Studies in Indian Art c12.s8.3

c12.s8.3

On the right of Māyādevī, and immediately below her right hand, stands, close by a female attendant of younger age and smaller stature, with her right hand raised to help her. Her pose bespeaks considerate action, while the third figure, probably Prajāpati Gautami, the younger sister of Māyādevī, energetically comes in bringing water, presumably from the tank of the Śākyas, and bends her person to give it to her, thus reminding us of the suddenness of the delivery. But the fourth figure stands as a spectator talking and meaning business in her own way of aiding the queen. The queen, however, is already free from the pains of delivery; an infant Boddhisattva descending on the earth from her right side, and having taken the first seven steps indicative of the seven-fold initiation before the attainment of Buddhahood, stands triumphant knowing full well that this was his last birth, and that henceforth he was free from the miseries of further re-incarnation. It would be well if the missing fragments that have peeled off are recovered from the ruins and reflexed in their proper places to convey the full meaning of this most interesting and, I should say, historical group-statue, which was probably executed under the orders of Aśoka in the second century, after the death of Buddha."*