On seeing an Image of Buddha is one of the finest poems which S. R. Dongerkery jotted and published in different literary journals like the Social Welfare, the Indian Review, the Modern Review, the Bombay Chronicle Weekly and the Pushpa and the present piece has been excerpted from The Ivory Tower which was published in 1943 from East & West Book House, Baroda. Dongerkery is a famous academician as well as a friend of Prof. Armando Menezes.

The poem relates to the story of Goutam Buddha, how did he relinquish it all? How did quit the royal robe and slip out of the palace for the betterment, for the light to show to the world? How did Prince Siddhartha then as a prince? Sitting in a meditation, how lovely, serene and sedate does the posture appear to be! Shorn off of mundane comforts, how has he conquered the self! Leaving Mother Maya, avoiding the attachment, the pull of relationship, how much withdrawn from the world and worldliness is he so unmindful of is here! There is nothing that can be able to disturb his calm composure.

The poet says it that it is his will has transformed him into rather than destiny. Had he not willed, he would not have been. His smile lights up, wins over. Even pain and suffering cannot disturb as he is above the bonds of sukha and dukkha. Sukha cannot lure him. Dukkha cannot malign him. He is above them.

With the eyelids closed and meditating, he lies calm and composed with a halo around him and the smile discerning it all, pain and suffering. Leaving it all, in search of truth and enlightenment, he turns into an ascetic. Under the Bodhi Tree he lies meditating, contemplating. What the royal pomp and glamour to do to him? The earthly properties cannot enchant him.

With eyelids closed, thy heart can never pine
For Maya's lovely charms that lure the eyes.
With smile that pain and suffering defies--
For thou hast conquered both thyself and thine--
Thou sittest still and calm, with face, divine,
In contemplation of the Truth that lies
Beyond man’s intellect and never dies.
Ascetic Prince of ancient royal line !
As thou once sat’st beneath the Bodhi Tree,
On life and death profound to meditate.
So that from earthly shackles thou might’st free
For ever thy soul that had disdained the state
With all its empty pomp and pageantry,
Renouncing all with Will more strong than Fate!