M A If A YAX A BUDDHISM AND (Ml h'ISTI AN ITY. 



273 



statement that his birth was supernatural, but no hint is given 

 of Virgin-birth. For example, in the SUtra of Brahma's 

 Net* of which the influence in China and Japan is very great, 

 (though its Sanskrit original is not yet found) there is the 

 following statement :f 



"At that time, Buddha Sakyamuni, after having previously 

 si i own himself in the East of the world en (dosed in the lotus 

 foreground, entered into the palace of the King of Heaven, 

 and having there preached on the ' Sutra of the Maras who 

 permit themselves to be converted,' was born in Southern 

 Jambudvipa (India), in the kingdom of Kapilavastu. His 

 mother was named Maya, his father was surnamed the White 

 and Pure ( Suddhodana ? ), and his own name was that of 

 Sarvathasiddha." 



In the Buddha-carita of Asvaghosha, slokas 11, 16, and 17, 

 Professor CoweH's rendering, Maya is poetically described in 

 these words : 



" Like a mother to her subjects, intent on their welfare, 

 devoted to all worthy of reverence, like Devotion itself, shining 

 on her lord's family like the goddess of prosperity, she was the 

 most eminent of goddesses to the whole world. Verily the life 

 of women is always darkness, yet when it encountered her it 

 shone brilliantly : thus the night does not retain its gloom 

 when it meets with the radiant crescent of the moon." He goes 

 on to relate the well-known legend of Buddha's descent as a white 

 elephant and of his thus entering into Maya's womb: "Then,, 

 fallen from the Tushita-body (abode;, the already mentioned 

 best Bodhisattva, illuminating the three worlds, entered just 

 into her womb, as an elephant-king into a delightsome cave.'* 

 (Sloka 19.)t 



* Translated by De Groot in Le Code du Mahay ana en Chine. 

 t Op. <rit., p. 26. 



% The Sanskrit original runs thus : " Cyuto 'tra kayat Tuskitat trilokim 

 uddyotayannuttamabodhisattvah | vivesa tasyah smrita eva kukshau 

 nandaguhayamiva nagarajah." 



It should be observed that, though Buddhist writers mention thirty- 

 two superior signs of female excellence which must distinguish the 

 mother of every Buddha (cf. Beal's Romantic History, p. 32), yet virginity 

 is nowhere mentioned in such a connexion. Ex ea narratione tamen 

 videtur creditum esse Buddae matrem, qua nocte ille conceptus sit, cum 

 marito rem non habuisse. (This is clear from the Mahdvastu, Senart's 

 edition, p. 5, slokas 15, sqq.) After her dream about the white elephant, 

 in the Romantic History, Maya says to Suddhodana, " Posthac nulla 

 corporis voluptate fruar." Hinc apparet earn antea ab huiuscemodi 

 delectatione prorsus non abstinuisse. 



T 



