[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [Dictionary of Pali Proper Names](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937) › v2.c29.856 # Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v2.c29.856 Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names v2.c29.856 - **Language:** English ### [v2.c29.856](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937.v2.c29.856) Having satisfied himself as to these particulars, the Bodhisatta goes with the other devas to Nandanavana in Tusita, where he announces his departure from their midst and disappears from among them while playing. On the day of his conception, the Bodhisatta’s mother takes the vows of fasting and celibacy at the conclusion of a great festival, and when she has retired to rest, she dreams that the Four Regent Gods take her with her bed, bathe her in the Anotatta Lake, clad her in divine garments, and place her in a golden palace surrounded by all kinds of luxury. As she lies there the Bodhisatta in the form of a white elephant enters her womb through her right side. The earth trembles and all the ten thousand world systems are filled with radiance. Immediately the Four Regent Gods assume guard over mother and child. Throughout the period of pregnancy, which lasts for ten months exactly, the mother remains free from ailment and sees the child in her womb sitting crossed-legged.¹³ At the end of the ten months she gives birth to the child, standing in a grove, never indoors. Suddhāvāsa brahmins, free from all passion, first receive the child in a golden net, and from them the Four Regent Gods take him on an antelope-skin and present him to his mother. Though the Bodhisatta is born free of the mucous otherwise present at birth, two showers of water—one hot, the other cold—fall from the sky and bathe mother and child. The child then takes seven strides to the north, standing firmly on his feet, looks on all sides, and seeing no one anywhere to equal him, announces his supremacy over the whole world and the fact that this is his last birth.¹⁴ Seven days after birth his mother dies. She dies because she must bear no other being. The Bodhisatta’s time of conception is so calculated that the mother’s destined life-span completes itself seven days after his birth. From the Commentary¹⁵ account it would appear that the age of the Bodhisatta’s mother at the time of his birth is between fifty and sixty (\*majjhimavayassa pana dve koṭṭhāsā atikkamma tatiye-koṭṭhāse\*). - [Previous: v2.c29.855](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937.v2.c29.855) - [Next: v2.c29.857](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937.v2.c29.857) - [Up: v2.c29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937.v2.c29) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937.v2.c29.856](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.malalasekera-1937.v2.c29.856) · Pramāṇa