Page:Henry Mulford Tichenor - The Buddhist Philosophy of Life.djvu/10

 8 Then the queen said to her sister, Pajapati: "A mother who has given birth to a Buddha will never give birth to another child. I shall soon leave this world, my husband, the king, and Siddhattha, my child. When I am gone, be thou a mother to him."

And Pajapati wept and promised.

When the queen departed from the living, Pajapati took Siddhattha and reared him. And, as the light of the moon increases little by little, so the child grew daily in mind and body; and truth and love lived in his heart.

When Siddhattha had grown to young manhood his father desired that he should marry; he therefore commanded all his kinsfolk, the chiefs, to bring their daughters, the princesses, that the prince might choose a wife. But the chiefs replied:

"The prince is young and delicate; also, he is not given to learning. He would not be able to maintain a princess, and should there be war he would not be able to cope with the enemy."

Siddhattha loved to sit under the great jambu-tree in the garden of the palace, and there meditate upon the ways of the world. He said to his father, "Invite our kinsfolk, that they may put a test to my learning;" and his father did as his son bade him.