Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/183

Rh fine muslin of Benares. But though this was so, two showers of water came down from heaven in honour of them and refreshed the Bodisat and his mother.

From the hands of the angels who had received him in the golden net, four kings received him on cloth of antelope skins, soft to the touch, such as are used on occasions of royal state. From their hands men received him on a roll of fine cloth; and on leaving their hands he stood up upon the ground and looked towards the East. Thousands of world- systems became visible to him like a single open space. Men and angels offering him sweet-smelling garlands, said, "O great Being, there is no other like thee, how then a greater?" Searching the ten directions (the four points of the compass, the four intermediate points, the zenith and the nadir), and finding no one like himself, he took seven strides, saying, "This is the best direction." And as he walked the archangel Brahma held over him the white umbrella, and the archangel Suyāma followed him with the fan, and other deities with the other symbols of royalty in their hands. Then stopping at the seventh step, he sent forth his noble voice and shouted the shout of victory, beginning with, "I am the chief of the world."

Now the future Buddha in three births thus uttered his voice immediately on leaving his mother's womb; in his birth as Mahosadha, in his birth as Vessantara, and in this birth. In the Mahosadha birth the archangel Sakka came to him as he was being born, and placing some fine sandal-wood in his hand, went away. He came out from the womb holding this in his fist. His mother asked him, "What is it you hold, dear, as you come?" He answered, "Medicine, mother!" So because he came holding medicine, they gave him the name of Medicine-child (Osadhadāraka). Taking the medicine they kept