The Fire Sermon of Lord Buddha as a panacea to redeem the Modern Wasteland

Abstract

In The waste Land written at a time when, according to Spender, "Eliot was seriously toying with the idea of becoming a Buddhist", Eliot directly draws upon the Buddhas 'Fire sermon'. After presenting the state of living dead in terms of the individual life in Part I, in terms of the domestic life in Part II, Eliot presents the sterile life in terms of society and civilization in Part III. The root cause of all this downfall is desire and lust in which the modern world is 'burning' as the Buddha has shown in his Fire Sermon. The title of Part III of the poem, called "The Fire Sermon", is borrowed from the famous Sermon delivered by Lord Buddha to the assembled priests at Sarnath.