Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/181

Rh the rocks; and hanging-lotuses descended from the skies. The ten-thousand world-systems revolved, and rushed as close together as a bunch of gathered flowers; and became as it were a woven wreath of worlds, as sweet-smelling and resplendent as a mass of garlands, or as a sacred altar decked with flowers.

From the moment of the incarnation, thus brought about, of the future Buddha, four angels, with swords in their hands, stood guard over the Bodisat and his mother, to shield them from all harm. Pure in thought, having reached the highest aim and the highest honour, the mother was happy and unwearied; and she saw the child within her as plainly as one could see a thread passed through a transparent gem. But as a womb in which a future Buddha has dwelt, like a sacred relic shrine, can never be occupied by another; the mother of the Bodisat, seven days after his birth, died, and was reborn in the City of Delight.

Now other women give birth, some before, some after, the completion of the tenth month, some sitting, and some lying down. Not so the mother of a Bodisat. She gives birth to the Bodisat, standing, after she has cherished him in her womb for exactly ten months. This is a distinctive quality of the mother of a Buddha elect.

And queen Mahā Māyā, when she too had thus cherished the Bodisat in her womb, like oil in a vessel, for ten months, felt herself far gone with child: and wishing to go to her family home she spake to King Suddhodana, and said,

"O king! I wish to go to Devadaha, to the city of my people."

The king, saying, "It is good," consented, and had the road from Kapilavastu to Devadaha made plain, and decked