciation, prior to any teaching or enlightenment, precisely because it required giving up the most binding attachments a person can have. This episode establishes the template for Buddhist monastic celibacy that follows: the pattern is not merely avoiding marriage but actively relinquishing an already-formed family life for the sake of ending suffering.

Buddhacarita

Written about in

• What the celibate traditions say about making a hard decision

  The detail that carries the argument is the hour. He left at midnight and without a farewell, because a farewell might have changed his mind — a decision made by removing the conditions under which it could be reversed, not by arriving at certainty.