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— M — PART I
BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS. 1st PICTURE.
The Gods rapt in the extasy of meditation.
One of these, the Buddha, rises and announces that he is going forth to be incarnated in the womb of a mortal woman so as to reveal to men the Law of the Supreme Good that redeems from suffering.
2nd PICTURE.
Kapilavastu, the city at the feet of the Himalayas, rich in high pinnacled palaces and towers.
3rd PICTURE.
The Palace of Kapilavastu. King Suddhodana is seated on his throne, with Queen Maha Maya at his side. The court. The devoted and happy subjects pour blessings and gifts or their King.
4th PICTURE.
A star-lit night. A terrace of the Palace ; under an awning Queen Maha Maya, chosen by the Buddha as the noblest among women to be his mortal mother, is sleeping. In her dream an enormous white elephant with six tusks appears to her, a symbol of the super-human son whom she is miraculously to conceive.
5th PICTURE.
Ministers, bards and astrologers announce to the King that at last an heir will be born to him. The happy King distributes gifts, pardons and amnesties.
6th PICTURE.
Ten months later. Queen Maya, followed by her maids of honour, repairs to the Lumbini pleasure grounds; she radiates light around her by virtue of the divine being she carries in her womb. Raising her arms and holding on to the branch of a lofty satin tree, she gives birth, without a vestige of pain, to an infant boy, who springs miraculously from her loins, while the God Indra descends from the sky to receive the child in his arms. Ranks of rejoicing gods are seen in the heavens. A rain of flowers falls on the ground, and two cascades, one of cool and the other of warm water, pour down and bathe the head of the divine infant. An enormous white lotus flower springs from the earth, upon which the gods, who reign to the north, the south, the east and the west, lay the child. Other gods support the awning, the symbol of royalty, while yet others fan the child with magnificent plumes. Fountains of water spring from the earth and the trees miracu