21 1 the etti:n"s or eoeo btjdue in java. 



I am for the moment confining myself to the region of history, 

 and shall leave the mythological accretions which gathered round 

 the simple facts in later times to be mentioned afterwards. 



In due time Maya was going to her parents' house to be 

 confined, but on the way, under some trees in the pleasant garden 

 of Lumbini,- her son, the future Buddha, was unexpectedly born. 

 The mother and child were carried back to Stjddhodatsta's palace, 

 and there seven days afterwards Maya died. The child received 

 the name of Seddhaetha. This name became lost afterwards 

 among the many titles of respect that were applied to him, but I 

 follow the example of Dr. Leemans in using it of the child while 

 still he remained in his father's house. 



One story is told of his youth. When he had arrived at an 

 age to be married, his father proposed to him as a bride his cousin 

 Gopa or Yasodhaea, but a complaint was made by the relations 

 that the young man had entirely devoted himself to home pleasures, 

 to the neglect of learning and of the manly exercises which were so 

 necessary for the leader of his people. Piqued at this complaint, 

 Siddiiaetha. is said to have challenged 500 of the young men of 

 the Sakyas to contend with him in intellectual and athletic exercises, 

 and that he easilv proved his superiority in both. 



In his twenty-ninth year a circumstance happened which took 

 such a powerful effect upon a mind which was probably already keen- 

 ly alive to the mysteries of sorrow and death that the current of 

 his life was changed by it. Going out with numerous attendants to 

 take the air in the garden of Lumbini he met a man broken down 

 by age, and was so forcibly impressed with the thought that the 

 pleasure and pride of youth are but a stage on the way to feeble- 

 ness and decay that he returned to the house reflecting deeply 

 upon what he had seen, and unable to prosecute his scheme of 

 pleasure. On three successive days a similar encounter produced 

 similar results. On the first he met a man in extreme sickness - T 

 on the second a corpse ; and on the third a dignified hermit. The 

 vanity of life troubled him so deeply, that a longing to leave his 

 home and its short-lived comforts and to devote himself to medita- 

 tion and self-denial took possession of him. He communicated his 

 resolution to his father, who used every effort to dissuade him 

 from such a step, and surrounded the house with guards to pre- 



