After his son was born, it was obvious to those around him that Xīdá-duō was becoming more and more withdrawn. King Jìngfàn fully agreed with his counselors that young men liked beautiful women more than anything in the world, and he desperately stocked the palace with the most attractive singing girls and dancing girls he could find and gave them orders to keep Xīdá-duō happy and distracted at all costs.
Xīdá-duō took little interest. One evening he was watching them through half-closed eyes as they labored to keep his attention. Finally he fell asleep, and the exhausted girls and other attendants took a break and soon fell asleep themselves, simply lying down on the floor in the same room.
Suddenly Xīdá-duō awoke. He looked over the room full of sleeping girls, some snoring, some with their mouths dropped open and saliva dribbling down their painted faces or onto their fancy clothes. Xīdá-duō was revolted. Most likely it was at that moment that he decided to give up palace life —which was not at all beautiful just then— and to seek the way to avoid suffering.
He quietly got up and sneaked out to find Chēnì and ordered him to make ready Jiānzhì, the King of Horses. He went to say goodbye to his wife, Lady Yéshū-tuóluó, and his little son Luó-hóuluó. He found them napping. He decided not to wake them, since he knew they would try to stop him.
"Someday, when I have found the true way (zhēnlǐ 真理), I will return to see them again," he thought. Meanwhile it was better to let them sleep and avoid their interference.
Very quietly the prince slipped from the palace without waking a soul, and he and Chēnì left the town of Jiāpí-luó.
He and Chēnì and Jiānzhì, the King of Horses, went on till they got to the banks of the River Dá'ē-nòumǎ 达阿耨玛. Then Xīdá-duō dismounted and he took off his jewelry and his fancy outer clothes and he gave them to Chēnì, who climbed astride the King of Horses and returned with them to King Jìngfàn at the palace in Jiāpí-luó.
And so it was that prince Xīdá-duō of the Qiáo-dámó family of the clan of Shìjiā, at the age of 29, departed from his clan's land and left his family (chūjiā 出家) to become a wandering hermit.
