Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v2.c31.2707

v2.c31.2707

From the day of her conception she was guarded by the Four Regent Gods; she felt no desire for men, and the child in her womb could be seen from outside. At the end of the tenth month she wished to return to her people in Devadaha, but, on her way thither, she stopped at the sāla-grove in Lumbinī and there her child was born as she stood holding on to the branch of a sāla-tree.⁴ Seven days later Māyā died and was reborn as a male in the Tusita-world, under the name of Māyādevaputta.⁵ The Buddha visited Tāvatimsa immediately after the performance of the Twin-Miracle at the foot of the Gaṇḍamba-tree, on the full-moon day of Āsāḷha, and there, during the three months of the rainy season, the Buddha stayed, preaching the Abhidhamma Piṭaka to his mother (who came there to listen to him), seated on Sakka’s Paṇḍukambalasilāsana, at the foot of the Pāricchattaka-tree. (It is said that, during this time, at certain intervals, the Buddha would return to earth, leaving a seated image of himself in Tāvatimsa to continue the preaching while he attended to his bodily needs, begging alms in Uttarakuru and eating his food on the banks of Anotatta, where Sāriputta waited on him and learnt of what he had been preaching to the devas.⁶)