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FROM BIRTH TO PARIVRAJA
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boughs of the trees were heaving up and down and Mahamaya felt like catching one of them.
Luckily one of the boughs heaved down sufficiently low to enable her to catch it. So she rose on her toes and caught the bough. Immediately she was lifted up by its upward movement and being shaken, she felt the pangs of childbirth. While holding the branch of the sal tree she was delivered of a son in a standing position.
The child was born in the year 563 B.C. on the Vaishakha Paurnima day.
Suddhodana and Mahamaya were married for a long time. But they had no issue. Ultimately when a son was born to them his birth was celebrated with great rejoicing, with great pomp and ceremony by Suddhodana and his family and also by the Sakyas.
At the time of the birth of the child it was the turn of Suddhodana to be the ruler of Kapilavatsu and as such was in the enjoyment of the title of Raja. Naturally the boy was called Prince.
§ 4. Visit by Asita
At the moment when the child was born there dwelt on the Himalayas a great sage named Asita.
Asita heard that the gods over the space of the sky were shouting the word “Buddha”and making it resound. He beheld them waving their garments and coursing hither and thither in delight. He thought, what if I were to go and find out the land in which he was born ?
Surveying with his divine eyes the whole of the Jambudvipa, Asita saw that a boy was born in the house of Suddhodana shining with all brilliance and that it was over his birth that the gods were excited.
So the great sage Asita with his nephew Nardatta rose up and came to the abode of Raja Suddhodana and stood at the door of his palace.
Now Asita, the sage, saw that at the door of Suddhodana’s palace many hundred thousand beings
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