A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s5.54

v2.c19.s5.54

While in Section I the prose is continually interrupted by verses from the Buddhavaṃsa and the Cariyāpiṭaka, the two next sections contain only a few occasional verse quotations. Section II commences with the "Buddha uproar" in heaven. The Tusita gods importune the Bodhisatta to be born again on earth for the salvation of the world, and, after due consideration, he decides to do so. Then follow the familiar legends of the conception of the Bodhisatta, who, as a white elephant, appears to penetrate into the womb of the dreaming Queen Māyā, of his miraculous birth in the Lumbinī-grove,³ of the welcoming of the newly-born child and the prophecy of the seer Asita about his future greatness, the miracles of his childhood and boyhood, the four encounters of the prince, through which he becomes acquainted with age, disease, death and renunciation of the world, the night scene in the seraglio which matures his resolve to renounce the world, his flight from the palace, achieved with numerous miracles and the aid of the gods, and his adopting the life of a mendicant monk, of his great feats of asceticism, of the milky rice of Sujātā, prepared with the aid of numerous miracles, from which the Bodhisatta, exhausted by his long fast, derives new strength, the meditation under the Bodhi tree, and the attacks of Māra, and finally the attainment of Bodhi, the highest knowledge, which is accompanied by numerous miraculous phenomena.