Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v2.c8.s9.9

v2.c8.s9.9

Now the instant the Buddha was conceived, the Thirty-two Prognostics (miracles) appeared, and four angels with swords in their hands kept guard on Mahā-Māyā to ward off all harm from her. When ten months had passed, Mahā-Māyā grew desirous of going home to her relatives, and said to King Śuddhodana: ‘Sire, I should like to meet my kinsfolk in their city Devadaha’. The king readily agreed to the wish of the queen, and had the road from Kapilavatthu to the city of Devadaha made even, and decorated it with plantain-trees, banners, and streamers. Afterwards he seated the queen in a palanquin borne by a thousand of our courtiers, and sent her away in great pomp. When the procession reached a beautiful grove of sāl-trees, called Lumbinī Grove, the queen felt desirous of disporting herself in that lovely environment. She alighted from the palanquin, and walked down to a magnificent sāl-tree. As she took hold of one of its beautiful branches, the pains suddenly came upon her, and the child was born while she was standing up. Four Mahā-Brahma angels appeared at the moment, and placing the divine babe in a golden net, they presented him to the guardian angels, who received him and presented him in turn to men who let him out of their hands on to the ground, where he stood and faced the east. The many thousand worlds lay before him like an open court, and their denizens greeted him: ‘Great Being! There is none your equal, much less your superior.’ When he had in this manner surveyed the four cardinal points, and the four intermediate ones, and the zenith and the nadir, and had nowhere discovered his equal, he exclaimed, ‘This is the best direction’, and strode forward seven paces, followed by Mahā-Brahma holding over him the white umbrella, and by other divinities bearing symbols of royalty in their hands. At the seventh stride he halted, and shouted the cry of victory: ‘The chief am I in all the worlds.’ *Vide* Warren’s *Buddhism in Translations*, pp. 38-44.