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About ten months after her dream of a white
elephant and the revelation that she would give birth to a great leader, Queen
Maya went to the king and, according to custom, requested that she return to her
father’s house for the birth. The king agreed and sent soldiers ahead to clear
the road and arranged a guard for the queen as she was carried in a decorated
palanquin (a covered seat carried on poles held parallel to the ground on the
shoulders of two or four people). The queen set off in a long procession of
soldiers and retainers, headed for the capital of her father's kingdom.
On the way the pageant passed a garden
called Lumbini Park near the kingdom of Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayan
Mountains. The queen was attracted by the beauty of the park, which was adorned
with sala trees and scented flowers, birds and bees. The queen ordered the
bearers to stop to rest for a while. While she rested beneath a sala trees she
began her labor, giving birth to a baby boy. It was a day of a full moon in 623
B.C., a day now celebrated as Vesak, the festival of the triple event of
Buddha's birth.
Continued below...
Paintings of the Buddha and Buddhist Deities by Juan Coronado
According to the traditions surrounding the
birth, the baby boy immediately began to walk, taking seven steps. At each
point where his feet touched the ground, a lotus flower appeared. Then, at the
seventh step, he stopped and pronounced:
"I am chief of the world,
Eldest am I in the world,
Foremost am I in the world.
This is the last birth.
There is now no more coming to be."
Queen Maha Maya immediately returned to
Kapilavatthu. When the king learned of this he was overjoyed, and as the news
spread, the kingdom was full of rejoicing.
The
Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya (Teachings of
the Buddha)
Buddhist Art Books
NOVA: Lost Treasures of Tibet - Buy the Video
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