Passing

over the account of Kapila-Vasti, the birth-plhce of Buddha, of its king Suddhodana and its queen Maya, his parents, we _ find the following account of his incarnation and birth. “So long as _ I have neither self, nor organs of sense, I cannot unite this erring people to me. So saying Righteousne quitted its subtle nature, and made for itself a visible form. Afterwards, falling from the place ealled Tushita (heaven), lighting up the three worlds as he came, the best of Bodhisattvas entered the side of Maya, preserving full con- _ Sciousne , as the King of Serpents entered the cave Nanda. Wearing the majestic form of an elephant, white as Himalaya hill, with six tusks, its face perfumed by the juice exuding from its temples, he entered the side of the chief queen of Suddhodana, to destroy the sin of the world.” The poem goes on, in equally extravagant language, to detail how the “ protectors of the world” (Devas or gods) worshiped him, in the womb, as sole lord of the world. How Maya shone as the moon, and gave alms as the rain: how, in the Lumbini garden, she held a branch which bowed to her (as in the apocryphal legend of Christ's infancy) weighed down by flowers, at the moment that the Bodhisattva cleft her side, and came forth. How the star Pushya was ) then shining: “As the sun emerges from a cloud, so came he (Buddha) forth” without pain to his mother. The god Indra received him, and two clear streams of water fell on his head. The visit of Asita the Indian Simeon (as he is called) follows. “Having learned by signs, and by virtue of his austerities, of the birth of him who should put an end to birth” the sage comes to the palace, and is honoured by the king with water for his feet, and a guest-offering. After courteous greeting Asita says to the king: “As I journeyed through the sky I heard a heavenly voice saying ‘To thee a son is born for knowledge’... therefore am I come. I desire to see this banner of the Sakya race that has been lifted up, as of old was the banner of Indra.” Being shown the infant on its nurse’s lap Asita “looked at the king’s son, and saw with wonder that his hands had the mark of a wheel, that his fingers and toes were webbed, that between his brows there was a tuft of hair, and that his private parts were hidden from sight ” (marks of a Bodhisattva), He then prophecies that the infant “will leave his royal state, and turn his back on the things of sense; by fierce endeavours he will attain to the truth. He will rescue the weary world from the sea of Sorrow, whose foam is disease, whose wave is old age, whose strong current is death: placing it upon his great raft of knowledge he will bear it to the further shore. A fair river of righteousne shall i ue from this child, with knowledge for its waters, right conduct for its banks, meditation for coolne , and... the thirsty world shall drink thereof” (so he - eontinues in the familiar Buddhist phraseology). 209